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The other night I tweeted something like, "Would love to see Aroldis Chapman face 2001 Barry Bonds." On the Baseball Today podcast, we had a reader ask us about best pitcher-hitter matchups to watch for over the next few years.

With that prompt, I'd thought it would be fun to list 10 of my all-time favorite matchups I would have wanted to see ... although a few of them are recent enough that some of us did see them. With help from Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org, we can even find results of the matchups.

Ty Cobb versus Walter Johnson (.366, 1 HR)
According to researcher Terry Cullen, Cobb hit .366 in his career off Johnson (120-for-328) -- pretty amazing considering Cobb's average against all pitchers was ... .366. While Cobb reportedly said Johnson's fastball "looked about the size of a watermelon seed and it hissed at you as it passed," he certainly didn't have issues hitting it. Cobb knew Johnson was too nice to pitch inside, so he'd crowd the plate. "I saw him wince when he fired one close to somebody's head, and he used to tell me that he was afraid someday that he would kill a man with that fireball," Cobb once said. "So I used to cheat. I'd crowd that plate so far that I was actually sticking my toes on it when I was facing Johnson. I knew he was timid about hitting a batter, and when he saw me crowding the plate he'd steer his pitches a little bit wide. Then with two balls and no strikes, he'd ease up a bit to get it over. That's the Johnson pitch I hit. I was depending on him to be scared of hitting me." Now, that's what Cobb said; seems a little too simple though, doesn't it? Why didn't every hitter do that? There's no doubt the approach helped Cobb, but unlike most hitters, he could hit Johnson's fastball. (By the way, his only home run off Johnson was an inside-the-parker.)

Babe Ruth versus Lefty Grove (incomplete)
Some say Grove was the best pitcher of all time -- 300 wins with a .680 winning percentage, nine ERA titles, seven consecutive strikeout titles. Wouldn't you love to see Ruth taking a big cut against Grove's legendary fastball? I couldn't find Ruth career's numbers against Grove, but he did hit nine home runs off him, tied with Lou Gehrig and Hank Greenberg for the most against Grove. In the data Retrosheet has available, Ruth hit .300/.349/.438 with three home runs in 80 at-bats, six walks and 27 K's.

Ted Williams versus Bob Feller (.347/.467/.677, 9 HR in 124 ABs)
Those numbers are from Retrosheet, but are incomplete. From 1948 to 1956, Williams crushed Feller -- .389/.511/.833, with eight home runs in 72 at-bats. So, at least initially, Feller fared better before Williams started dominating. Williams did call Feller the best pitcher he ever faced.

Willie Mays versus Bob Gibson (.196/.315/.304, 3 HR in 92 ABs)
With his fastball/slider combo, you might expect that Gibson was tough on right-handed batters and you'd be correct: right-handers hit .204 against him, left-handers .257. Basically, he owned Mays, who struck out 30 times in 108 plate appearances and had just four extra-base hits. In James Hirsch's biography of Mays he tells the story of Gibson once visiting Mays' home wearing glasses. Gibson didn't wear them when he pitched. "You wear glasses? Man, you're going to kill somebody one of those days," Mays said. Hirsch writes that later in his career Mays started conveniently scheduling off days against hard-throwers like Gibson and Tom Seaver, and that he always preferred off-speed pitches to fastballs.

Hank Aaron versus Bob Gibson (.215/.278/.423, 8 HR in 163 ABs)
Aaron had a little more success than Mays. So who did hit well against Gibson? Billy Williams hit .259 but with 10 home runs in 174 at-bats and 24 walks against 14 strikeouts. Richie Hebner had a 1.127 OPS against Gibson in 74 PAs, batting .387. Darrell Evans, facing mostly the late-career Gibson, never struck out against him in 35 PAs, drawing 11 walks and and hitting three home runs.

Willie Mays versus Sandy Koufax (.278/.426/.536, 5 HR in 97 ABs)
Of course, Mays faced the young Koufax, and then the unhittable Koufax. During Koufax's 1962-1966 run, when he led the National League each season in ERA, Mays still hit a respectable .242/.373/.484, with more walks than strikeouts.

Hank Aaron versus Sandy Koufax (.362/.431/.647, 7 HR in 116 ABs)
Of 73 players with at least 40 career plate appearances against Koufax, only five hit .300. Most of that damage was against pre-'62 Koufax, as Aaron hit .259 from '62 to '66.

Mike Schmidt versus Nolan Ryan (.179/.405/.482, 5 HR in 56 ABs)
Ryan came over to the Astros in 1980, the year Schmidt won the first of his three MVP trophies. In the ultimate battle of power hitter versus power pitcher, the results were perhaps what you would expect: Schmidt hit for a low average, but got on base and popped home runs at a pretty good ratio.

Barry Bonds versus Greg Maddux (.265/.376/.508, 9 HR in 132 ABs)
The two came up in 1986, so it's not surprising that Maddux faced Bonds more than any hitter in his career. How good was Bonds? Even the pitcher with pinpoint control walked him 24 times in 157 PAs with just 16 strikeouts. Bonds' nine home runs off Maddux are the most he hit off one pitcher, tied with John Smoltz. Bonds had an .883 OPS against Maddux, but 1.138 against Smoltz and .992 against Tom Glavine. Who did own Bonds? He went 3-for-33 off Chuck McElroy, with just one walk (although two home runs).

Barry Bonds versus Randy Johnson (.306/.452/.551, 3 HR in 49 ABs)
Johnson had 37 intentional walks in his career; 34 were to right-handed batters. Two were to Barry Bonds. The other? Jeremy Hermida. Go figure. The first walk to Bonds came in 2003, runner on second, no outs, sixth inning, Diamondbacks down 2-0. The second one came in 2004 and is more interesting: 2004, game tied in the fifth, runners on first and second. Edgardo Alfonzo hit a fly ball to deep left-center that Luis Gonzalez dropped; Steve Finley was then credited with an error on the throw in as all three runners scored. The walk to Hermida came in 2008, in a game Hermida was batting eighth. Maybe that's when Johnson knew he was nearing the end.

What are some of your favorite matchups?

Follow David Schoenfield on Twitter @dschoenfield.

This is what will have American League pitchers and managers waking up in cold sweats all season long: Those stretches when Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder are both raking, eyes bulging as they pummel meaty fastballs over fences and into outfield seats.

Josh Beckett become the first pitcher to experience these forces of nature in action, as both hit two home runs off him in Detroit's 10-0 victory Saturday over Boston. Fielder hit one out to left field and a low, screaming bullet to right for his pair. Going the opposite way is nothing new for him; 11 of his 38 home runs in 2011 went to left or left-center. There were some concerns that Fielder would lose a few home runs moving from Miller Park to the more spacious environs of Comerica, so hitting one out to left is a good, early sign.

How dynamic is this pair? A season ago, Fielder hit .299/.415/.566 with 38 home runs; Cabrera hit .344/.448/.586 with 30 home runs. The last team with two players to hit 30 home runs with a .400 OBP? The 2006 Red Sox with Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz. Twelve teams since 2000 have had such a duo (or in the case of the 2004 Cardinals, three players):

2006 Red Sox: Ramirez, Ortiz
2005 Yankees: Alex Rodriguez, Jason Giambi
2004 Cardinals: Albert Pujols, Jim Edmonds, Scott Rolen
2003 Yankees: Giambi, Jorge Posada
2002 Astros: Jeff Bagwell, Lance Berkman
2001 Rockies: Todd Helton, Larry Walker
2001 Cardinals: Pujols, Edmonds
2000 Cardinals: Edmonds, Mark McGwire
2000 Angels: Tim Salmon, Troy Glaus
2000 Astros: Bagwell, Moises Alou
2000 Mariners: Rodriguez, Edgar Martinez
2000 Giants: Barry Bonds, Jeff Kent

Of course, all of those pairs or threesomes did this during the high-offense steroids period. Six other teammates did it between 1995 and 1999. But before that? That previous team to have two such players was the 1969 Oakland A's with Reggie Jackson and Sal Bando. Throughout baseball history there have been only 34 such pairs. Here's another way to do this. Let's add OPS+ (adjusted on-base plus slugging percentage) as a third measuring stick. OPS+ adjusts a player's offensive production for home park and era. In 2011, Cabrera's OPS+ was 181, second in the American League. Fielder's was 164, fourth in the National League. Let's set a minimum of 30 home runs, .400 OBP and 150 OPS+.

This takes away some of steroids-era pairs and leaves us with 24 such teammates in baseball history. And six of those 24 were Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

And that, my readers, is the kind of company Cabrera and Fielder have the chance to join.

