100 Greatest Left Fielders of All-Time

ALL-TIME TOP 100 LISTS

Baseball's All-Time Greatest Left Fielders Ranked From 1 to 100

CAREER = career war

Long Peak = WAR in Best 7 Seasons

SHORT PEAK = WAR in Best 3 Seasons

PRIME = WAR in 5 Best Consecutive Seasons

RANK	NAME	FROM	TO	CAREER	LONG PEAK	SHORT PEAK	PRIME
1	Ted Williams	1939	1960	121.9	72.7	34.1	53.0
2	Stan Musial	1941	1963	128.1	64.4	30.4	44.6
3	Rickey Henderson	1979	2003	111.2	59.0	28.6	36.2
4	Barry Bonds	1986	2007	162.8	78.8	37.1	51.2
5	Carl Yastrzemski	1961	1983	96.4	51.8	31.4	43.4
6	Pete Rose	1963	1986	79.7	44.9	22.1	31.4
7	Tim Raines	1979	2002	69.4	40.7	20.3	32.3
8	Minnie Minoso	1949	1980	50.2	42.2	21.0	28.4
9	Billy Williams	1959	1976	63.7	37.8	19.8	28.5
10	Willie Stargell	1962	1982	57.5	39.4	22.1	28.0
11	Al Simmons	1924	1944	68.0	42.8	22.9	33.6
12	Joe Jackson	1908	1920	62.1	53.5	26.9	34.4
13	Ralph Kiner	1946	1955	47.9	41.3	23.6	36.3
14	Goose Goslin	1921	1938	66.2	42.9	20.8	32.4
15	Charlie Keller	1939	1952	43.5	38.8	20.3	32.7
16	Lance Berkman	1999	2013	52.0	40.7	19.3	25.8
17	Jose Cruz	1970	1988	54.4	35.2	18.2	23.8
18	Luis Gonzalez	1990	2008	51.7	34.2	19.4	25.1
19	George Foster	1969	1986	44.2	35.7	18.6	29.1
20	Roy White	1965	1979	46.8	36.1	19.8	27.5
21	Joe Medwick	1932	1948	54.3	40.0	23.0	31.1
22	Matt Holliday	2004	2018	44.4	34.3	17.8	26.9
23	Albert Belle	1989	2000	40.1	35.9	19.7	26.9
24	Jim Rice	1974	1989	47.7	33.9	18.6	24.8
25	Monte Irvin	1949	1956	21.3	21.1	14.8	28.5
26	Manny Ramirez	1993	2011	69.3	38.9	20.2	28.8
27	Lou Brock	1961	1979	45.4	31.8	17.1	24.9
28	Sherry Magee	1904	1919	59.4	39.6	20.7	27.7
29	Christian Yelich	2013	2022	36.1	33.0	19.2	26.4
30	Brett Gardner	2008	2021	44.5	32.4	16.7	19.9
31	Fred Clarke	1894	1915	67.8	40.6	19.1	22.1
32	Ken Williams	1915	1929	42.5	36.5	20.9	29.3
33	Alex Gordon	2007	2020	34.4	31.2	19.7	27.2
34	Bob Johnson	1933	1945	55.3	34.1	17.9	24.6
35	Don Buford	1963	1972	36.2	33.6	16.9	24.0
36	Carl Crawford	2002	2016	39.1	32.2	16.9	22.9
37	Brian Downing	1973	1992	51.5	29.0	15.5	17.0
38	Zack Wheat	1909	1927	60.1	35.1	18.1	21.2
39	Sid Gordon	1941	1955	38.3	32.9	17.1	26.8
40	Ryan Braun	2007	2020	47.1	39.3	20.8	31.1
41	Bobby Veach	1912	1925	47.8	36.1	18.1	26.2
42	Augie Galan	1934	1949	44.7	35.2	18.7	23.9
43	Yoenis Cespedes	2012	2020	21.6	22.3	14.4	21.7
44	Lonnie Smith	1978	1994	38.5	29.7	19.5	18.9
45	Moises Alou	1990	2008	39.9	27.7	15.3	17.1
46	Lefty O'Doul	1919	1934	26.9	27.2	18.4	23.2
47	Michael Brantley	2009	2022	34.1	28.2	15.6	18.2
48	Heinie Manush	1923	1939	47.2	34.0	17.8	22.8
49	George Burns	1911	1925	39.4	37.2	20.4	23.2
50	Frank Howard	1958	1973	37.6	29.2	14.9	21.6
51	Jimmy Sheckard	1897	1913	49.7	34.3	19.7	19.8
52	Juan Soto	2018	2022	23.2	22.7	17.3	23.2
53	Hideki Matsui	2003	2012	21.2	21.3	13.6	16.7
54	Ron Gant	1987	2003	34.1	26.3	15.6	20.9
55	Dusty Baker	1968	1986	37.0	26.1	13.7	15.9
56	Kevin Mitchell	1984	1998	29.1	26.5	14.9	20.2
57	Alfonso Soriano	1999	2014	28.6	27.1	16.3	19.4
58	Hank Sauer	1941	1959	25.2	22.9	12.9	17.9
59	Kevin McReynolds	1983	1994	30.1	26.3	14.1	19.2
60	Greg Vaughn	1989	2003	30.8	27.6	16.4	15.1
61	Del Ennis	1946	1959	29.9	28.7	15.1	21.1
62	George Stone	1903	1910	26.0	25.9	19.0	24.7
63	Starling Marte	2012	2022	38.6	31.9	14.9	21.6
64	Rico Carty	1963	1979	32.6	27.6	15.2	12.8
65	Jeff Heath	1936	1949	37.6	29.3	14.2	15.5
66	B.J. Surhoff	1987	2005	34.4	21.9	11.7	16.0
67	Gene Woodling	1943	1962	33.2	24.7	12.6	14.3
68	Jason Bay	2003	2013	24.7	24.5	15.3	19.4
69	Mike Greenwell	1985	1996	25.8	25.7	14.7	19.2
70	Cliff Floyd	1993	2009	25.9	25.3	16.2	16.7
71	Larry Hisle	1968	1982	25.0	24.6	14.7	19.2
72	Hal McRae	1968	1987	27.9	24.2	13.6	16.4
73	Marcell Ozuna	2013	2022	20.1	20.3	12.6	15.6
74	Shane Mack	1987	1998	21.6	21.2	15.4	19.6
75	Ben Oglivie	1971	1986	26.4	23.4	14.0	17.8
76	Joe Rudi	1967	1982	25.5	23.5	13.8	18.8
77	Chick Hafey	1924	1937	31.1	27.2	13.6	20.9
78	Gary Matthews	1972	1987	30.4	22.3	10.9	14.5
79	Carlos Lee	1999	2012	28.3	23.6	12.2	15.2
80	Bernard Gilkey	1990	2001	21.6	22.7	16.0	19.6
81	Greg Luzinski	1970	1984	26.3	22.4	12.6	15.2
82	Ryan Klesko	1992	2007	26.9	21.7	12.3	16.1
83	Shannon Stewart	1995	2008	24.9	22.9	12.4	17.8
84	Garret Anderson	1994	2010	25.7	22.8	12.4	16.4
85	Tommy Harper	1962	1976	25.8	22.7	15.7	14.8
86	Willie Horton	1963	1980	26.4	20.7	11.9	16.9
87	Wally Moon	1954	1965	25.0	25.5	13.0	15.4
88	Rusty Greer	1994	2002	22.4	22.0	13.7	19.1
89	Tom Tresh	1961	1969	22.0	22.0	13.8	19.4
90	Don Baylor	1970	1988	28.5	21.7	10.5	13.3
91	Riggs Stephenson	1921	1934	32.5	24.2	13.3	16.6
92	Mike Donlin	1899	1914	29.0	26.9	16.9	18.3
93	Steve Kemp	1977	1988	19.5	19.0	11.5	18.7
94	Topsy Hartsel	1898	1911	31.2	25.4	14.3	18.0
95	Bobby Higginson	1995	2005	23.1	21.4	12.3	15.2
96	Cleon Jones	1963	1976	18.0	20.7	15.9	17.9
97	George Bell	1981	1993	20.0	21.3	12.8	16.8
98	Geoff Jenkins	1998	2008	21.9	21.0	13.6	13.9
99	Tommy Davis	1959	1976	20.5	20.7	12.8	15.8
100	Bob Meusel	1920	1930	27.6	23.6	11.9	15.5

