Who Are The 32 Best MLB Players?

Baseball beat writer and blogger Joe Posnanski released his latest list of the 32 best players in baseball. Who is number one? Here is more from Posnanski of SI.com.

I am putting together my prediction for the 32 best players in baseball in 2011. That’s all. I’m not considering seasons beyond. I’m not thinking about who is best to build my team around in 2014. Everything is built around 2011.Because of this, for instance, Adam Wainwright is not on the list. He was on my original list of the 32 best players — pretty high up on that list. But Wainwright is hurt and won’t pitch this year and so he’s off the list. Chase Utley won’t start the 2011 season, so that affects his ranking. Zack Greinke won’t start the 2011 season. I considered that when putting this thing together. I want the 32 players with the 32 best years.

Now, “best year” is subjective, of course. Even non-regular readers by now know that I put almost no weight on wins or RBIs or batting average. I try my best to judge players by how much they help their teams win, and that includes offense, defense, pitching, base running, context and whatever else comes to mind.

I saw the other day an interesting story that asked this question: “Is Pujols MLB’s best player hands down?” I never like questions with easy one-word answers like, in this case, “YES!” but what was interesting was some of the choices of other players. Mark Teixeira came up. Miggy Cabrera came up. Troy Tulowitzki came up. All three made my list, one just barely. We start with Tex.

For more of the story and the complete list click here: http://joeposnanski.si.com/2011/03/31/the-32-best-players-in-baseball-for-2011/?eref=sihp

Even though Pujols is coming off a below average year by his standards, putting Pujols at number one is a safe pick. He's been so great for so long, even in a down year, Pujols can still be the best player in baseball.