re winfield s spot on the all time greats team in article apr alleg edu luriem alleg edu michael lurie the liberalizer writes in article blue cis pitt edu dtate pitt edu david m tate writes in article c wewd kto murdoch acc virginia edu drw l delmarva evsc virginia edu david robert walker writes in article blue cis pitt edu dtate pitt edu david m tate writes ielding rf of all time as far as anyone can tell i did a quick scan last night looking for players with a peak comparable to or better than winfield in my quick n dirty subjective judgement you could make good cases for ruth aaron ott robinson clemente kaline maris klein jackson waner and probably a few others this is not a knock on winfield but a comment on his consistency all of those other players had awesome stretches and very good stretches while winfield has been more uniformly excellent hall of fame absolutely top peak i m not so sure top total career value yes almost certainly point taken when was winfield s peak years anyway probably around that s the trouble what peak years he wavers between excellent and very good with no real bell shaped pattern in there was a fine year and were merely really good with the yankees i think was the best that was the one with the ba of course wasn t bad either he s been in the bigs since with a one year intermission for surgery though he doesn t have the mix of skills that pete rose did he s like pete rose in one way he s not a natural hitter winfield s swing used to be the ugliest thing in new york and that includes the gulf western building but his sheer athletic prowess and physical size made up for a lot fascinating player to watch even now not obviously great in any one way but able to do quite a few things in surprising ways and at surprising levels roger
