The best stat to determine a player’s worth is WAR–wins above replacement–an analytical metric that was not available until relatively recently. The formula for WAR differs for position players and pitchers, and I’ll lay it out in layman’s terms. WAR uses every aspect of the game– batting, baserunning, and fielding, factors in position and ballpark and determines how many wins better than a league average player an individual player might be. Using WAR to help us rank them, let’s look at the top 24 players in the history
The Mets are a franchise rich with pitching royalty, but no player to ever wear the orange and blue is in the same league as Tom Seaver. The right-hander earned 198 of his 311 Major League wins in a Mets uniform while winning three Cy Young awards, three ERA titles, and most importantly, helped lead New York to its first World Series win in 1969. He was the Rookie of the Year in 1967, was an all-star in 10 of his first 11 seasons, and was easily inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1992. Mets fans still lament the deadline trade with the Reds in ’77 that became known as the ‘Midnight Massacre”, as to this day, it is still unimaginable how the club could’ve dealt its iconic franchise player. Seaver became a broadcaster for the Mets for many years, his number 41 is retired by the team, and there is now a statue of him outside of Citi Field.100
