Presenting the MLB All-Quarter Century Team, the very best in baseball since 2000

New York Times

22-05-2025

Wait. It's 2025 already? Boy, that 21st century is flying by, isn't it?
So here at The Athletic, we had a fun idea. Let's pick a baseball All-Quarter Century Team. And guess what? We're going to let you pick one, too.
Elsewhere on this site, Tyler Kepner will lay out the ballot we came up with, and explain how you can vote. We're figuring you'll have some thoughts on the best players of the 2000s.
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But in the meantime, somebody — like me, for instance — has to write a column that sets the tone for this project. So … based solely on 21st century stats, I've picked the starters and the pitching headliners … and I'm taking a wild guess that (bold prediction coming) I also might get thousands of you so annoyed by my picks that you'll cast your own ballots, simply to straighten me out.
So let's do this. Here comes my MLB All-Quarter Century Team. Feel free to disagree — and remember to direct all your disagreement toward my good friend Tyler Kepner.
Let's kick this off with an easy one. I think we've had six Hall of Fame (or Hall-destined) first basemen working their magic in the 2000s: Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Joey Votto, Todd Helton, Freddie Freeman and Paul Goldschmidt. It would be more than six if we included Joe Mauer, Jim Thome and Bryce Harper.
So why did I pick Albert? Oh, no particular reason … other than that he ranks first among this group in pretty much everything. We're talking over 700 homers and 3,300 hits, 101.3 WAR (according to Baseball Reference) and the most total bases in history (6,211) by anyone not named Henry Aaron.
Want to argue that any of those other first basemen were greater? Sure. Go for it. But Pujols was the easiest pick, for me, on this whole ballot. #Legend
Full confession: I'm dinging Robinson Canó here for being a two-time offender for performance-enhancing drugs. And since that's the case, this feels like a choice between Altuve and Chase Utley.
Disagree? I knew that would happen. We have no hard and fast rules on this team for how to handle the PED mess — and I'll run into it again later in this column. When I do, let's just say my choices down the road are going to tick off the Robbie Canó Don't Ya Know Fan Club.
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But enough on him. Why Altuve, despite his hazy association with the Astros' trash-can scheme and whatever the heck went on with Buzzer-gate? Because he's on a Cooperstown path himself.
Altuve has already passed Canó in FanGraphs' calculation of WAR (58.0 to 57.5). And I think his career offensive accomplishments outweigh Utley's by almost any measure.
So that's three batting titles, two stolen-base titles, four 200-hit seasons … and I hope you noticed that Altuve actually has the same career slugging percentage as Utley (.465). I'll admit I was really tempted to pick Utley, a guy I've already cast two Hall of Fame votes for. But is there really a wrong answer between those two? Let's go with no.
You have no idea how close I came to typing the name Francisco Lindor in this space.
Jimmy Rollins hung over me for a long time, too, especially while I was strongly considering making his longtime amigo, Utley, at second base.
Then there was Alex Rodriguez. But he's on this ballot at third base. So don't A-Rod me — until the next category.
With all due respect to Troy Tulowitzki, Miguel Tejada, and all the talented shortstops playing now, I think the debate here is among three names: Jeter, Lindor and Rollins. And once I got down to Jeter versus Lindor, I was surprised by how tempting it was to pick Lindor, since only 21st-century stats count in our exercise.
Lindor is still just 31, and he already has more WAR just in the 2000s than Jeter (or Rollins), as measured by both Baseball Reference and FanGraphs. That shocked me at first — considering that Lindor could get another 1,000 hits and still not catch Jeter's totals since 2000:
JETER 2000-14 — 2,658 hits
LINDOR 2015-24 — 1,548 hits
So picking Lindor would have been a fun episode of Hot Take Theater. But I just couldn't do it — even though I'm not allowed to count the 1995-99 chunk of Jeter's career.
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There's a Hall of Fame plaque to consider! And four trips to the World Series in the 2000s. … And so many vintage, Jeter-esque October moments, plus a .301/.366/.467/.833 postseason slash line. … So overlooking all that didn't feel cool, no matter how curious I was to see the reaction to a Lindor was better than Jeter take. Guess I'll never know.
Did I get this pick right? I'm still not sure. My first inclination was to go with Chipper Jones — and I almost got there … until it hit me that his only MVP trophy, all of his team's best October moments and his one World Series title happened in the previous century.
But Beltré versus Chipper was only one ring in this circus. This was a field with three Hall of Famers: Beltré, Jones and Scott Rolen. And that group could eventually reach six, as Manny Machado, Nolan Arenado and José Ramírez keep doing their thing.
Then there's A-Rod. What the heck. One of the greatest players of modern times. But another two-time PED scoundrel who tarnished so many of his on-field accomplishments.
So in the end, how could this not be Beltré, who fell just short of 3,000 hits and 500 homers on this side of the Y2K line, while redefining what elite third-base leatherwork looked like? Still I'm happy to take your alternative suggestions. Anthony Rendon anyone?
Hold on one minute. I have to slip on my noise-canceling ear buds to drown out all the whining from the A-Rod/Robbie Canó crowd.
All right, you've got me. I'm a hypocrite. I'm the king of the double standard. I'm an activist judge, looking the other way at PED suspects like Bonds while handing out selective life sentences to other dudes in my court.
But there is a difference between Barry and those other guys, you know. Bonds obliterated Mark McGwire's single-season home run record before this sport imposed serious PED testing and punishment. And he never did test positive afterward, or do anything more than look really guilty in Game of Shadows.
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So there's that. But also … if it's not Bonds in left field on this team, then who? Manny Ramírez? Ryan Braun? They don't earn any sainthood points, either.
