Top 106 Baseball Players: #43 - George Brett

George Brett

George Brett was one of the greatest modern hitters, and he maintained a high batting average over the course of a very long career, which made him one of the standards by which batters are judged.

Brett first played for the Kansas City Royals in late 1973, but he struggled at the plate at first. At the All-Star break, he asked his batting coach for help, and he ended up reaching .282 by season's end, the lowest average he would post in the next 17 years.

The next season, he led the league in both hits and triples, and by 1976, he had won his first batting title, hitting .333 and leading the league with 298 total bases, and ended up #2 in the MVP voting, quite the turnaround from his struggles just 2 years earlier.

That was the first of 3 consecutive seasons in which the Royals reached the ALCS, but lost to the New York Yankees. Brett played well in all 3 of those series, batting at least .300 in each, and even hitting 3 home runs in a 4-game series in 1978, but they just couldn't overcome the powerhouse.

Brett led the league in hits and triples for the third time in 1979, but the 1980 season was truly magical. He led the league in batting, with a .390 average, which was the highest by any player since 1941, when Ted Williams hit .406. Brett was above .400 on September 19, but slumped over the last couple weeks of the season and ended up falling short of the huge milestone, but he was still given a very well-deserved MVP award.

That postseason, they also overcame the Yankees for the first time, sweeping them in 3 games and moving on to face the Phillies in the World Series. They would lose in 6 games, but Brett hit .375 for the series, once again showing up big when his team struggled.

Over the next several seasons he was solid, hovering around a .300 average, then he spiked again in 1985, reaching .335 and coming in as the MVP runner-up. That year, for the first time, Brett played well in a postseason series that his team won, being named ALCS MVP for batting .348 with 3 home runs, then batting .370 in the World Series, including 4 hits in the decisive game 7 as the Royals knocked off the Cardinals.

Brett would play another 8 years for the Royals, but would not see the playoffs again. He did, however, have a few more important personal milestones. In 1990, he led the league in batting for the third time, with an average of .329 at age 37, becoming the first player in history to win batting titles in 3 different decades. In 1992, he reached 3000 hits, joining another elite club.

Brett is one of 4 players ever to have 3000 hits, 300 home runs, and a .300 average for his career, the others being Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron. He is also #6 all-time in doubles and #16 in hits, #1 among third basemen in each category. He was a great hitter over nearly two decades, a strong playoff performer, and has earned this spot among the 50 greatest baseball players of all time.

Top 106 Baseball Players: #51 - Carlos Beltran

Carlos Beltran

Carlos Beltran is the most recent retiree on this list, having left the game after finally winning the World Series last year, a fitting close to a great 20-year career.

Beltran joined the Kansas City Royals near the end of the 1998 season, so he was still officially a rookie in 1999, when he batted .293 with 108 RBI to win the Rookie of the Year award. He missed a good chunk of the following season, and slumped so badly he lost his starting job, but won it back before the 2001 season.

During his entire career, Beltran only led the league in a category once, games played in 2002, when he didn't miss a game. Even though he wasn't dominant in the regular season, he was one of the better players in the league for several years, and he always played well in the playoffs, earning him the nickname Senor Octubre.

He was traded to the Houston Astros halfway through the 2004 season, where he was able to have his first and best playoff performance. Though the Astros failed to reach the World Series, Beltran tied Barry Bonds' playoff record with 8 home runs in a single postseason, which was incredible for only playing 12 games. He hit home runs in 5 straight games, a postseason record at the time, and hit a gamewinner in Game 4 of the NLCS.

Beltran signed with the Mets following that season, which is where he would spend the most time in his career. He had his best year there in 2006, setting career highs in runs, home runs, walks, and RBI, and he finished #4 in the MVP voting, his highest career finish. In that year's NLCS, he was great again, batting .296 with 3 home runs, but it wasn't enough to reach the World Series yet again.

He was traded again just before his contract expired, this time to San Francisco, and again he was a short-term rental. He left to sign with the Cardinals after the season, and in 2013 was finally able to reach the World Series, only to lose to the Red Sox in 6 games, even after he robbed David Ortiz of a grand slam in game 1.

He left for the Yankees immediately after losing the World Series, but only played one postseason game in 2.5 years there, before being traded again just before his contract expired, joining the Rangers for the end of the 2016 season, but Texas came up short in the playoffs, so Beltran decided to go back to Houston for one final shot at a title.

He played mostly as a DH in 2017, and had the lowest batting average of his career, but the Astros were great, making it clear to the World Series. Beltran did not play much in the playoffs, getting only 3 hits in the 2 early playoff series, then batting 0 for 3 in the World Series, but he was able to go out a champion, even if he wasn't really a contributor.

Beltran was a very good all-around player, one of 5 in history to reach 400 home runs and 300 steals, and one of only 4 who also reached 2500 hits and 1000 walks, along with Willie Mays, Barry Bonds, and Alex Rodriguez. Beltran was always better in the playoffs, playing well enough that he should have won a couple of titles in his prime, but there is still no doubt that he belongs with the greatest players of all time.

Top 106 Baseball Players: #105 - David Cone

David Cone

David Cone was never the best pitcher in the league, and never really reached superstar status, but he was in the upper echelon of Major League pitchers for about a decade, even as he switched teams every couple of years, and he accomplished quite a few impressive feats over his long career.

One of the highlights of the early part of his career was a 19-strikeout performance he recorded for the New York Mets while facing the Phillies on the final day of the 1991 season, which is still tied for the second-most ever in a single game. He had joined the Mets in a trade immediately after their 1986 World Series title, but the team grew progressively worse over his time there, though it was the strongest phase of his career statistically.

He became a World Series champion the following year after a late-season trade to Toronto, but he was merely a serviceable starter during the championship run, despite having led the league in strikeouts for the 3rd consecutive season. He left for his hometown Kansas City Royals the next year, where he was awarded the AL Cy Young Award in the strike-shortened 1994 season.

After another short stop in Toronto, he was traded to the New York Yankees, where he earned four more World Series rings in his stay of just over 5 years. He did not perform well in his first and last World Series with the Yankees, but in 1999 he was very good, allowing only 1 hit in 7 innings of his start against the Braves.

Earlier that season he had joined a very exclusive club when he threw a perfect game against the Montreal Expos, one of only 23 players to accomplish that to date, and the circumstances were pretty special. That night was Yogi Berra night at Yankee Stadium, and Don Larsen, who had thrown a perfect game in the World Series for the Yankees years earlier, had thrown out the first pitch and was in attendance at the game. It is still the only perfect game in interleague play, other than Larsen's World Series perfecto.

His long career as one of the better pitchers in the league wasn't enough to impress the Hall of Fame committee, only receiving votes from 3.9% of the voters, which was not enough to keep him on the ballot for the next year. He is still the only pitcher to have a Cy Young, 19-strikeout game, and 5 World Series titles, and for that reason, he has earned the right to be remembered as one of the best baseball players of all time.