EXPLANATION OF TABLE DATA

CAREER = Career Wins Above Replacement (WAR).

We use bWAR.

LONG PEAK = WAR in best seven seasons.

SHORT PEAK = WAR in best three seasons.

PRIME = WAR in best five consecutive seasons.

How Do We Rank The Players?

That's a Great Question. In short, it isn't Simple.

We have gone to great lengths to make our All-Time Baseball Player Rankings as thorough as possible. We believe our rankings are the most comprehensive, fair, and accurate.

Players are evaluated on five criteria as the foundation of our rankings:

Career Value
Long Peak
Short Peak
Career Prime Value
Contribution to Championship Teams

We use Wins Above Replacement (WAR) as a basis for these calculations. However, we also adjust for era, integration and level of competition, and missed playing time due to factors beyond the control of the player.

Generally, a player’s Career Value is worth about 50-60% of the ranking score we assign him. That leaves half or just under half from his long peak (seven best seasons), short peak (three best seasons), and prime (five best consecutive seasons). The contribution to championship teams (player performance in seasons where his team wins the pennant) is a small factor in most cases.

Because we adjust for timeline and era, our rankings have fewer players from before 1941 than many other baseball player lists.

We feel it’s important to acknowledge that baseball is harder to play today than it was 25 years ago, and 50 years ago, and so on. It doesn’t make sense, in our opinion, for most of the great baseball players to have played prior to World War II, when MLB was segregated.

100 Greatest Left Fielders of All-Time

ALL-TIME TOP 100 LISTS

CATCHER

FIRST BASE

SECOND BASE

SHORTSTOP

THIRD BASE

LEFT FIELD

CENTER FIELD

RIGHT FIELD

PITCHER