A few more notes from today's early games:

• Beckett served up five home runs, sending waves of sweats and swears throughout Red Sox Nation. He became just the fourth pitcher to allow five homers twice in his career, joining Tim Wakefield, Pat Hentgen and Jeff Weaver. Gordon Edes had a good piece on Beckett before his season debut, detailing his motivation for 2012. Beckett is a bit of an enigma, a guy usually viewed as an ace due to his postseason heroics with the Red Sox in 2007 and Marlins in 2003. But the facts also don't lie: He's finished in the top 10 in his league in ERA only twice, including last season with a 2.89 mark. Beckett has been homer-prone at various stages of his career, most notably in his first season with Boston, in 2006, when he gave up 36. It's only one start, of course, but considering the spring training thumb injury he insisted wasn't an injury, it puts Beckett on the early "keep an eye on him" watch list.
• Angels manager Mike Scioscia picked Game No. 2 to get disgruntled Bobby Abreu in the lineup, putting Abreu in left and moving Vernon Wells to center, sitting defensive whiz Peter Bourjos in the process. "I'm not calling this a day off for Peter, it's the second game, but it's a combination of that and trying to get some left-handed bats in the lineup," Scioscia told Mark Saxon of ESPN Los Angeles. I can't imagine a more defensively challenged outfield pair than those two. Unable to see this game since I had the Red Sox-Tigers game as my local Fox broadcast, I tweeted Angels and Royals fans to ask how many of the 11 hits Dan Haren allowed fell just out of their reach. The consensus seemed to be two or three, although @dblesky wrote, "There were really only a couple. And one was glaring." It will be interesting to see how often Scioscia runs out this lineup, essentially to placate Abreu. I just don't see the Angels being a better team with that alignment and Bourjos on the bench.
• Zack Greinke had a dominant effort in the Brewers' 6-0 shutout over the Cardinals, allowing three hits in seven innings with no walks and seven strikeouts. I wrote this before the game, but here's why Greinke is a good Cy Young pick. Especially impressive were Greinke's economical 91 pitches.
• Tweet of the day after Daniel Hudson and the Diamondbacks beat the Giants for the second consecutive game:
  

  Good way to start the season. Two mistakes and I paid for it. But a win is a win. #sweepthegiants tomorrow! #GoDbacks
  
  — Daniel Hudson (@DHuddy41) April 7, 2012

A quick final note related to our Greatest Season Ever bracket.

Babe Ruth struck out 81 times in 693 plate appearances in 1921, an 11.7 percent strikeout rate. That's pretty impressive in 2011 terms -- akin to Dustin Pedroia, who fanned in 11.6 percent of his plate appearances.

However, compared to the typical 1921 hitter, Ruth's strikeout rate was pretty astronomical. The average American League hitter in 1921 (including pitchers) fanned in 7.4 percent of his plate appearances. We don't have exact totals for position players, but if we remove No. 9 hitters from the totals, position players struck out in 6.3 percent of their plate appearances. Which means Ruth fanned 85.7 percent more often than the average 1921 hitter.

In 2011, the average AL hitter struck out in 17.9 percent of his plate appearances. So if Ruth fanned 85.7 percent more often than average, that translates to a 2011 strikeout rate of 33.3 percent. That's not Mark Reynolds territory -- that's beyond Reynolds territory (he fanned in 31.6 percent of his PAs in 2011). Over the 693 PAs Ruth had in 1921, that equates to 231 strikeouts.

OK, OK, I know ... no, I'm not really comparing Babe Ruth to Mark Reynolds. But there is an important lesson to learn here: Ruth's approach worked in 1921 precisely because he could still generate mammoth power totals, but not do it at the expense of the ridiculous strikeout totals we see now. Reynolds hit 37 home runs in 2011, but it came at the expense of a .221 average and 196 strikeouts.

For his time, Ruth did strike out a lot, comparable to Reynolds in our own time. If we did the whole time machine thing, Ruth would certainly adjust to the more skilled pitching of 2011, but at what end? Would his power totals drop? How much would his batting average decline if his strikeouts increased? Just some food for thought as we consider how the game has changed in the past 90 years.

It's not surprising that Babe Ruth and Ted Williams reached the finals of our Greatest Season Ever bracket. In Ruth, you have the most iconic player of all time; in Williams, you have the owner of perhaps the most iconic season of all time.

Maybe it's a little surprising that a season that occurred 91 years ago and another that occurred 71 years ago made our final round -- as I wrote the other day, try to imagine such a result in any other sport. But it speaks to the legacy that baseball holds over us, the importance of its history as our national pastime, the weight and consideration we still give to statistics and magical numbers and, yes, the iconic status of two hitters whose great seasons came before the game was integrated.

On a pure statistical level, Ruth and Williams are the two greatest hitters of all time. In offense-only career wins above replacement, Ruth ranks No. 1 and Williams ranks No. 6 (despite missing nearly five full seasons to military service). In career OPS, Ruth and Williams rank first and second. In adjusted OPS, they still rank one and two. In career runs created, Ruth ranks second (behind Barry Bonds) and Williams ranks sixth despite the missed time. In adjusted batting wins, Ruth is first and Williams essentially tied for third with Ty Cobb (Bonds is second). In a statistic called offensive winning percentage, which calculates how an entire lineup of Ruth or Williams would fare with an average pitching staff and average defense, Ruth rates first and Williams second. The figures: .858 and .857. (All rankings from Baseball-Reference.com.)

Now, I have no doubt that if you put Albert Pujols into a time machine that took him back to 1921, he'd put up numbers comparable to Ruth's. I'm sure if you brought Ruth back in the time machine to 2011 that he'd be able to match Pujols' numbers. But he was the evolutionary figure, the guy who swung hard every time, who was willing to sacrifice strikeouts if it led to more home runs. He brought power to the game, leaving John McGraw's "inside baseball" in the dust. Look, was it easier in Ruth's time? Of course it was. The pitchers didn't throw as hard; this is fact, not speculation, best indicated by the nugget that Ruth used a 52-ounce bat early in his career. His bats did get lighter (he was one of the first batters to start using a thinner handle to better whip his stick through the strike zone), but you wouldn't be able to consistently get around on 95 mph fastballs with a 52-ounce or 48-ounce or 44-ounce bat.

An interesting comparison between Ruth and Williams is they both grew up in troubled circumstances. Ruth's father owned a saloon, and young George Herman Ruth was always in trouble. Nobody knows the exact reasons Ruth was initially sent away to St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys. (His sister claimed it was because Ruth simply refused to go to school.) He first went there when he was 8, more permanently when he turned 10. Reports vary on whether his mother (until she died) and father visited him at the school. Williams' father abandoned the family, and Bill James quotes Williams as once saying, "Well, I wouldn't have wanted to be married to a woman like that, either."

As James writes, "By the time he was 20, Williams was insecure, moody and filled with hate. ... He had a lot more in common with Ty Cobb than Babe Ruth." That passion fueled Williams as a hitter. But he was not a fan favorite the first part of his career, even in Boston. There were times he didn't hustle, there were times he made obscene gestures to fans and he famously feuded with reporters. Ruth, of course, was beloved, a hulking, gregarious figure who lived a big life and hit big home runs. It's been 76 years since he played his last game, and he still looms large over the sport as the widely regarded greatest player of all time.

Ruth, in 1921, hit .378 with 59 home runs, 171 RBIs and 177 runs scored. He drew 145 walks, struck out 81 times, had a .512 on-base percentage and slugged .846. Williams hit .406 in 1941, refusing to sit on the final day of the season with a .400 average and went 6-for-8 in a doubleheader. He drew 147 walks and struck out just 37 times, leading the league with 37 home runs and 135 runs scored. His .553 on-base percentage is the third-highest single-season total of all time, behind two of Bonds' seasons. Of course, Williams is the last guy to hit .400. Amazingly, he didn't win the MVP Award that season, losing out to Joe DiMaggio, although Williams actually outhit DiMaggio during the latter's 56-game hitting streak.

Ruth or Williams? Who gets your vote?

Follow David Schoenfield on Twitter @dschoenfield.

The voters have spoken: They like outfielders who put up monster numbers in the pre-expansion era.

It's not too surprising, of course, that Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams and Stan Musial are our semifinalists in the Greatest Season Ever bracket. Ruth, Williams and Mantle were three of the top four seeds. But as I wrote Wednesday, it was arguably easier to put up big numbers in the old days.

Let's take a closer look at the two semifinal matchups (vote here!).

