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Career WAR Trifecta Quiz

I'm going to present ten sets of three well-known players who were major leaguers in the retrosheet era.  Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to identify which player in each set accumulated the most career WAR (through 2008), as calculated by Sean Smith.  The leader will have at least 5 WAR more than the other two players, to make the difference at least somewhat significant.  (In fact, the worst player in each group will have at least 5 WAR less than either of the better two players, too, so you can shoot for extra credit by identifying the trailer, too.)

Now, career WAR is what is it, which is not the best measure of "best player".  Holding on for five years at 2 WAR will add significant career value, but it doesn't impress me as much as two seasons of 5 WAR.  That aside, here are the ten sets of players.  Who has the most career WAR?

  1. Rickey Henderson, Mike Schmidt, Mickey Mantle
  2. Nolan Ryan, Phil Niekro, Bert Blyleven
  3. Robin Yount, Pete Rose, Carl Yastrzemski
  4. Tom Seaver, Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux
  5. Curt Schilling, John Smoltz, Chipper Jones
  6. Albert Pujols, Frank Thomas, Ryne Sandberg
  7. Andruw Jones, Jim Edmonds, Ken Griffey Jr.
  8. Chuck Finley, Luis Gonzalez, Jim Rice
  9. Jim Kaat, Mariano Rivera, Fred McGriff
  10. Andy Pettitte, David Cone, David Wells

Answers after the jump.

Here are the answers, with the players listed in descending order according to career WAR totals.

  1. Rickey Henderson, Mike Schmidt, Mickey Mantle
  2. Phil Niekro, Bert Blyleven, Nolan Ryan
  3. Carl Yastrzeski, Pete Rose, Robin Yount
  4. Tom Seaver, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson
  5. Chipper Jones, Curt Schilling, John Smoltz
  6. Frank Thomas, Albert Pujols, Ryne Sandberg
  7. Chuck Finley, Luis Gonzalez, Jim Rice
  8. Ken Griffey Jr., Jim Edmonds, Andruw Jones
  9. Fred McGriff, Mariano Rivera, Jim Kaat
  10. David Cone, David Wells, Andy Pettitte

How'd you do?