In reply to: I agree but I included Mays in case people didn't want Bonds posted by TheRC
If you don't count any of Bonds' numbers after the 1998 season (assuming he started steroids before the 1999 season), his WAR per plate appearance would still finish seventh overall, ahead of Gehrig, and just barely a hair behind Mays and Williams. Obviously we don't know how Bonds' last few years would have gone, but he's still up there.
C Bench
1B Gehrig
2B Hornsby
3B Schmidt
SS Wagner
LF Williams
CF Trout
RF Ruth
DH Mays
I'd fudge a bit and put Mays in CF, move Trout to LF and have Williams DH.
Order
1 Hornsby
2 Trout
3 Ruth
4 Mays
5 Williams
6 Schmidt
7 Gehrig
8 Bench
9 Wagner
1 Mays
2 Hornsby
3 Williams
4 Ruth
5 Gerhig
6 Trout
7 Schmidt
8 Bench
9 Wagner
I tried to split up the three lefties Ruth, Williams, and Gehrig.
Williams lost his age 24, 25, 26 seasons to WWII and 33 and 34 to Korea. 4.5 seasons of his prime. He might have finished 2nd in WAR per PA.
If for no other reason than to reduce double play chances. I agree that mixing righty lefty is probably best, I was trying to mix power and average more.
a bit too much imo. I could see hitting him 7th.
Consider Bond’s WAR sans steroids. It would be a lot less.
Alternatively
1 LF Williams
2 CF Trout
3 RF Ruth
4 2B Hornsby
5 1B Gehrig
6 DH Mays
7 3B Schmidt
8 C Bench
9 SS Wagner
Ruth and Gehrig hit very well against lefties in their career.
Whats interesting to me is that while I understand creating a lineup based on who had the best WAR per position, I much rather have Ty Cobb or Rickey as my leadoff hitter if you are trying to create a perfect lineup.
I'm not sure baserunning has much value in a lineup with so many thumpers.
Bench and Schmidt might be the weakest runners and I don't think they'll gum up the base-paths.
Overall, I think you are correct that all of the lefties Ruth, Gehrig and Bons/Williams weren't hurt too much by lefties but only Bonds really ever saw the lefty relief specialist so splitting them up doesn't diminish the lineup much if at all. Leaving them in also doesn't hurt much even if the lefty specialist has a greater effect than a lefty starter.