Baseball's history lends itself to great debates. We ask three of our baseball experts three tough questions: Who would you rather have, an all-time ace or an all-time center fielder? Which ace would you take to win one game? Which center fielder would you love to have as captain of your outfield for a decade?
Doug Glanville, Tim Kurkjian and Jayson Stark take a swing at these questions.
1. Would you rather have an all-time ace or an all-time center fielder?
Doug Glanville, ESPN baseball analyst: I would take the center fielder. It boils down to how we split hairs for MVP. Once in a while a pitcher wins one, but the weight leans heavily for the guy that is out there every single day. I am also considering his glove work where every play in the outfield is his responsibility. He's the center of the action. I played some center field in my heyday and it was always nice when pitchers would tell you how valuable your defense was to the team. So, imagine when you had their back defensively and hit a little. It's a very important position.
Tim Kurkjian, ESPN.com senior writer: I would take a star center fielder over an ace pitcher mainly because the center fielder plays every inning of every game, the ace only pitches every fifth day, or 100 years ago, every third day. The ace can dominate a game, a great center fielder can will multiple games in a week with his offense and his defense.
Jayson Stark, ESPN.com senior writer: Give me the center fielder. Absolutely. Now maybe, if it were Game 7 of the World Series, I'd take the ace. But over the long haul? This is easy. Look at that list of center fielders. Five of our top 15 players of all time were center fielders. And every one of them -- Mays, Mantle, Cobb, Griffey and DiMaggio -- was a franchise changer. So is Mike Trout. So was Tris Speaker. These are 10-win players in a regular old season, more in a special season. Mays had eight seasons with a 9.0 WAR or better. Only one man in history had more: Babe Ruth. Sign me up for that!
2. If you had to pick one ace to win one game, who would it be?
Glanville
Kurkjian: If I had to take one ace, I'd take Pedro Martinez. In his prime, even if it was only for five years, a case could be made that he had the greatest fastball in the game, the greatest curveball and the greatest change-up. I can't remember any other pitcher in the game's history that could make a claim to have the game's three best pitches at any given time. The greatest game I've ever seen pitched was Pedro against the Yankees in 1999, a one-hitter with 17 strikeouts at Yankee Stadium -- the most times the Yankees had ever struck out in a nine-inning game. Pedro was so dominating that Yankee fans were cheering him on.
Stark: Bob Gibson. How much fun would it be to point that dude toward the mound in a must-win game? How good would you feel about checking out the look on Gibson's face and thinking the other team would be terrified just by the sight of him? Did you know he's the only pitcher in history with six postseason starts with a game score of at least 80 (and nobody else has more than four)? Did you know that's as many postseason starts that good as John Smoltz, Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine combined? Did you know Gibson went 7-2, with a 1.89 ERA, in nine postseason starts and averaged nine innings a start? Did you know his 17-punchout game against the Tigers in the 1968 World Series is still the biggest strikeout game in postseason history, nearly 50 years later? Bob Gibson is/was the man. Top that one!
3. If you had to pick on center fielder to anchor your D for a decade, who would it be?
Glanville: I have to go with Willie Mays. The guy was a eight-tool player. Like Trout he had invisibility and teleportation. But Mays also had "dazzleation." His offensive numbers put him in the top of the top all-time. The number of All-Star appearances made him one of the brightest in the constellation. If he melted all of his Gold Glove awards, he could start a new country with his face on the currency. His numbers are amazing: .302 lifetime average, 660 HRs, 338 SBs, 3,283 hits, .941 OPS. And he took a year off for military service in 1953. Forget anchoring my D for a decade, I would have taken two decades of Mays.
Kurkjian: Willie Mays would be my defensive center fielder over a 10-year period, in an extremely close call over Andruw Jones. Mays' speed and range were tremendous, his arm was well above average and he played the game defensively with grace and flair. That basket catch fascinated me as a kid. I've always wondered why no one else ever tried it. Maybe because only the best of the best could do that.
Stark: Paul Blair. I'd love to say Willie Mays, just because, well, he's Willie Mays. I'm tempted to say Andruw Jones, just because, in his heyday, he was the best I ever saw with my own eyeballs. But people who watched Paul Blair play for those stupendous teams in Baltimore in the 1960s and '70s will tell you he was the greatest defender they ever saw roam center field. He played the shallowest. He anticipated the best. He went back on the ball better than anyone. He made big plays and huge catches for teams that won between 90 and 109 games pretty much every year for more than a decade.
I don't have the metrics to prove it, because the fielding data from that age just isn't precise enough. I only know he won eight Gold Gloves, he led all AL outfielders in defensive win shares seven times and baseball-reference.com tells us he ranks second among all outfielders in history (behind Jones) in defensive wins above replacement. So maybe Mays was better. Maybe Jones was better. Maybe Kevin Kiermaier is better for all I know. But if I'm running Paul Blair out there for the next decade, I know balls are going to get caught. And you know what else I know? My team is going to win.