Babe Ruth 1921 versus Mickey Mantle 1956

• Ruth came over to the Yankees in 1920 and exploded with 54 home runs, a mind-numbing total at the time that shattered his record of 29 set the previous season. As often noted, Ruth hit more home runs in 1920 than every American League team. In 1921, he upped his mark to 59, still better than five AL teams.
• Ruth set the all-time record with 119 extra-base hits, added 44 doubles and 16 triples. Remember, this wasn't the fat, big-bellied Ruth we remember. In 1921, he was still a slim, powerful athlete, as opposed to just a powerful slugger. It should be noted, however, that hitting 16 triples wasn't a rare feat back then: Ruth ranked fourth in the AL that year. Outfielders played much more shallow so it was easier to leg out three-baggers.
• Ruth scored 177 runs, tied for second all-time (Billy Hamilton scored 198 in 1894, a crazy ridiculous season that would require a post of its own). The Yankees did score a lot of runs that year -- 948 -- but Bob Meusel was the only other hitter in the lineup in the top 10 in the AL in OPS.
• Ruth did tower over the rest of the league -- the No. 2 AL guy in OPS was Harry Heilmann at 1.051, well behind Ruth's 1.359. The No. 2 guys in WAR were Tris Speaker and Ty Cobb at 6.6, well behind Ruth's 14.0. To some extent, Ruth's dominance has perhaps been exaggerated a bit. Yes, he was the first guy to put up these kinds of numbers. But in 1922, Rogers Hornsby hit .401 with 42 home runs. The same year Ken Williams of the St. Louis Browns hit 39 home runs and drove in 155 runs. In 1923, Cy Williams tied Ruth for the major league lead with 41 home runs. Soon thereafter, sluggers like Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx were putting up comparable numbers.
• Ruth played mostly left field in 1921, and Baseball-Reference.com estimates his defense as about average. (For his career, they do rate him a little above average overall.)
• Ruth led the Yankees to their first pennant, but it ended in a disappointing World Series loss to the Giants in eight games (it was a best-of-nine that year). Ruth .313/.476/.500 with one home run and four RBIs, but was limited to six games as he battled an infected arm and a knee injury suffered in Game 5. He didn't play in Game 6 or 7 (both Yankees losses) and pinch-hit in the ninth inning of Game 8 with the Yankees down 1-0, but grounded out.
• Mickey Mantle was 24 years in 1956, already a four-time All-Star and the reigning AL home run champion. But he took his game to a new level in 1956, hitting .353/.464/.705 with 52 home runs and 130 RBIs to win the Triple Crown. He led the AL with 132 runs and 376 total bases and was the unanimous MVP as the Yankees won the pennant by nine games.
• Like Ruth, Mantle dominated his contemporaries. His 52 home runs were 20 more than Vic Wertz, the No. 2 guy, and Yogi Berra was the only other American Leaguer to reach 30. His 132 runs were 23 more than any other player and he was one of only two players (Al Kaline was the other) with 300 total bases.
• Unlike with Ruth, we know Mantle's splits, and he was incredible with runners on base, hitting .444 with runners in scoring position and .392 with men on base. In so-called "late and close" situations he hit .373/.481/.791, with eight home runs in 67 at-bats.
• He hit .325 with 10 home runs against second-place Cleveland.
• Mantle was never in the class of Willie Mays on defense, but in 1956 he was still young and fast, his knees not yet completely ravaged. He rates as a slightly above-average center fielder and an excellent baserunner.
• He capped the season with a World Series victory, hitting three home runs, including one in Don Larsen's 2-0 perfect game victory in Game 5.

Stan Musial 1948 versus Ted Williams 1941

• Stan the Man did everything in 1948, leading the National League in average, OBP, slugging, runs, hits, RBIs, doubles, triples and total bases. He just missed the Triple Crown, hitting 39 home runs, one behind Ralph Kiner and Johnny Mize. His 1.159 OPS was nearly 200 points better than Mize's .959.
• His 11.5 WAR was well ahead of Mize, the No. 2 guy at 6.9.
• Musial scored 135 runs and drove in 131 despite having little help in the St. Louis lineup outside of Enos Slaughter -- the Cardinals scored 742 runs. Backup Ron Northey was second on the team with 13 home runs.
• Musial hit .415 on the road with 23 of his 39 home runs.
• He also stepped up against the Cardinals' main rivals. The Cardinals finished in second place behind Boston, but Musial hit .443 against the Braves and .391 with eight home runs against third-place Brooklyn.
• Musial split his time among all three outfield positions, starting 61 games in center, 51 in right and 41 in left. He rates as a slightly above-average defender. Somehow, he wasn't the unanimous MVP, collecting 18 of 24 first-place votes.
• Ted Williams was just 22 years old and in his third season in 1941. He'd hit .327 as a rookie and .344 in 1940. Nobody expected this kind of season, especially after he broke a bone in his right ankle in spring training, which limited him to pinch-hitting the first two weeks of the season.
• Once he got going, Williams hit .436 in May, .372 in June, .429 in July, .402 in August and .397 in September.
• Despite leading the AL in average, OBP, slugging and home runs and runs scored, Williams lost the MVP vote to Joe DiMaggio of the pennant-winning Yankees, 291 points to 254 points.
• During DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak, he hit .408/.463/.717 with 15 home runs and 55 RBIs. Over the same calendar stretch, Williams hit .412/.540/.684 with 50 RBIs.
• Against the Yankees, Williams hit .471 although with just two home runs.
• Williams slugged .735, a figure no AL hitter has matched since.
• His 1.288 OPS is a figure topped only by Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds.
• Hit .553 OBP is third-highest in MLB history, behind two Bonds seasons.

Here are the debut seasons of the 15 greatest position players in baseball history, according to Baseball-Reference.com's WAR (wins above replacement-level) statistic, listed in chronological order:

1897 (Honus Wagner)
1905 (Ty Cobb)
1906 (Eddie Collins)
1907 (Tris Speaker)
1914 (Babe Ruth)
1915 (Rogers Hornsby)
1923 (Lou Gehrig)
1926 (Mel Ott)
1939 (Ted Williams)
1941 (Stan Musial)
1951 (Willie Mays)
1951 (Mickey Mantle)
1954 (Hank Aaron)
1979 (Rickey Henderson)
1986 (Barry Bonds)

You see the issue here, right? Only two of the greatest 15 players debuted in the past 55 years. Yes, I cheated a little. If I'd listed the top 20 players, Alex Rodriguez slides on to the list; if I listed the top 30, Albert Pujols joins the list. Chipper Jones is the only other active player in the top 50. But the point is: WAR suggests the greatest of the greatest played 50 years ago or 75 years ago or more than 100 years ago.

As the paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote in his essay "The Extinction of the .400 Hitter," there are common explanations for this: "The first, naive and moral, simply acknowledges with a sigh that there were giants in the earth in those days. Something in us needs to castigate the present in the light of an unrealistically rosy past." Gould also cites the simple explanation that pitching and fielding have improved.

There is another layer to the argument, something that sabermetricians from Bill James to Richard Cramer have argued, that the skill of the average player has increased through time, thus making it more difficult to exceed the norm like Ty Cobb or Babe Ruth or Rogers Hornsby did. Gould writes that "The disappearance of the .400 hitter is largely the result of a more general phenomenon -- a decrease in the variation of batting average as the game standardized its methods of play -- and not an intrinsically driven trend warranting a special explanation in itself."

Gould was writing about hitting .400, but the same idea can be carried over to WAR. Essentially, the reason the list of greatest players ever is backlogged with players from the early 20th century is the game hadn't fully developed yet. We saw more extreme results, as it was easier for the best players to excel in a sport that wasn't fully mature.

Here's an example. Hornsby's 1922 season, when he hit .401 with 42 home runs, was included in our Greatest Season Ever bracket. Hornsby was the best hitter in the National League that season. His WAR is calculated, in part, by comparing him to the other second basemen in the NL from that season. Besides Hornsby, there were nine other second basemen who accumulated at least 300 plate appearances:

Hornsby, Cardinals: 1.181 OPS (704 PAs)
Cotton Tierney, Pirates: .893 OPS (487 PAs)
Lew Fonseca, Reds: .882 OPS (318 PAs)
Frankie Frisch, Giants: .824 OPS (582 PAs)
Frank Parkinson, Phillies: .757 OPS (618 PAs)
Johnny Rawlings, Giants: .729 OPS (346 PAs)
Sam Bohne, Reds, .705 OPS (435 PAs)
Zeb Terry, Cubs, .677 OPS (571 PAs)
Ivy Olson, Dodgers, .653 OPS (595 PAs)
Larry Kopf, Braves, .630 OPS (530 PAs)

The overall National League OPS in 1922 was .753.

Now, compare that to National League second basemen in 2011. Running a similar query, we get a list of 17 players, ranging from Rickie Weeks (.818 OPS) to Jonathan Herrera (.612 OPS). And Herrera was an extreme case; the next-lowest OPS belonged to Aaron Miles at .660. The overall NL OPS in 2011 was .710, so only Herrera was more than 50 points below the league-average OPS figure. In 1922 there were three second basemen (nearly half the league; remember, there were only eight teams in the league back then) at least 75 points below the league-average OPS. I'm not going to suggest I completely understand how WAR is calculated, but I believe this suggests the replacement-level floor in 2011 was much higher than it was in 1922. Weeks isn't Hornsby, but even if he was, it would be more difficult for him to obtain the same level of WAR since the level of play is stronger in 2011.

That doesn't mean Hornsby wasn't a great player or didn't have a terrific season; I'm suggesting it was easier for him to excel against a weaker caliber of competition. It's like it would be if somebody invented a new version of chess or something: Initially, there would be a few people who excelled at the game, but over time others would catch on, adapt and learn the skills necessary to compete.

