The GOATs of All Time

[mister d]

Coming off the Brooks Robinson thread which I've helped make a mess of ... Which players had singular skills where you could drop them exactly as they were in their primes into the present day game and they'd still dominate. Like Bob Gibson is one of the best ever, but drop Bob Gibson with his repertoire into 2023 and he'd get laced all over the field. Maybe keep it to players retired over a decade so we don't have to talk about Calvin Johnson types?

Baseball: I'm pretty sure prime Ozzie would still be the best in the league. Maybe Andruw too but thats a lot harder to figure out.

Basketball: I don't think anyone exists. I know people are going to say Jordan but I think he's a tier below LeBron/Giannis types as he was.

Football: Not my area of expertise.

Hockey: Hasek? I can't say I the minutia of goaltending but he's easily the best I've ever seen.

Soccer: I assume this is closer to basketball than anything else where players have just evolved too far for any of the historical greats to be at that same level now.

[L-Jam3]

A little recent, but Randy Moss was the closest specimen to a perfect wide receiver, and he would dominate in 2043, yet alone 2023.

[Ryan]

Baseball: I'm pretty sure prime Ozzie would still be the best in the league.

This is exactly what I was talking about in the Brooks thread. He might be the best at playing shortstop but he also might be slugging .200 and out of the league. Andrelton Simmons is done, right?

[mister d]

God dammit ... I actually changed that header from "MLB Defense" to a more universal "Baseball" when I realized "Soccer" would look weird if it wasn't just all sports. Ozzie ON DEFENSE ONLY is where I was going and I wasn't clear. (Although he was always an all-contact, zero power guy so maybe that translates and he maintains his mediocre offense and is essentially the same player?)

[Ryan]

This is a fun list - everyone in the Wild Card era with a oWAR of no better than 3.1 and a dWAR of at least 2.8 (Ozzie's 162-game average)

https://stathead.com/tiny/UrX6J

EDIT - Just 2B-SS-3B

[Shirley]

If you don't think prime Michael Jordan would be able to dominate today's NBA, then I'm just going to assume you never watch basketball.

[sancarlos]

Baseball: I'm pretty sure prime Ozzie would still be the best in the league.

This is exactly what I was talking about in the Brooks thread. He might be the best at playing shortstop but he also might be slugging .200 and out of the league. Andrelton Simmons is done, right?

I was just going to say something like this, but Ryan said it better than I would have.

[phxgators]

This is a fun list - everyone in the Wild Card era with a oWAR of no better than 3.1 and a dWAR of at least 2.8 (Ozzie's 162-game average)

https://stathead.com/tiny/UrX6J

EDIT - Just 2B-SS-3B

I don’t see backflips being accounted for, that’s gotta narrow the list down.

[sancarlos]

If you don't think prime Michael Jordan would be able to dominate today's NBA, then I'm just going to assume you never watch basketball.

I’m not disputing you, but I would note that the style of basketball played in today’s NBA is quite a bit different than in Jordan’s day.

[mister d]

This is a fun list - everyone in the Wild Card era with a oWAR of no better than 3.1 and a dWAR of at least 2.8 (Ozzie's 162-game average)

https://stathead.com/tiny/UrX6J

EDIT - Just 2B-SS-3B

I feel like a lot of the old-school HoF voters would see that list and feel it justifies their messed up perception of Beltre/Andruw/Rolen types. "If he's with these one-way defense only guys, he's one of them" type stuff.

[mister d]

If you don't think prime Michael Jordan would be able to dominate today's NBA, then I'm just going to assume you never watch basketball.

Are there a lot of dominant present day guards with 3 point %s equal to the last ranked team in the league?

[sancarlos]

When I think of Gretzky in hockey it’s a bit like the Beatles in pop music. As in, are there more recent players who are doing it better than the predecessors? Maybe. But, you have to acknowledge the influence they had on their peers and successors. So todays players wouldn’t be who they are now without them having come before.

[Shirley]

If you don't think prime Michael Jordan would be able to dominate today's NBA, then I'm just going to assume you never watch basketball.

I’m not disputing you, but I would note that the style of basketball played in today’s NBA is quite a bit different than in Jordan’s day.

A game with more floor spacing and less physical defense? I think he'd be just fine. I knew MrD would bring up 3p% as if Jordan wouldn't work on that more in today's game. I guess you also think Larry Bird would be a mediocre shooter today?

[Ryan]

If you don't think prime Michael Jordan would be able to dominate today's NBA, then I'm just going to assume you never watch basketball.

Are there a lot of dominant present day guards with 3 point %s equal to the last ranked team in the league?

Oh hi again.

