The GOATs

Tennis: Roger Federer

For a while Federer was a weird case of being arguably the greatest player of all-time, while maybe not even being the best of his own era? [See: Federer-Nadal rivalry]

It was sort of unlucky for Federer, that there was this left-handed freak who posed such a uniquely bad matchup for him. If paper defeats rock, and rock defeats everything else, rock may well be best overall but losing to paper isn't a good look.

So when Federer was stuck at 17 grand slam titles and Nadal was still going strong, it seemed like Nadal could make a push for GOAT or at least make things murky.

But now with 20 titles to Nadal's 16, including a win against Nadal in the Australian Open finals, he seems secure.

Nadal could chip away at the gap, but as it stands today I think there's a clear and obvious GOAT.

Golf: Tiger Woods

Nicklaus has 18 majors to Tiger's 14, but let's be real.

Tiger has a career winning percentage of something close to 24%, which is freakishly higher than all other active players.

Nicklaus is 18.8% (by my math). Which isn't shabby or anything, but it's worse than 24%.

There's so much variance in one given golf tournament where I'm not willing to hang everything on the majors. The other tournaments do literally count. You're trying to win them.

And even as far as the majors go, Tiger's performance during the stretch of years where he was winning them was as dominant as anything. Either he would set some new record for margin of victory, or he'd have a seemingly magical ability to win if it ever got close.

The difference is basically that Jack lasted longer, and was able to chip away at majors for a much wider stretch of years.

If Jack had played in the modern era (where there's more need to be a peak conditioned athlete if you're going to be elite) we don't really know that his body would have held up or that he'd be able to stay elite for so long.

So basically that Nicklaus was able to eek out a few majors in his older years doesn't, for me, offset what seems like just a clearly better and more dominant player.

Football: Tom Brady

5 Super Bowl championships
4 Super Bowl MVP awards
8 AFC championships
15 division titles
3 league MVP awards
Killer documentary Tom vs Time

It's easy to buy into the "oh, the Patriot system tho" narrative of diminishing his greatness, but there comes a point where you ask yourself whether the chicken came before the egg.

Unlike other 'systems' (the 49ers with Montana, the Cowboys with Aikman) the cast around Brady has completely changed multiple times over. If anything he's shown himself to be the opposite of someone who depends on the system around him.

The only common denominator is coach Bill Belichick. And while Belichick is probably legitimately a wizard, there's only so much edge one head coach can have over another.

Like if you're playing Monopoly, even if you're a little better than the others, there are so many variables out of your control where you're not that much more likely than them to win. Coaching seems about the same. There's plenty of room for a bad coach to cripple their team's chances. But among good coaches who are managing effectively, there isn't gonna be that much difference from one to the next. It isn't as tho Doug Pederson and Mike Tomlin and the other solid coaches are light years behind him and Belichick is just on some different cylinder.

And so you have to elevate Belichick to I think a sort of mythical, not realistic category of skill if you want to say that's the explanation for Brady's resume. (Good coaching doesn't realistically cause a team to win this often.)

Basketball: Indeterminable

separate post about Jordan vs LeBrons vs others coming soon

Hockey: Wayne Gretzky

league record for most goals (and for most goals including playoffs)
league record for most goals in one season
league record for most assists (and for most assists including playoffs)
league record for most assists in one season
9 Hart Memorial Trophy (MVP) awards
10 time scoring champion
4 Stanley Cup championships

Plus he's credited for essentially revolutionizing the game into a more team-oriented game.

And you can see his humility and general calmness and soothing qualities on display in this interview with Graham Bensinger.

Baseball: Indeterminable

Barry Bonds is fine. Steroids shouldn't count against him just because his neck was bigger than the others. You can't carve people out subjectively because they take it further than others.

It's just hard to compare across eras and have any real clear idea who was the best.

Griffey I think was hurt by being in the steroids era. Even tho I'm sure he used as well, his body didn't necessarily take as favorably to it, and with that picturesque swing of his I'd guess he would have preferred a landscape where no one was using.

Bonds I think just had the best strategy (whether or not intentional) -- lay low for a while, and as he becomes an experienced hitter at the top of his game, dial it up and go for broke.

Griffey on the other hand I feel like may have taken more of a half-measure -- he wanted to hang under the radar of not being one of the obvious users with the thick neck, but still may have done enough to cause his injury issues in the second part of his career.

I think there's a good argument that Bonds is the best of his era, just really hard to compare across eras and know how meaningful his records are.

Olympian: Michael Phelps

28 medals and 23 gold.

Of course swimmers get a lot of chances, but still.

His performance in Beijing was probably already enough to make him the GOAT, or at least put him on the short-list. And then there's 15 gold medals outside of that.