Now I don't know if everyone has seen this yet, but if you haven't you need to get the MLB network its amazing. I mean you've got baseball all day long! Whether that be baseball games, baseball the documentary by ken burns, baseball news, or lists of the greatest players its 24 hours a day of something good to watch everyday. In perticular there is a program called Prime 9, the defintive list of the greatest player at each position and a few days ago I caught the list of the nine greatest centerfielders of all time and I was less than impressed with some of the selections, perticularly of the eigth selection, Jim Edmonds.
Now my first issue with the list is that it doesn't include negro league players because Oscar Charleston deserves to be in the top 5, but isn't even on the list but we'll not even bring that into the equation. Have you ever watched Jim Edmonds and thought "well this is one of the greatest players I've ever seen"? I mean he's a very good player, done some great things in his career, made some great catches and been an integral part of lineups for years, but is he really deserving to be mentioned in the same breath as joe dimaggio or willie mays? Okay maybe that is an unfair comparison, but "Prime 9" had both of those men on the list listed 4 and 1 overall respectively, are they really only three players between Jim freaking Edmonds and Joe DiMaggio? I don't see it.
Sure there is a lot to be impressed by Edmonds, ten gold gloves, four all-star appearances, and a highlight reel full of great catches to his credit, but do the offensive numbers really stack up? At 38 and very clearly about to end his career, Edmonds has 382 home runs 1,881 hits and a line of .284/.377/.528, not terrible and in fact very good but do they really scream "all-time great?" Consider Andruw Jones, also the owner of ten gold gloves but at 31 and after a terrible horrible awful season his numbers are comparable 371 home runs, 1716 hits with a .259/.339/.489 line. Now I'm not saying Jones is necessarily better than Edmonds or that Jones deserves to be on the list over him, but when you consider that Edmonds's stats after an additional seven years of playing are very comprable and indeed nearly the same it makes you wonder if he really is deserving to be among the "prime 9." Top 20, sure, defintely, but I think its short-sighted to put him that.
I'll be honest I don't really like Edmonds, I think he's a very overrated fielder, sure he made a lot of diving catches that made him a regular on "web gems" but how many of those balls would've been caught with general ease by someone faster? Further he has a lousy arm, never posting more than 12 while Jones has had seasons of 20. Perhaps I'm not being fair to the guy he is an impressive player for a long time and even his defense is overrrated ten gold gloves is still ten gold gloves, but that doesn't mean he should be among the greatest of all time because of that. These lists of course are intended to cause controversy and discussion but as far as I'm concerned there isn't much a discussion for Edmonds, he's just not that good.
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