Most win shares in a season over the last 10 years while shooting 3s at least as bad as the 2022-23 Houston Rockets

https://stathead.com/tiny/soqE2

[Ryan]

If you don't think prime Michael Jordan would be able to dominate today's NBA, then I'm just going to assume you never watch basketball.

I’m not disputing you, but I would note that the style of basketball played in today’s NBA is quite a bit different than in Jordan’s day.

A game with more floor spacing and less physical defense? I think he'd be just fine. I knew MrD would bring up 3p% as if Jordan wouldn't work on that more in today's game. I guess you also think Larry Bird would be a mediocre shooter today?

That wasn't part of the deal

[mister d]

Someone put together a graph of Bird, Jordan and league average 3% by year, please.



(And yes, he would "work on that (thing that existed and was valued during his career)" as a modern player in the same way I'm sure Hal Newhouser would stop drinking to focus on developing a splitter. That's explicitly not the point.)

[Gunpowder]

A lot of NFL players - like your Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders, Barry Sanders and Jerry Rice types would be fine. If you want to go way back I'd think Bob Hayes could be dropped into the 2023 season and pick up enough modern offense in a few weeks to be good.

Regarding the NBA, everyone always talks about how physical it was meanwhile every team in the 1980s was scoring like 150 points and if you doubled anyone or played zone you'd get a tech.

[Shirley]

If you don't think prime Michael Jordan would be able to dominate today's NBA, then I'm just going to assume you never watch basketball.

I’m not disputing you, but I would note that the style of basketball played in today’s NBA is quite a bit different than in Jordan’s day.

A game with more floor spacing and less physical defense? I think he'd be just fine. I knew MrD would bring up 3p% as if Jordan wouldn't work on that more in today's game. I guess you also think Larry Bird would be a mediocre shooter today?

That wasn't part of the deal

How could it not be? You're proposing dropping them into a new era with different rules and styles of play but they aren't allowed to adjust? Are they allowed modern equipment and training?

[Giff]

This is a fun list - everyone in the Wild Card era with a oWAR of no better than 3.1 and a dWAR of at least 2.8 (Ozzie's 162-game average)

https://stathead.com/tiny/UrX6J

EDIT - Just 2B-SS-3B

Sweet, gives me a chance to post one of my favorite non-offense walk-off plays of all-time.

[L-Jam3]

That wasn't part of the deal

Yeah, I'm reading the call of the question more as "if you took him in the DeLorean from their prime into today, would he still kick ass?" Obviously Michael Jordan born in 1999 would have been practicing three-point shooting his whole childhood/adolescence so it would be an additional weapon in the arsenal. But even prime 1962-born MJ (say first three-peat era) just didn't have the 3-point shooting skills where he would've been unquestionably the best player alive if you went 88 mph and had him play this year.

[Ryan]

How could it not be?

It’s a made-up scenario on a message board

[Shirley]

Yeah, I was assuming you drop pro Jordan into modern times, not his whole life. But I did figure he'd get to practice and stuff.

Either way, if you just keep his 3p% as it was when he played, his numbers still hold up. His career offensive rating is only slightly below Curry's and slightly above Durant's. Add in the 9-time 1st team All Defense, and I think it's fair to say he wouldn't be just another player today.

Similarly, I'm pretty sure Gretzky would be great today as well. Surely not as dominant as he was, but he'd still be one of the best players in the game if not the best.

[mister d]

No one said Jordan would be just another player.

[Gunpowder]

To be fair Michael Jordan greatly improved his 3pt shooting % later in his career.

Bird was always good.


Then again if you put a modern dunk contest winner into 1984 people's heads would explode. Not sure how much of that is just natural evolution of the event and how much is due to increased athleticism.

[Shirley]

Bird shot under 30% from 3 in four of his first 5 years. He doesn't have a single season in the top 250 3p% seasons in NBA history.

But I still think he'd shoot better in today's game with the emphasis on the 3 and the better spacing.

[Pruitt IV]

Gretzky.

In basketball, there's some discussion as to whether or not Jordan was the greatest of all time (and he was), but no one in hockey has ever come close to being as dominant as then Great One. His stats are simply stunning.

His Stats Still Amaze

Led the league in assists 13 straight years, and 16 times in 20 seasons, reached 400 goals early in his 8th season, MVP his first 8 seasons. He lead the league in scoring by as much as 65 points!

Other GOATS include Jordan, Woods, Brady, LT, maybe Navratilova, Bolt, Biles, and in Sumo (for you aficionados), the recently retired Hakuho.

[MaxWebster]

just this week i saw some article about how McDavid could reach 1000 points faster than Mike Bossy which would put him 3rd fastest behind Gretzky and Lemieux.