That's what happens in baseball. I would hope that most of you believe the quality of the game improves over time. Trust me: Babe Ruth didn't face many 6-foot-4 pitchers who threw 95 mph. (In fact, from 1920 through 1935, Baseball-Reference lists 35 pitchers at least 6-4, only 16 of whom pitched at least 100 innings in their careers. In 2011 alone, Baseball-Reference lists 218 pitchers at 6-4 or taller, 58 of whom threw at least 100 innings.)

At some point this becomes a philosophical argument, I suppose, because in the end you can only mathematically compare a player to his contemporaries. But while I believe there were giants back in 1922, I also believe there are giants in 2012.

* * * *

OK, the quarterfinals. Ken Griffey Jr. upset Barry Bonds in the second round, proving (not surprisingly) that there is no love for Bonds' 2001 season. I do wonder how he would have fared if I had chosen his magnificent 1993 season. The matchups:

• 1921 Babe Ruth versus 1967 Carl Yastrzemski: Our first of two Yankees-Red Sox battles. Can Yaz stop the Babe? I suspect not.
• 1911 Ty Cobb versus 1956 Mickey Mantle: Should be a close one. Mantle won the Triple Crown, but Cobb hit .420, stole 83 bases and scored 147 runs.
• 1997 Ken Griffey Jr. versus 1948 Stan Musial: I suspect many of you may know this, but Griffey and Musial were both born in Donora, Pa.
• 1927 Lou Gehrig versus 1941 Ted Williams: Williams hit .406, but Gehrig hit .373 with 47 home runs and 175 RBIs. Gehrig in an upset?

Follow David Schoenfield on Twitter @dschoenfield.

We've moved on to the second round of the Greatest MLB Season Ever bracket. All top-10 seeds advanced, but there were three upsets; interestingly, all involved shortstops. Alex Rodriguez lost to Ken Griffey Jr. in a Mariners death duel (got destroyed, actually, 87 percent to 13 percent); Hank Aaron defeated Robin Yount, 61 to 39 percent; and Jimmie Foxx creamed Cal Ripken, 71 to 29 percent. Maybe I'll have to write up a post on the value of positional scarcity.

I'm not surprised about Rodriguez; even though I chose one of his "pre-steroid" seasons, he's not exactly a fan favorite. Griffey has no PED stain on his reputation, a huge advantage in a popular vote like this. I was surprised Ripken lost so easily to Foxx, despite Foxx's awesome power numbers in 1932 (58 home runs, 169 RBIs). Ripken remains one of the most beloved players ever, and while his raw numbers in 1991 might not immediately impress (.323, 34 home runs, 114 RBIs), those were tremendous numbers for that season and especially tremendous for a shortstop in the pre-Rodriguez/Jeter/Garciaparra era.

But here's what stands out to me: Baseball fans still show great respect for the old guys. Foxx beat Ripken. Aaron over Yount. Stan Musial over George Brett. Joe DiMaggio edged out Albert Pujols in the closest first-round vote, 52 to 48 percent. Ty Cobb easily outvoted Rickey Henderson. In fact, in every matchup in which there was a sizable generation gap, the older guy won. Now, some of these weren't necessarily surprises -- it's not surprising that Mickey Mantle would beat Mike Piazza, for example -- but could you imagine this happening in other sports? No football fan thinks Bronko Nagurski was better than Walter Payton or Emmitt Smith. Sammy Baugh wouldn't outpoll Peyton Manning. George Mikan wouldn't beat out Shaquille O'Neal. Bob Cousy doesn't beat out Magic Johnson or even a more modern guy such as Dwyane Wade.

But in baseball, we cling to the past. Yes, the sport has been around longer, so the framework of the game hasn't changed dramatically like it has in football or basketball. I always wonder why people will argue that football and basketball athletes have improved, but not baseball players. Of course, baseball players in 2012 are bigger, stronger and more athletic than the players Babe Ruth faced in 1921. Pitchers throw harder. Outfielders cover more ground. Infielders have stronger arms. That's the way sports evolve.

* * * *

OK, a quick look at Round 2 in which the matchups get a lot tougher to decide:

• Babe Ruth 1921 versus Joe DiMaggio 1941: The Babe remains the overwhelming favorite to win the tournament, but Yankees fans will be torn here. DiMaggio had the historic 56-game hitting streak and should get a boost from playing a brilliant center field.
• Carl Yastrzemski 1967 versus Honus Wagner 1908: Two guys who utterly dominated their leagues. Fans respect the old guys, but Wagner's stats were compiled in the dead ball era and might not impress the voting public.
• Ty Cobb 1911 versus Joe Morgan: I've made my case for Morgan. Not that Cobb was a slouch. Note that while Cobb hit .420 to Morgan's .327. Their OBPs were essentially identical (.467 to .466). And while 1911 was the dead ball era, consider this: The OPS in the 1911 AL was .696; the OPS in the 1975 NL was .696.
• Rogers Hornsby 1922 versus Mickey Mantle 1956: The Mick won the Triple Crown, but Hornsby hit .401 with 42 home runs and 152 RBIs. I expect a close vote.
• Barry Bonds 2001 versus Ken Griffey Jr. 1997: The most intriguing matchup of the second round. Bonds beat out Johnny Bench 65 to 35 percent, and while it was a decisive victory it's also clear that many voters held PED usage against Bonds. With a tougher second-round matchup, it will be interesting to see how he fares.
• Stan Musial 1948 versus Willie Mays 1962: What makes this even more interesting is that Musial played a lot of center field in 1948. Not saying he played it as well as Mays, but it makes his season more impressive than at first glance.
• Hank Aaron 1957 versus Lou Gehrig 1927: Two MVP winners, two beloved players. Both World Series champions as well. I'll say Gehrig pulls it out.
• Jimmie Foxx 1932 versus Ted Williams 1941: No matter the era, 58 home runs and 169 RBIs are impressive. But so is .406. I'll predict Teddy Ballgame rolls on.

In 1975, Joe Morgan hit .327 with 17 home runs and 94 RBIs. Those traditional statistics may not seem impressive, but Morgan’s season ranks as one of the best in the game’s history.

As we begin voting Monday on the greatest individual season of all time, consider Morgan's value that season:

• He drew 132 walks, giving him a league-leading .466 on-base percentage (the highest figure, by the way, in either league between Mickey Mantle in 1962 and Wade Boggs in 1988).
• Because of his ability to get on base, he created a lot of runs --about 145, 17 more than the No. 2 hitter in the league, Greg Luzinski. But he created his runs in an efficient manner. He used up 354 outs; Luzinski, by comparison, used up 443 outs. So Morgan created more runs while using up 89 fewer outs.
• He stole 67 bases in 77 attempts. Factor in his speed, and he was one of the best baserunners in the league.
• He was an outstanding defensive second baseman, not only winning a Gold Glove but also ranking as the third-best overall defensive player in the National League in 1975, according to Baseball-Reference.com.
• He did all this in an era when second basemen usually produced little at the plate. In 1975, National League second basemen hit a collective .267/.330/.353 (BA/OBP/SLG) -- with just 80 home runs. Morgan hit nearly one quarter of all home runs by National League second basemen. In 2011 terms, that would be akin to a second baseman hitting close to 50 home runs.
• The Reds won 108 games, Morgan was the near-unanimous MVP winner, and he even drove in the winning run in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the World Series.

Add it up, and you end up with a player who was the best hitter in the league and one of the best defenders and baserunners in his league, and he did so while towering over other players at his position and playing on a championship team.

The wins above replacement statistic attempts to capture all this. In 1975, Morgan’s Baseball-Reference WAR was 12.0, the best of his career and easily the best in the National League. During his 1972 to 1976 peak, Morgan rated as the best player in the NL four times, at least acording to Baseball-Reference.



In 1975, Morgan was a full five wins better than Mike Schmidt, an astonishing total. Only 12 times since 1901 has a player recorded a bWAR of at least 4.5 wins higher than the No. 2 position player in his league:

1921 AL: Babe Ruth (14.0) over Ty Cobb/Tris Speaker (6.6)
1924 AL: Babe Ruth (11.9) over Harry Heilmann (6.2)
1956 AL: Mickey Mantle (12.9) over Yogi Berra (7.3)
2002 NL: Barry Bonds (12.2) over Jim Edmonds (7.2)
1975 NL: Joe Morgan (12.0) over Mike Schmidt (7.0)
1924 NL: Rogers Hornsby (13.0) over Frankie Frisch (8.0)
1967 AL: Carl Yastrzemski (12.2) over Al Kaline (7.3)
1946 AL: Ted Williams (11.8) over Johnny Pesky (6.9)
1923 AL: Babe Ruth (14.7) over Harry Heilmann (9.8)
1926 AL: Babe Ruth (12.0) over Goose Goslin (7.2)
1922 NL: Rogers Hornsby (10.7) over Dave Bancroft (5.9)
1948 NL: Stan Musial (11.5) over Johnny Mize (6.9)

For what it’s worth, only three of those 12 seasons ended in a World Series title -- Morgan, Mantle and Ruth in 1923.

