Starting in December and ending on Opening Day, Joe Posnanski will count down the 100 greatest baseball players by publishing an essay on a player every day for 100 days. In all, this project will contain roughly as many words as “Moby Dick.” Yes, we know it’s nutty. We hope you enjoy.



Let’s start with a stat: There have been 30 players in the modern era who created 1,000 runs while they were in their 20s.



I’m not sure how that stat hits you, but it’s impressive. Bill James invented the concept of “runs created,” and it’s a relatively simple way (using a player’s ability to get on base and hit with power) to calculate roughly how many runs a player is responsible for. We can use other stats to make the same point, but 1,000 runs created is such a nice, round number.



So let’s look at it again: Thirty players who created 1,000 runs in their 20s.



Of the 30 players on the list, 23...