Some folks have brought to my attention that a ranking of the top 20 New York Mets would look different if we just used the Bill James method of ranking by itself and the list would look different again if we just used the Baseball.com Wins Above Replacement (WAR) method by itself. True enough which is why I decided to blend both methods together.

Let's take a look at how the list would read if we simply used the Bill James method of calculating player value by itself:

1) David Wright (100)
2) Tom Seaver (99)
3) Edgardo Alfonzo (94)
4) Darryl Strawberry (93)
5) Howard Johnson (92)
6) Carlos Beltran (90)
7) Keith Hernandez (88)
8) Jose Reyes (86)
9) Mike Piazza (82)
10) Kevin McReynolds (78)
11) Doc Gooden (77)
12) Cleon Jones (76)
13) Jerry Koosman (72)
13) Lee Mazzilli (72)
15) Mookie Wilson (70)
16) Jon Matlack (69)
17) Gary Carter (67)
17) Tommie Agee (67)
18) Al Leiter (62)
19) Sid Fernandez (57)

As you can see, the James method shifts the value of pitchers downward and the relative value of position players upward. I also note that the James standard produces a relatively compressed measure. For example, according to the James standard Sid Fernandez produced about one-half the value in his Met career that Tom Seaver did in his Met career. However, using WAR Sid Fernandez produced about one-third the value of Tom Seaver in his Met career. Which is correct is a matter of opinion. However, by blending the two systems my final judgement is that Fernandez produced about 44% of the value that Tom Seaver did in his Met career. It seems reasonable to me so I'm going with it.

Now let's take a look at how things were ranked if we used WAR alone:

1) Tom Seaver (73)
2) Doc Gooden (39)
2) David Wright (39)
4) Jerry Koosman (37)
5) Darryl Strawberry (34)
6) Carlos Beltran (30)
6) Jose Reyes (30)
8) Edgardo Alfonzo (28)
9) Al Leiter (26)
9) Sid Fernandez (26)
11) Keith Hernandez (25)
11) Jon Matlack (25)
13) Mike Piazza (23)
14) Howard Johnson (20)
15) Mookie Wilson (19)
16) John Stearns (18)
16) David Cone (18)
18) Bud Harrelson (17)
19) Cleon Jones (16)
19) Len Dykstra (16)

As we can see, the value of pitchers is generally elevated using this method.

I'm not sure if what I've done is any good, but using a relative scale my final rankings blend these two measures and provides credit for leading the team in Win Shares for any specific season. Perhaps I should give credit also if you lead the team in WAR for any specific season.

1) Tom Seaver (188)
2) David Wright (149)
3) Darryl Strawberry (132)
4) Edgardo Alfonzo (129)
5) Carlos Beltran (125)
6) Keith Hernandez (117)
7) Jerry Koosman (116)
7) Howard Johnson (116)
7) Doc Gooden (116)
10) Jose Reyes (115)
11) Mike Piazza (108)
12) Jon Matlack (99)
13) Kevin McReynolds (94)
14) Cleon Jones (93)
15) Mookie Wilson (92)
16) Al Leiter (90)
17) Lee Mazzilli (87)
18) Sid Fernandez (84)
19) Tommie Agee (82)
20) Gary Carter (81)

Something to keep in mind throughout this conversation. I have specifically required that to be an all-time great New York Met you must have spent at least part of five seasons in a Met uniform. I've discussed my reasoning before. To me, to be an all-time great you need some residency with the team. If I were to throw in John Olerud then Gary Carter would no longer be on this list, but Olerud played for the Mets for three years. When people think of the all-time Met greats do they think of someone like Olerud? In my way of thinking the mind usually turns to people who have enough association with the team to be warranted as a "Met". FOr me, that line was at least parts of five years in uniform. It's arbitrary, I know.