So maybe Joe Morgan didn’t hit 73 home runs or drive in 191 runs or bat .400. But his 1975 season ranks as sleeper candidate for greatest individual season of all time.

* * * *

It wasn’t easy picking the 32 best seasons. I had two rules: Only one season per player, so we’d end up with a bracket of 32 different players; and I considered only seasons since 1901 (sorry, Ross Barnes fans).

It was important to get a diverse list of eras as well as positions. I did put a little more emphasis on more recent decades; basically, the quality of the game has improved over time, thus making it more difficult to post seasons with huge WAR totals like Ruth put up. Here is the breakdown by decade:

1900s -- 1
1910s -- 3
1920s -- 3
1930s -- 2
1940s -- 4
1950s -- 3
1960s -- 2
1970s -- 3
1980s -- 3
1990s -- 4
2000s -- 4

And by position:

C -- 2; Johnny Bench, Mike Piazza.
1B -- 3; Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Rod Carew.
2B -- 4; Eddie Collins, Rogers Hornsby, Jackie Robinson, Joe Morgan.
3B -- 2; George Brett, Mike Schmidt.
SS -- 5; Honus Wagner, Ernie Banks, Robin Yount, Cal Ripken, Alex Rodriguez.
LF -- 6; Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Rickey Henderson, Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols. (Ruth played left field in 1921, and Pujols primarily played left in 2003.)
CF – 8; Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Hack Wilson, Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Ken Griffey Jr. (Musial started at all three outfield positions in 1948 but played the most in center.)
RF -- 2; Hank Aaron, Sammy Sosa.

So there are our 32 players. I didn’t necessarily pick each player’s highest WAR season. In some cases, a player’s iconic season -- like Ted Williams’ .406 year or Hank Aaron’s 1957 MVP campaign -- was selected. In some instances, maybe a player had other things in his favor that would help him to potentially fare better in the voting, like a big RBI total. Certainly, WAR is a good baseline to use because it helps us adjust for differences in eras, but it shouldn’t be the only factor in determining the better season between two players. Was what Williams accomplished in 1941 more impressive than what Morgan accomplished in 1975? Is Yount being the best hitter in his league while playing shortstop more impressive than what Babe Ruth did in 1921 against an inferior brand of pitching? Maybe you prefer the all-around brilliance of Mays or DiMaggio over the pure hitting dominance of Rogers Hornsby or Lou Gehrig.

Which seasons just missed the cut? There were seven players who had a bWAR season of at least 10.0 who didn’t make the bracket -- Lou Boudreau, Jason Giambi, Ron Santo, Adrian Beltre, Home Run Baker, Norm Cash and Matt Kemp. Sorry, guys. (Just noticed there are three third basemen there; too late now to change the final 32, unfortunately.)

So get to the bracket and start voting. We’ll do one round per day this week, culminating in the final matchup on Friday.

Let the debates begin.

Follow David Schoenfield on Twitter @dschoenfield.

There are a lot of misunderstandings about the Hall of Fame and its voting procedures and results, beginning with the little fact that baseball was not, of course, actually invented in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1839 by a future Civil War general named Abner Doubleday.

For example, many voters and fans divide themselves into "big Hall" and "small Hall" camps. This seems like a reasonable split of opinion. There, is however, a problem with those who advocate for the small Hall premise: the Hall of Fame is not -- and has never been -- a small Hall of Fame, a shrine memorializing only the elite of the elites.

The first Hall of Fame vote was conducted in 1936, when Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson became the initial five inductees. The next year, a special Centennial Committee elected some 19th-century pioneers and executives. An Old Timers Committee in 1939 elected Cap Anson, Old Hoss Radbourn and others. Throughout the 1940s, the Old Timers Committee elected many more players from the 19th century and early 20th century, some obviously strong candidates and others of far less quality. Meanwhile, the Baseball Writers Association essentially stopped electing anybody; between 1940 and 1946, it voted in only Rogers Hornsby.

This eventually led to the two means of current entry into the Hall of Fame: the annual Baseball Writers vote, in which a player must obtain 75 percent of the ballots cast; and the Veterans Committee, which considers players bypassed after 15 years on the regular ballot, plus managers, umpires, Negro Leaguers, executives and owners. At the actual Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, there is no distinction made between means of enshrinement, no mention of vote percentage or years spent on the ballot. All Hall of Famers are equal, with a small plaque in the main gallery of the museum, ordered by year of election.

And thus the reality is that we have a large Hall of Fame, one encouraged by the board of trustees with its various incarnations of the Veterans Committee through the years. In so many words, it’s saying to the writers, "You’re not electing enough Hall of Famers; you’re too tough and we believe in a big Hall, so we want another means to elect players you missed." When the Veterans Committee failed to elect any candidates from 2002 to 2007, the Hall revised the committee in attempts to get more inductees.

Despite this, the small Hall versus large Hall debate persists. The writers -- and there were 581 who voted last year -- collectively hold a small Hall mindset, not surprising considering the 75 percent threshold. The writers have essentially averaged between one and two players elected per year for six-plus decades:

2010-2011: 3
2000-2009: 17
1990-1999: 15
1980-1989: 18
1970-1979: 13 (plus Roberto Clemente in a special election)
1960-1969: 6
1950-1959: 15

While this may appear to establish a level of consistency, in reality it suggests a toughening of standards -- the number of teams (and players) has increased through the years since baseball’s first expansion in 1961, so the writers are electing a lower percentage of eligible players than 30 or 40 years ago. (A near doubling of teams would indicate a doubling of Hall of Famers.)

So the writers have been tougher in recent years; ironically, this span coincides with some of the weakest Hall of Fame selections by the writers -- Andre Dawson (2010), Jim Rice (2009), Bruce Sutter (2006) and Kirby Puckett (2001) would all rank near the bottom of the 108 BBWAA Hall of Famers.

That doesn’t even get into the inexplicable psychology in Hall of Fame voting. Why does Rice receive 29.8 percent of the vote in his first year, remain stuck at 29.4 percent by year five, languish in the 50 percentile for six years and then ramp up to 76.4 percent and election over his final four years on the ballot? Why does Don Mattingly begin at the same place as Rice -- 28.2 percent -- and slowly slide backwards from there? Why does Sutter start at 23.9 percent and later gain momentum and enshrinement after 13 years on the ballot, but Lee Smith start at 42.3 percent and after nine years remain at 45.3 percent?

It doesn’t make sense. And that’s why Hall of Fame debates are contentious, spirited, sometimes mean, sometimes logical, sometimes emotional ... but always fun to read and argue about.

Over the next week, leading up to next Monday’s 2012 Hall of Fame announcement, I’ll be examining some of the players on this year’s ballot. We’ll start with Barry Larkin.

I asked my colleague Jim Caple a simple question: "Who is on your short list of the greatest hitters of all time?"

He reeled off the names: Pujols, Bonds, Ruth, Williams ... Mays, Hornsby, Cobb (a little reluctantly on that one). We could include a few others, of course -- Gehrig, Aaron, Musial.

Anyway, maybe we'll do a more thorough examination of this question in the offseason. This is just a quick primer as we sit here waiting for the start of Game 4.

Here are the all-time leaders in FanGraphs' wRC+, which compares a hitter's runs created to an average player and is park- and league-adjusted, so a batter with a 150 wRC+ created 50 percent more runs than average:

1. Babe Ruth, 197
2. Ted Williams, 189
3. Barry Bonds, 175
4. Lou Gehrig, 174
5. Rogers Hornsby, 171
6. Ty Cobb, 171
7. Mickey Mantle, 171
8. Albert Pujols, 167

Here is the case against each of those eight, plus Willie Mays:

Babe Ruth
Case against: The advanced statistics don't factor in a timeline adjustment -- or what can be called the evolutionary improvement in the game. Overall, the players in Ruth's era were not as good, not as big and strong as today, the equipment wasn't as good, the fields not as good. This made it easier for a great player to excel above a league-average type of player. Put it this way: Ruth did not have to face guys like Alexi Ogando throwing 97-mph fastballs and 89-mph sliders. You think Ruth would be able to get the 40-ounce bat he used in 1927 around on a 100-mph Justin Verlander heater?

Ted Williams
Case against: The era he played in was perfect for him, a time when pitchers walked more hitters than now, amplifying Williams' skill-set -- patience the plate -- even more. Only hit 40 home runs once. While wRC+ accounts for Fenway being a great hitter's park, it perhaps doesn't fully factor in the advantage it gave Williams, who hit .361 there, .328 on the road. Integration didn't come until the second half of his career, and even then the AL lagged behind the NL.

Barry Bonds
Case against: Bonds through the 1999 season: .288/.409/.559; Bonds from 2000 (when he turned 36 during the season) to the end of his career: .322/.517/.724.