I had some Juan Soto thoughts. But he and Bonds have almost an identical number of games played in the 2000s — and Soto isn't even close, on any meaningful line on the stats sheet.
I tried to talk myself into Matt Holliday – but before I traveled too far down that road, I got stuck on this thought:
How can I leave the greatest player I ever saw play off this team?
Bonds played 12 seasons before the 2000s (and rolled up 103.7 bWAR plus 445 homers) — versus only eight seasons from 2000-07. But he still was the runaway leader in this position at WAR in the 2000s, with 59.0, meaning he averaged nearly 7.4 WAR per season even in the 'down' years of his career.
So Barry it is. Sorry, Robbie. Sorry, Alex. It's my ballot.
Do yourself a favor and pretend the aches-and-pains-filled 2021-25 edition of Mike Trout never happened. Just dream on the 2011-20 edition, and this choice gets easier every minute.
With all due respect to Carlos Beltrán, Andruw Jones, Torii Hunter, Jim Edmonds and Andrew McCutchen, those first 10 seasons of Trout were epic. He could easily have won seven MVP awards. And he averaged 9.6 WAR per 162 games.
He piled up more WAR in those years (74.0) than Tony Gwynn, Eddie Murray or Miguel Cabrera were worth for their entire careers. And how many Face of the Sport bonus points should we add? We'll take your votes for literally anybody else. But good luck winning that debate.
So this was fun. Could we maybe just have a whole team full of right fielders? Think about it.
Ichiro Suzuki could lead off. Mookie Betts would bat second. Then how about a middle of the order with Judge, Harper and Vlad Guerrero Sr.? Our bottom of the order would be some combination of Gary Sheffield, Bobby Abreu, young Giancarlo Stanton and Sammy Sosa. And I can't believe there was no room for the prime years of José Bautista, the Houston model of George Springer or Ronald Acuña Jr.
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Right field. Loaded.
I told a few people I was leaning toward Judge, and they all tried to talk me out of it. Ichiro has 2,000 more hits in this century than Judge. And that doesn't even include his Japan stats. So was I sure about this, they asked?
Well, no, actually. I wasn't sure. But I just finished writing a column that argued that Judge is the greatest right-handed hitter of the last 100 years … and that he's doing things we've literally never seen. His weighted Runs Created+ — a metric based on the premise that the average player is graded at 100 — is now at 207 over a period that includes the last four seasons.
So am I trying to prove my own point by putting him on this team? Maybe. But it's my point — and I'm sticking to it. My apologies to all my friends on the other side of the Pacific.
Did I really just overlook Joe Mauer's whole first-ballot Hall of Fame career? I did.
Did I seriously then bypass Buster Posey, the face of a three-time World Series champion? I did that, too.
I overlooked those men because I watched the impact Yadier Molina had on the Cardinals for nearly two decades. It was real. And it was spectacular.
I ran this by a scout who once played in the big leagues. He didn't even hesitate.
'It's Yadi,' he said. 'It's got to be Yadi. End of story. I don't care about the numbers. Yadi has all the nuanced stuff you can't measure. Go look at all those Cardinals pitching staffs that got better when he was behind the plate. And the second he left, they have not been the same. So it's Yadi. It's got to be Yadi.'
There are no numbers that would tell us that. But you know what? I agree!
Leaving Shohei Ohtani off this team might have been the worst part of this entire exercise. Just the thought of that made me want to invent a whole different 'position' just for him:
DH/ace/superhero/international man of mystery?
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I'm pretty sure if that was the question, he was the answer.
Unfortunately for him, that was not the question in this All-Quarter Century election. So eight seasons of Ohtani's multitasking brilliance did not equal Ortiz's 14 humongous curse-busting, life-changing seasons in Boston.
Those seasons shifted the arc of the entire Red Sox franchise. And the one mammoth presence in the middle of all of it was Big Papi. Once again, I extend my heartfelt apologies to the entire population of Japan.
Anyone have any issues with the first four old-school aces on this list? How the heck could you? I had their boxes checked in like 45 seconds.
But who's the fifth starter? I can hear you out there, spitting out the names: CC Sabathia, Pedro Martínez, Zack Greinke, Johan Santana, Curt Schilling, Félix Hernández, Adam Wainwright, Chris Sale, Mark Buehrle, Cole Hamels, Mike Mussina … and on and on.
I know the answer, in a purely data-driven world, should be Greinke, who ranks in the top four in both the Baseball Reference and FanGraphs versions of WAR among all starters in the 2000s. He pitched 20 excellent seasons in this century. And his counting numbers crush the numbers of my pick, Randy Johnson.
I totally got the memo that the 2000s were merely the back end of the Unit's career. And five of the 10 seasons he pitched in the Y2K era were nothing special. But what about those other five!
I'm awarding massive bonus points for three Cy Young awards. For three straight seasons (2000-02) in which he averaged 351 strikeouts a year. For cinematic World Series heroism in 2001. And, frankly, for becoming (probably) the last pitcher in history to reach 300 wins.
So you can fill out your All-Quarter Century rotation any way that makes you happy. I'll take next-level greatness. Always.
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I'm forced, by the rules of this fun little exercise, to overlook the first five seasons of Mariano's career. And it's still no contest.
I shouldn't need to remind you that this guy was The Man. But 14 seasons in the 2000s with an ERA barely over 2.00 (at 2.05) … along with a sub-1.00 WHIP (0.95) … plus 65 postseason appearances with a 0.86 ERA, against the best teams in baseball … would be a thing that no other closer on this planet could compete with.
So enter Sandman … and drive home safely.
(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; Top photos: Harry How, Jason Miller, Mike Stobe, Sean M. Haffey, Donald Miralle / Getty Images)