Back to Bill James

From the 1988 Baseball Abstract, preceded by six pages of imaginary dialogue, here’s Bill James’s list of the 20 best players in baseball:

1. Wade Boggs
2. Tim Raines
3. Ozzie Smith
4. Don Mattingly
5. Tony Gwynn
6. Darryl Strawberry
7. Dale Murphy
8. Roger Clemens
9. Rickey Henderson
10. Kirby Puckett
11. Mike Schmidt
12. George Bell
13. Jack Morris
14. Pedro Guerrero
15. Alan Trammell
16. Eric Davis
17. Ryne Sandberg
18. Phil Bradley
19. Dwight Gooden
20. Dwight Evans

With the benefit of hindsight, this still looks like a pretty good list, except maybe for Phil Bradley.

By the way, if Levi is even more scarce around here than usual, it’s because he’s got his very own blog now, solely devoted to books he’s been reading lately. He reads a lot.