Lou Gehrig
Case against: Played in the 1920s and 1930s, the best offensive era in major league history. Played before integration. Since he got sick, his last season came when he was 35, so he missed the decline phase of his career, which would have lowered his career wRC+ number (although boosting his overall numbers).

Rogers Hornsby
Case against: Fabulous peak, but last great season came when he was just 33. Same arguments here as Ruth and Gehrig; without a timeline adjustment it was easier to statistically excel over an average player. Here's another example about the quality of play issue: In the 1920s National League, when Hornsby dominated, the strikeout rate never topped 3.0 per nine innings. Are we to assume the hitters were all just awesome back then? Or is it possible pitchers just didn't throw as hard, and thus it was easier to put the ball in play?

Ty Cobb
Case against: Talk about a different era. Fielders used gloves barely bigger than their hands when he played. He hit with a split-handed grip, which I'm not sure would fly against 97-mph fastballs on a regular basis. H&B factory records list his bat sizes in 1920 as 36 to 38 ounces, and 37 to 40 ounces in 1921-22. All this suggests a batting style more like a guy slapping the ball in play, as opposed to trying to drive the ball on a regular basis. (I'm not exactly saying Ichiro here; more like a slightly more powerful version of Tony Gwynn.) Could he have hit for power in a different era?

Mickey Mantle
Case against: Short career, too many injuries. Never played 150 games in a season after turning 30.

Albert Pujols
Case against: Has yet to enter decline phase of his career, grounds into too many double plays, doesn't walk quite as much as OBP kings like Ruth, Williams, Bonds and Mantle. The big question here: Has he entered the decline phase of his career? The biggest red flag to me on his 2011 season is that his walk rate dropped significantly from previous seasons, as he was more aggressive at the plate (he swung at 44 percent of all pitches this season, compared to slightly less than 40 percent over the previous five seasons). This change of approach could signify a guy who recognized his bat speed has started to slow slightly and thus swung more often early in the count. Or it could simply be a situation of him getting more pitches to hit with Lance Berkman and Matt Holliday hitting behind him.

Willie Mays
Case against: Career on-base percentage is nearly 100 points below Ruth and Williams, lowering his career wRC+ to .157.

Conventional wisdom says you hit your big home run hitter in the cleanup spot. With Jim Thome joining the 600-homer club, I thought it would be fun to take a little look at the eight members of the club to see where they hit most often in their careers -- as it turns, only two of the eight hit cleanup most often and neither of them did it 50 percent of the time.

Barry Bonds

Career plate appearances: 12,606
PAs batting cleanup: 3,599 (28.5 percent)
Home runs hitting cleanup: 242

Bonds received his most PAs in the three-hole, but also came to the plate more than 2,000 times in the leadoff spot (where he hit early in his career) and the five-hole. Bonds hit fifth in his first MVP season in 1990, as Andy Van Slyke hit third and Bobby Bonilla fourth. When Bonilla left after the 1991 season, Bonds moved into the cleanup spot. Inexplicably, Dusty Baker also hit Bonds fifth during his monster 1993 season when he hit .336/.458/.677. Will Clark and Matt Williams manned the three- and four-holes, but if Bonds had hit third or fourth (or even second) -- and thus received more plate appearances, the Giants may have picked up that one extra win they needed to tie the Braves that year.

Hank Aaron

Career plate appearances: 13,941
PAs batting cleanup: 5,126 (36.7 percent)
Home runs hitting cleanup: 261

Fred Haney, Aaron's manager in Milwaukee, talked about moving Aaron into the leadoff spot since he would get more plate appearances, but he never actually did it. Aaron had nearly 8,000 PAs hitting third.

Babe Ruth

Career plate appearances: 10,617
PAs batting cleanup: 2,012 (19 percent)
Home runs hitting cleanup: 144

We're missing some data from early in his career, when he was mostly a pitcher, but Ruth wore No. 3 for a reason -- that's where he batted most often, in front of Lou Gehrig. But if the Yankees had worn numbers in 1920 -- his first season with the club -- Ruth would have worn No. 4.

Willie Mays

Career plate appearances: 12,493
PAs batting cleanup: 1,849 (14.8 percent)
Home runs hitting cleanup: 111

Mays started 66 games in his career in the leadoff spot. Most of these came late in his career -- 32 times in 1972 and 20 times in 1973, his final season. It actually made since in 1972, when he posted a .400 on-base percentage.

Ken Griffey Jr.

Career plate appearances: 11,304
PAs batting cleanup: 984 (8.7 percent)
Home runs hitting cleanup: 56

Griffey batted third nearly his entire career.

Alex Rodriguez

Career plate appearances: 10,550
PAs batting cleanup: 4,173 (40 percent)
Home runs hitting cleanup: 243

Did the '96 Mariners have the best 2-3-4 single-season combo of all time? Hitting second, A-Rod hit .358/.414/.631, Griffey hit .303/.392/.628 and Edgar Martinez hit .327/.464/.595.

Sammy Sosa

Career plate appearances: 9,896
PAs batting cleanup: 3,319 (33.5 percent)
Home runs hitting cleanup: 215

Sosa received a few more PAs hitting third than cleanup.

Jim Thome

Career plate appearances: 10,220
PAs batting cleanup: 2,998 (29.9 percent)
Home runs hitting cleanup: 202

Thome has received more than 2,000 PAs in the third, fourth and fifth spots. On the 1995 Cleveland team that reached the World Series, Thome usually hit sixth -- and despite hitting .314/.438/.558 that year, began 1996 hitting seventh!

Follow David Schoenfield on Twitter @dschoenfield.

With Jim Thome approaching 600 career home runs, our Stats & Information group sent out a packet of stats on Thome. One fun stat that stood out to me: Thome went 12-for-27 with NINE home runs off Rick Reed in his career. I think it's safe to say that Thome owned Reed; those are the most home runs he's hit off one pitcher.

So who did the other members of the 600 home runs club own? Let's take a look.

Barry Bonds

Bonds hit nine home runs apiece off Greg Maddux and John Smoltz, but along with Tom Glavine, he faced them the most in his career. Bonds faced five pitchers at least 100 times in his career ... he did pretty well against four of them:

Maddux: 157 PAs, 9 HR, .265/.376/.508, 24 BB, 16 SO
Glavine: 120 PAs, 5 HR, .309/.425/.567, 19 BB, 11 SO
Smoltz: 108 PAs, 9 HR, .275/.463/.675, 28 BB, 16 SO
Curt Schilling: 100 PAs, 8 HR, .263/.410/.638, 19 BB, 13 SO
Dennis Martinez: 100 PAs, 1 HR, .228/.290/.337, 8 BB, 8 SO

What's amazing is that he had more walks than strikeouts against Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz and Schilling. These are four future Hall of Famers, three of whom possessed terrific control, and Bonds still drew his walks off them.

Bonds also owned Andy Ashby (.377/.514/.849, 7 HRs in 53 ABs) and Pete Schourek (.308/.420/.897, 7 HRs in 39 ABs) among others. The pitcher who faced Bonds the most times without allowing a home run: Rick Sutcliffe. Bonds hit .239/.280/.326 off Sutcliffe in 51 PAs. Not many pitchers owned Bonds. Tim Belcher held him to a .143 average and David Cone held him to a .175 average.

Hank Aaron

Aaron hit 17 home runs off Don Drysdale in 221 at-bats (249 PAs), fashioning a .267/.345/.579 line off Big D. A guy Aaron owned: Don Gullett. He hit .462/.583/1.316 off him with seven home runs in 26 at-bats. Here's Aaron against some of the top pitchers of his era besides Drysdale:

Bob Gibson: 180 PAs, 8 HR, .215/.278/.423, 15 BB, 32 SO
Juan Marichal: 161 PAs, 8 HR, .288/.348/.473, 13 BB, 23 SO
Robin Roberts: 158 PAs, 9 HR, .291/.335/.554, 10 BB, 13 SO
Sandy Koufax: 130 PAs, 7 HR, .362/.431/.647, 14 BB, 12 SO
Tom Seaver: 93 PAs, 5 HR, .220/.290/.476, 9 BB, 14 SO

A pitcher who owned Aaron: Glen Hobbie. Aaron hit .213 with one home run in 80 at-bats off Hobbie, a nondescript righty who went 62-81 in his career, primarily with the Cubs. Aaron hit .148 with no home runs and one walk in 48 at-bats against Jim Brosnan, the pitcher he faced the most without hitting a home run.

Babe Ruth

We don't have complete hitter-pitcher breakdowns for Ruth, but he hit 17 home runs off Rube Walberg, a left-handed pitcher with the Philadelphia A's, and 14 off Hooks Dauss, a Tigers right-hander. Here's Ruth complete home run log.

Willie Mays

Mays homered 18 times off Warren Spahn -- most memorably a 16th-inning home run that gave Juan Marichal a 1-0 victory over Spahn in 1963, both pitchers going the distance -- but he also faced him the most times, with 253 PAs. He hit .305/.368/.587 off Spahn.

