Mike Schmidt lands in ESPN.com's Top 20 MLB Players of All Time

Mike Schmidt is the greatest player in Philadelphia Phillies history. ESPN.com released their Top 100 MLB Players of All Time list over the last three days, and the final 25 candidates were announced on Thursday.

“Based on career WAR, Hall of Fame status, peak performance and overall contributions to the game, we selected an initial pool of more than 200 players from both the Major Leagues and Negro Leagues, dating back to the late 19th century, plus a few of today’s biggest stars.”

“From there, we asked dozens of ESPN editors and writers to contribute to a balloting system that pits players from the list against each other in head-to-head voting. The question we posed: “Based on a combination of career value and peak performance, which player would you rank higher?”- ESPN.com’s methodology for creating the list

**ESPN.com ranks Mike Schmidt as the 18th greatest baseball player of all time.**

Mike Schmidt

Career Accomplishments: Baseball Hall of Fame, 3x MVP, 12x All-Star, World Series Champion, 10x Gold Glove, 6x Silver Slugger, World Series MVP

The greatest third basemen of all time had every skill a baseball player can dream of. The 10 gold gloves speak for themselves, but if you had the pleasure of watching Schmidt play at the time (I, unfortunately, did not), you know that he’s one of the most skilled fielders to ever touch the dirt.

Mike Schmidt posted a career line of .267/.380/.527 at the plate, with 548 total home runs and 1,595 RBIs. In Schmidt’s 18 seasons with the Phillies, he posted just four seasons with lower than 20 HRs. Schmidt posted 12 seasons with an OPS above .900 and tallied a career WAR of 91.8.

Here’s what ESPN.com’s Bradford Doolittle had to say about Mike Schmidt.

Mike Schmidt led the Phillies to their first World Series in team history. Throughout the 1980 season, Schmidt hit .286/.380/.624, cracked 48 HRs, knocked in 121 RBIs, and tallied up an OPS of 1.004. He swiped 12 bases, knocked 157 hits, and won his first of back-to-back MVPs.

Here are the Top 10 MLB Players of All-Time according to ESPN.com. Check out the full Top 25 here.