Arizona Diamondbacks All-Time Top 50: Position player candidates

As discussed over the weekend, our major off-season project will be to crowd-source the top 50 all-time players for the Arizona Diamondbacks, as they completed the franchise’s first two decades. The process kicks off in earnest today, with a poll to determine which position players will make the top 50. To help with the task, below, you will find some selected statistics for the fifty leading position players by bWAR as a Diamondback. [A more complete report can be found here]

Below, you’ll find a link to a Google form, listing the same players, and for this stage, a straight yes/no question: should they be included in the all-time top 50? The 25 who receive the highest percentage of votes will proceed on to the second, ranking stage. Note that you shouldn’t worry too much about voting yes for exactly 25. It would make sense to approve about half of them, but if you have 26 or 24, I’m not going to disqualify you. To prevent ballot-box stuffing - for example by douchebag Dodger fans (not that such a thing could possibly exist) - a username is requested, but as long as your ballot makes sense, I’m not going to agonize if you don’t provide one.

It’s entirely up to you on what criteria you use to judge whether or not a player should advance, and what process you adopt. Personally, I’d do three sweeps and triage the candidates. The first would involve voting yes on the “obvious” qualifiers. The second, voting no on the obvious non-qualifiers. The final sweep will involve a more detailed look at the remaining candidates. The form lists the 50 candidates in random order, so there should be no bias resulting from a player’s position on the list. Responses will close at 9am on Thursday morning, with the results being published later that day.

Feel free to explain selections - especially for or against the candidates you consider to be borderline choices - in the comments below.

Link to the selection form