He owned Bob Sadowski in a small sample, going 8-for-15 with five home runs and four walks, and Brooklyn Dodgers reliever Clem Labine in a larger sample, hitting .475/.516/.966 with seven home runs in 59 at-bats. He also slugged .762 off the Dodgers' Johnny Podres. In fact, you could argue that Mays owned Ebbets Field: In 56 games there, he hit .355 with 28 home runs, slugging .786.

Mays versus a few top pitchers:

Don Drysdale: 243 PAs, 13 HR, .330/.374/.604, 14 BB, 29 SO
Robin Roberts: 184 PAs, 4 HR, .312/.376/.476, 14 BB, 21 SO
Sandy Koufax: 122 PAs, 5 HR, .278/.426/.536, 25 BB, 20 SO
Bob Gibson: 108 PAs, 3 HR, .196/.315/.304, 16 BB, 30 SO
Jim Bunning: 95 PAs, 2 HR, .213/.255/.348, 4 BB, 17 SO

While Gibson and Bunning fared pretty well against Mays, Willie also struggled against Jim Maloney (.172, 1 HR in 58 ABs), Steve Carlton (.177, 2 HR in 62 ABs) and Tommie Sisk, the guy he faced the most without homering -- none in 45 at-bats. In fact, he never had an extra-base hit off Sisk, a middling starter/reliever with the Pirates in the mid-'60s.

Ken Griffey Jr.

Modern players don't face the same pitchers as often as hitters in Willie Mays' era, and Griffey of course changed leagues midway through his career. He faced just one pitcher 100 times in his career -- Roger Clemens. He hit .311/.392/.589 off Clemens, with six home runs. Only David Wells with eight allowed more home runs to Griffey. Junior went 7-for-14 with five home runs off Livan Hernandez and 6-for-16 with five home runs off Andy Benes.

Griffey struggled against Chuck Finley (.164, 2 HR, 5 BB, 18 SO in 73 ABs), Kevin Appier (.186 in 59 ABs) and Mike Mussina (.143 in 56 ABs). He faced Todd Stottlemyre 40 times without homering off him, although he did hit .294.

Alex Rodriguez

A-Rod has homered eight times off four pitchers: Tim Wakefield, David Wells, Ramon Ortiz and Bartolo Colon. Of those four, he feasted the most off his current teammate, hitting .431/.456/1.059 off Colon in 57 PAs. He went 12-for-23 with five homers off Esteban Loaiza and 10-for-21 with five home runs off Kenny Rogers. He's faced Matt Guerrier eight times and has gone 5-for-7 with four homers and a double. And poor Wil Ledezma: A-Rod went 4-for-6 off him, all home runs. Joel Pineiro, on the other hand, owns Rodriguez, holding him to a .128 average with no home runs in 39 at-bats.

Sammy Sosa

Sosa hit seven home runs off Curt Schilling and Jose Lima, hitting over .300 against both pitchers. He destroyed David Williams, going 8-for-13 with six home runs and nine walks off him. He went 6-for-14 with five home runs off Kevin Jarvis. He hit .405/.488/.838 off Ben Sheets in 43 PAs and .481/.533/.963 off Orel Hershiser in 30 PAs. Bonds may have owned Smoltz, but Smoltz owned Sosa: Sammy went .143/.200/.214 off Smoltz, and never drove in a run in 45 PAs. Sosa also hit .143 off Jason Schmidt and .128 off Dave Burba.

(Date from Baseball-Reference.com.)

Follow David Schoenfield on Twitter @dschoenfield.

The most impressive batting practices I used to watch were those of the Oakland A's in the late 1980s. Back in those days, the Seattle Mariners weren't drawing many fans, but when the "Bash Brothers" came to town, the left-field bleachers would be packed during BP, kids and adults alike fighting for souvenirs. Let's just say Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco weren't exactly working on their opposite-field hitting in those days, so there were plenty of baseballs to be had.

A decade later, I was on the field at Tiger Stadium, watching McGwire take BP during the height of his powers. Honestly, I didn't care what he was using. As he launched home run after home run over the roof in left field, I couldn't believe a human being could hit a baseball that far.

Anyway, Big Mac is in our Ultimate Home Run Derby bracket. Disappointingly, Canseco failed to make the final cut, as did Negro Leagues star Josh Gibson, whom many have said hit 'em longer than The Babe.

So who would win such a fictional derby? Well, let's start by saying who won't win:

Babe Ruth: He'd take a break to wipe off with his Gatorade towel and get a Gatorade drink, and instead ask for a beer and a hot dog, and he'd be done.

Cecil Fielder, Prince Fielder, Boog Powell: Do they have the stamina to outlast this field?

Reggie Jackson: He'd try to show off and jack every pitch 500 feet and pop too many up.

Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, Rogers Hornsby, Frank Thomas, Joe DiMaggio, Albert Pujols: These guys were/are more line-drive hitters with the power to hit home runs, but I'm not sure that would translate over multiple rounds.

Bo Jackson, Rob Deer, Dave Kingman: Deer hit one of the longest home runs I've ever seen, about three-quarters of the way up the left-field foul pole in the Kingdome. I think it would have landed in Puget Sound if it hadn't hit the pole. That said, these guys probably would swing and miss pitches even in BP.

Jose Bautista: Unless the contest is being held in Toronto.

Manny Ramirez: Ability to focus for multiple rounds would be an issue.

Roger Maris, Frank Robinson, Hank Greenberg, Harmon Killebrew: Greenberg had a huge home/road home run split in his career: 205 at home, 126 on the road. As for the others, I guess I'm just biased against players from the '60s.

Alex Rodriguez: Come on, you know he'd start pressing.

Ryan Howard: What if the BP pitcher threw left-handed?

Barry Bonds, Lou Gehrig: Bonds never did well in the derbies in which he participated. Gehrig would conserve his energy for a real game.

My bracket finals:

Mike Schmidt versus Josh Hamilton: If the contest is held during the day, Hamilton has no chance.

Mickey Mantle versus Ken Griffey Jr.: Mantle has the switch-hitting advantage, so he could swing from whichever side gave him the park advantage and he could hit the ball a country mile, as they say. But Griffey was so smooth and effortless, the perfect swing for a home run derby. And he won three of these things. Edge: Junior.

Sammy Sosa versus Mark McGwire: Big Mac moves on in a titanic battle.

Willie Mays versus Jimmie Foxx: Mays had surprising power for his size, but they called Foxx "The Beast." I'll take somebody with that nickname.

Semifinals

Schmidt versus Griffey: Griffey wins. Let's just hope Schmidt doesn't cry after losing.

McGwire versus Foxx: I was standing on Lansdowne Street behind the Green Monster at the 1999 All-Star Game when McGwire hit one over the street, off the top floor of the parking garage and onto the Massachusetts turnpike. My god, was that hit far. He was juiced. The balls might have been juiced. I'll still take Big Mac.

Finals

Griffey versus McGwire: Griffey, baby! In his prime, Junior's pretty swing was a thing of perfection.

After the Miami Heat lost the NBA championship, much of the postgame analysis centered on LeBron James' failures in the fourth quarter throughout the series, attributing his woes to ... well, words like mettle, fortitude, confidence, determination and heart were thrown out. Or, in a more brute usage of language, LeBron choked.

Now, I happen to think the real explanation is even simpler, something I didn't really hear get discussed. LeBron is a tremendous athlete; I don't need to recite his attributes here. You've seen him play. He's too big for smaller defenders, too quick for bigger ones. That is, when his long-range jump shot is falling, like it did earlier in the playoffs. When it's not, then LeBron isn't such an stoppable force.

Compare his game to Dirk Nowitzki's. When Dirk has the ball at the top of the key, he can shoot over you (he's 7 feet and a better shooter than LeBron); he can spin left with the dribble and drive to the basket with a left-handed scoop layup; he can dribble and hit a pull-up jumper; he can spin left and hit a fadeaway. Dirk has undoubtedly worked hours and hours developing this game. It takes a tremendous amount of footwork and athletic ability to do what he does. LeBron doesn't have that footwork or that developed set of skills. Bill Simmons -- who has watched a million more hours of basketball than I have -- intimated at this in a column last week when he wrote, "Is it possible that (LeBron) is so talented that he never ended up concentrating on one great thing? He never developed a go-to gimmick like Dirk's high-post game, Wade's one-on-one game, Kobe's one-one-one game, Duncan's low-post game."

Dirk might not have LeBron's speed or power, but he has more basketball skills. And in the playoffs, when opponents amp up their defensive pressure from the 80 percent level offered in the regular season, it takes more than brute force, speed and an inconsistent jump shot to be a great player.

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You often hear that basketball players are the best athletes in the world. I'm sure if we put a poll up on this page asking readers which sport had the best athletes, basketball would win in a landslide.