But that was wrong...because Gretz should be 1 and 2:

Gretzky is fastest to 1000 obvs. But his 1001-2000 points would be *second fastest ever* which is so fkd up you just have to laugh

Gretzky.

In basketball, there's some discussion as to whether or not Jordan was the greatest of all time (and he was), but no one in hockey has ever come close to being as dominant as then Great One. His stats are simply stunning.

His Stats Still Amaze

Led the league in assists 13 straight years, and 16 times in 20 seasons, reached 400 goals early in his 8th season, MVP his first 8 seasons. He lead the league in scoring by as much as 65 points!

Other GOATS include Jordan, Woods, Brady, LT, maybe Navratilova, Bolt, Biles, and in Sumo (for you aficionados), the recently retired Hakuho.

[Shirley]

just this week i saw some article about how McDavid could reach 1000 points faster than Mike Bossy which would put him 3rd fastest behind Gretzky and Lemieux.

But that was wrong...because Gretz should be 1 and 2:

Gretzky is fastest to 1000 obvs. But his 1001-2000 points would be *second fastest ever* which is so fkd up you just have to laugh

Holy shit

[L-Jam3]

That’s patently absurd.

[travzilla]

I actually think Mario Lemieux fits this exercise better than Gretzky. The way Mario paired skill and finesse while dominating with power through the sloggy and michelin-man goalies in the 90's... he would be unstoppable today.
Gretzky today would still probably see the game clearer than anyone else alive but he never played in a league with the pace of today's hockey.

[Steve of phpBB]

I'd put Babe Ruth close to Gretzky in terms of dominating his competition. There was a three-year stretch where he accounted for something like 1/8 of the entire AL's home run output.

Is there anyone else comparable in a team sport? Wilt Chamberlain maybe? Kareem at the college level?

[Shirley]

Numbers wise in major sports, I think Ruth and Gretzky stand out. Kind of hard to see the Babe succeeding in modern baseball though without a couple of years of training.

Another possible one is Tiger during his dominant years. He was so far ahead of the field.

[Brontoburglar]

it's time for another what if sports league

[DaveInSeattle]

the Babe succeeding in modern baseball though without a couple of years of training.

But eating hot dogs and drinking beer is training!

[mister d]

it's time for another what if sports league

WHAT-IF AND ITS ERA NORMALIZATION IS THE OPPOSITE OF THE SPIRIT OF THE THREAD!!!

[Tom 1860]

People may not agree with these, but LT and Reggie White in their primes were completely unplayable as well as being big enough, athletic enough and certainly nasty enough to dominate today. Their primes were in the late 1980s, so 30+ years.

Also, I am unsure how Anthony Munoz would hold up today over 17 games from a size point of view, but I am unsure I have seen better.

[The Sybian]

People may not agree with these, but LT and Reggie White in their primes were completely unplayable as well as being big enough, athletic enough and certainly nasty enough to dominate today. Their primes were in the late 1980s, so 30+ years.

Also, I am unsure how Anthony Munoz would hold up today over 17 games from a size point of view, but I am unsure I have seen better.

All good points. I think it's hard to argue that LT revolutionized the game. Playing Tecmo Bowl, nobody was allowed to play as the Giant's because it was impossible to play against LT. That's the true sign of greatness.

[Tom 1860]

People may not agree with these, but LT and Reggie White in their primes were completely unplayable as well as being big enough, athletic enough and certainly nasty enough to dominate today. Their primes were in the late 1980s, so 30+ years.

Also, I am unsure how Anthony Munoz would hold up today over 17 games from a size point of view, but I am unsure I have seen better.

All good points. I think it's hard to argue that LT revolutionized the game. Playing Tecmo Bowl, nobody was allowed to play as the Giant's because it was impossible to play against LT. That's the true sign of greatness.

I would also add that Robert Brazile from 10 years prior to LT and White was a similar specimen in size, athletic ability and nastiness. He just played on the wrong team, but at 6-4 and weighing +245 in the mid mid to late 1970's, there was nobody like him and he was absolutely relentless.

[DSafetyGuy]

People may not agree with these, but LT and Reggie White in their primes were completely unplayable as well as being big enough, athletic enough and certainly nasty enough to dominate today. Their primes were in the late 1980s, so 30+ years.

Also, I am unsure how Anthony Munoz would hold up today over 17 games from a size point of view, but I am unsure I have seen better.

Pro Football Reference lists Munoz as 6'6", 278 pounds. I feel that Munoz might have needed one year to add weight/strength and be comfortable in his newer, bigger body while still playing at a very high level. The year after, back to owning people like nothing ever happened.