Nate Silver from Baseball Prospectus counts down the top 25 players in baseball over at ESPN.com's Page 2. The idea behind the article is that every player in the majors and minors is granted free agency and a league-wide draft takes place to rebuild the rosters. It's the old "who would you pick to start a new franchise with" scenario that we always kick around in bars and elsewhere.
Well, David Wright clocks in at #2. Yea, two. Of all of the players in the baseball universe, Wright would be taken second (at least according to Silver). He says:
The only downside to being this good this young is that it isn't easy to get a whole heck of a lot better. Our WARP system says that Willie Mays' best year came at 24, as did Mickey Mantle's. Stan Musial's was at 22. Cal Ripken had four of his five best seasons by the age of 25. The characteristic of great players, rather, is that they sustain a very high level of performance for 10 or 15 or 20 years. But Wright's capacity for growth is so great that he must have some fruit-fly DNA. In 2004, Wright was expected to barely hold his own in the Eastern League -- and he had become one of the better third basemen in the National League by year's end. In 2005, he improved his OPS from.839 before the break to .991 afterward. And then this year, Wright has decided to stop striking out, correcting perhaps the biggest remaining weakness in his game. I don't know where this is going to lead, but George Brett's 1980 might be a good start.Mr. Pujols is #1, and for good reason. Here's the rest of the Top 10:
3. Alex Rodriguez
4. Miguel Cabrera
5. Johan Santana
6. Joe Mauer
7. Mark Texeira
8. Felix Hernandez
9. Jason Bay
10. Vladimir Guerrero