I have a major issue with that opinion. What's the most important trait required to make the NBA? The answer is obvious: Height. The NBA, of course, is disproportionately filled with tall players. The nature of the sport, the small size of the court, the height of the hoop -- all conspire to give tall people an advantage. Think about it: What if Shaquille O'Neal were a few inches shorter? He's one of the greatest players of all time, but his actual basketball skills were limited: he had a shooting range of about five feet, he couldn't pass, couldn't dribble or take the ball to the hole from the top of the key. He was big and stronger than a mountain and athletic for his size. In basketball, that's all he needed. There are thousands and thousands of basketball players who had far better skills than Shaq; they just weren't tall enough. Similarly, what if James were 6-foot-4 instead of 6-8? He couldn't so easily overpower smaller defenders; he'd have a more difficult time shooting over taller defenders. Without those four inches, would he be much more than another Mario Chalmers?

Another way to look at it. Why are there no (or few) tall soccer players? The soccer field is large. Big guys get too tired. It's game of speed, quickness and intricate footwork and delicate skills, all traits that favor shorter athletes. If a basketball court were 200 feet long instead of 94 feet, the size of the players would be dramatically different. The big guys wouldn't be able to keep up; they'd get fatigued racing up and down the court with the smaller speedsters.

Baseball is much more democratic this way. It offers no inherent advantage to being tall. Check out this height distribution chart over baseball's history. It's a perfectly shaped Bell Curve, just like any population sample. Athletic ability and baseball skills get you to the major leagues, not height.

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A guy like Dustin Pedroia is, in my book, one of the best athletes in the world today. Nobody actually thinks that because he's short and losing his hair and doesn't hit 50 home runs or steal 100 bases. What he does is a little of everything: He can turn on an inside pitch and hit it 400 feet over the Green Monster, surprising power for a guy his size; he's got some of the best hand-eye coordination in the sport, drawing plenty of walks; he can run; he has great range at second base and has mastered the complicated set of movements required to turn double plays without a getting a cleat in your nose.

A great athlete? Absolutely. There is more to athleticism than just bulging muscles and raw speed.

And this is where we get to the headline. LeBron is tall, not an advantage in baseball. His footwork is poor, whether because he hasn't worked at it or lacks the fluid athletic movements to make the plays the great players make. Baseball is full of footwork, from middle infielders turning double plays, to a third baseman diving for a ball down the line and rising to his feet make a throw, to an outfielder reacting with a quick first step to race after a line drive in the gap, to a first baseman adjusting his feet to catch a bad throw and so on. Hitting is a skill of hand-eye coordination, bat speed, pitch recognition and little adjustments. Maybe you don't consider any of those things as "athletic" traits. I say they are, honed -- like Dirk's high-post game -- with hours and hours of practice.

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Back in May, in honor of Willie Mays' 80th birthday, I wrote up a quick list of the 30 greatest players of all time. I put Barry Bonds ahead of Babe Ruth. A reader criticized me on Twitter, arguing that "Ruth faced the best athletes of his era, now the best ones play football and basketball."

Look, I'm not not saying baseball players are better athletes than basketball or football players. (It's difficult to defend a sport that Todd Coffey and Bartolo Colon are good at.) But the Babe Ruth "faced better athletes" argument? Ridiculous.

First off, there's the simple fact that baseball wasn't integrated when Ruth played. And there's this fact: During his years with the Yankees (1920 to 1934), there were 279 major league pitchers who threw at least 300 innings; only 58 (21 percent) were listed at 6-foot-2 or taller. Of the 519 pitchers to appear in the majors in 2011, 362 of 519 are 6-2 or taller (70 percent). From 1920 to 1934, 443 major league position players appeared in at least 200 games. Only 21 were listed at 6-2 or taller (5 percent); 134 were listed at 5-9 or under (30 percent). In 2011, 410 position players have appeared in a game; 161 are listed at 6-2 or taller (39 percent) and 28 are listed at 5-9 or under (7 percent).

Players today are bigger, faster and throw the ball harder and hit the ball further. The quality of the athlete in baseball today is better than ever; heck, just check old games from even 30 years ago. Nearly every team had two middle infielders who would hit three home runs a year between them. An 87-mph fastball was an average fastball. Babe Ruth was 6-2, a giant for his time. He was, in part, using his size advantage to overpower smaller opponents. (Sound familiar?)

Today's players are giants compared to the 1920s, but they aren't NBA-sized giants. Corey Hart, at 6-6, is the tallest position player. The NBA had 321 players this season 6-6 or taller.

In the NBA, height matters. In baseball, you need the skills.

And that's why LeBron would have been a lousy baseball player. Unless, of course, he has a 95-mph fastball.

Last weekend, I was in Cleveland attending the Seymour Medal conference as the keynote speaker, but that's less interesting than the conference, and particularly the raison d'etre for the event itself. The Seymour Medal, named for the eminent baseball historians Harold Seymour and Dorothy (Seymour) Mills, is awarded by the Society for American Baseball Research; it honors the best work of baseball history published in the previous calendar year. This year, SABR awarded the hardware to co-authors Lyle Spatz and Steve Steinberg for their book, 1921: The Yankees, The Giants, and the Battle for Baseball Supremacy in New York (University of Nebraska Press).

After the conference, they discussed their work with me, with an eye towards explaining why it's a volume you might want to add to your own baseball bookshelf:

CK: Your book 1921 talks about a season that concluded with an all-New York World Series showdown. Besides the series itself, what was at stake for baseball?

Lyle Spatz: Because the public did not become aware of the 1919 Black Sox scandal until very late in 1920, the 1921 season was in many ways a test, to see if fans would still care about the game. Two great pennant races and several heroic individual performances showed they did. Also at stake was baseball supremacy in its major market, New York City, and the way the game would be played in the future.

Steve Steinberg: It was also the fist year of the commissioner [Kenesaw Mountain Landis], who was solidifying his power and banned the Black Sox. It was a year in which Babe Ruth has his second power season in a row, in New York, solidifying the emergence of a new long-ball game, and the end of the Deadball Era. And 1921 reflected New York's rise to the top of the baseball world, where it would stay for most of the century.

CK: The game itself was different, but so was the sportswriting. In your research, where did you notice the biggest differences between the game, then and now, and what were they?

LS: Before radio and TV, to say nothing of the blogosphere, fans got all their information from newspapers. New York had a multitude of newspapers, morning and afternoon, and most with several editions. Writing for these papers were some of the most memorable reporters and columnists ever to cover the game, a group that included Grantland Rice, Fred Lieb, Damon Runyon, Joe Vila, Hugh Fullerton, and Sam Crane. While in some cases, the language was a bit flowery, references were sometimes made to poetry and the classics that unfortunately many modern day readers would find incomprehensible.

While these men were not averse to criticizing the players, mangers, or club executives, each had his favorites and those they wanted replaced. Even Ruth, McGraw, and Miller Huggins came in for their share of bad press, yet there was a seemingly unwritten line regarding personal habits they mostly did not cross. Nevertheless, discerning fans knew that when the newspaper said that Giants pitcher Phil Douglas was taking some personal time off, what was really happening was that Douglas had disappeared on one of his periodic drinking sprees. Now, of course, we would know the flophouse he was in and the brand of outlawed whiskey he was drinking.

SS: Sportswriters -- most of them -- assumed the role of making ballplayers “heroic.” The start of a 1920s' emergence of sports superstars: Jack Dempsey (boxing), Bobby Jones (golf), Bill Tilden (tennis), and the Babe. We drew on a dozen or so New York papers alone, and others in other cities. Each added perspective to the season; each revealed some things that others did not provide.

In '21, a dominating, control(ling) guy such as John McGraw could still flourish (as a manager)... that's almost inconceivable today. He called every pitch of the 1921 World Series from the dugout.

CK: Why should contemporary fans care about the 1921 season, and what lessons does it provide them as they follow the game today?

LS: As a baseball historian, my belief is that fans should care about every season; realistically, not everyone does. However, no living fan can remember a time when the Yankees were not the most famous franchise in baseball. That all began in 1921.

SS: It was the first Yankees pennant; up until then, this was a team with a long history of losing. It ended with one of the greatest conflicts in baseball history, as the Yankees-Giants battle was about who would dominate New York, which style of baseball would dominate the game, and which man -- McGraw or Ruth -- would be number one in New York.

It's almost incomprehensible, Babe's dominance of the game in 1921. He was 12.4 percent of all American League home runs that year. Had Barry Bonds hit 12.4 percent of all National League homers in 2001, he would have had to have hit 366. 1921 reminds that, while fans love great players and managers, they really enjoy the really colorful great ones even more.

Finally, the wealthy teams -- as these two teams were -- could pay for talent from the less wealthy clubs, a trend we have seen repeatedly since. The '21 Yankees had the Red Sox, the '21 Giants had the Braves and Phillies. Money has and will continue to influence the game, yet baseball still continues to thrive.


Christina Kahrl covers baseball for ESPN.com. You can follow her on Twitter.