How David Wright Compares to the Four Best Third Basemen in MLB History

Mets third baseman David Wright is one of the top stars in the game. Third base is often thought of as a glamour position. It has the great nickname - the hot corner - and has seen a fair number of sluggers play there throughout baseball's history. But there have not been many players who played their entire career at third base and only a miniscule number of those have excelled at the position. There are fewer third basemen in the Hall of Fame than at any other defensive spot on the field.

In MLB history, four third basemen stand head and shoulders over every other player to man the position. Alphabetically, they are Wade Boggs, George Brett, Eddie Mathews and Mike Schmidt. One can argue about the order, but these four are the cream of the crop. How does David Wright stack up against these Hall of Fame third basemen?

I like to use the statistic OPS+ because it combines the two most important offensive statistics - on-base percentage and slugging - and then adjusts for league context and home ballpark. It allows comparisons across eras. This is an important consideration because the offensive environment in 2007 is a lot different than it was in 1965 and Fenway Park in 1985 is completely different than Shea Stadium in 2007.

Here are the top five seasons of OPS+ for the fantastic four third basemen:

Boggs - 173, 166, 156, 151, 150
Brett - 203, 178, 158, 153, 149
Mathews - 172, 172, 171, 167, 165
Schmidt - 199, 171, 161, 158, 156,

David Wright has played three full seasons in the Majors. In that time he has posted OPS+ figures of 139, 133 and 150 in his seasons from age 22 to 24. While his numbers pale in comparison to the big four listed above, his age 24 season would fit at the back end of the prime of the best players to ever play the position. That is amazing.

Let's try to put that in perspective. Here's what our four Hall of Fame third basemen did from ages 22-24:

Boggs - X, X, 127
Brett - 125, 144, 142
Mathews - 172, 172, 143
Schmidt - 76, 92, 158

What David Wright has done up until this point is incredible. Through age 24, he has clearly been better than Boggs and Schmidt and has been similar, although better, to Brett. Only Eddie Mathews, perhaps the finest young ballplayer in history, has put up better numbers than David Wright at similar points in their careers.

Of course there's more to the game than just hitting. Schmidt is in the discussion for greatest player of all time because of his outstanding defense at third base. Boggs worked hard to improve his defense throughout his career and ended up a Gold Glove Award winner. Brett won a Gold Glove Award in 1985. Mathews' career started before the advent of the Gold Glove Award and then he had to contend with Ken Boyer and Ron Santo but he was a fine defensive player.

David Wright was a poor fielder his first two seasons in the league, but in 2007 he made great strides and was at least a league-average defender. There's no reason to think he cannot follow the path blazed by Boggs and become one of the top fielders in MLB as he continues to work on that part of his game.

One area where David Wright has an advantage over the fantastic four third basemen is with his speed. The most steals by any of our Hall of Famers is the 29 steals by Schmidt when he was successful on 70% of his attempts. Brett had a high of 23 steals while neither Boggs nor Mathews was much of a threat on the basepaths. Wright stole 34 bases at an 87% success ratio last season.

Next season will tell a lot about David Wright. Can he continue to build on his outstanding 2007 season? Here are the OPS+ the top third basemen posted in their age 25 season:

Boggs - 150
Brett - 123
Mathews - 154
Schmidt - 142

David Wright has a chance to post the best age 25 OPS+ numbers in the group. And combined with his baserunning and his improving defense, David Wright is on a path to mark him as one of the best third basemen in MLB history.