Baseball Master Set Rankings

mcholke

I started browsing through the baseball player master sets tonight and noticed several great collections that have gone under the radar. I decided to see if I could rank the best of the best master sets. The hard part is no set is created equally so consider this just a mathematical exercise. I based these rankings on the current sets ranking compared to the best possible ranking to see who was the closest to perfection.

I thought it was interesting and I would encourage you to go and look at some of these great sets


Cards in % Set Finest %
Player Set Complete Rank Possible Achieved

Trammell 513 99.61 9.34 9.50 98.3%
Yount 609 99.51 9.03 9.30 97.1%
Perez 235 100.00 8.60 8.88 96.9%
Rice 329 98.78 9.10 9.41 96.7%
Rose 699 98.86 8.92 9.29 96.0%
Nettles 100 100.00 8.59 8.95 96.0%
Schmidt 614 98.21 9.09 9.48 95.9%
Koufax 101 100.00 7.77 8.16 95.2%
Ryan 1525 99.87 8.96 9.44 94.9%
Garvey 220 95.00 8.77 9.25 94.8%
Fisk 377 97.61 8.99 9.56 94.0%
Colavito 92 100.00 6.99 7.45 93.8%
Carew 248 98.39 8.38 8.97 93.4%
Clemente 181 97.79 7.97 8.56 93.1%
Sutter 93 92.47 8.90 9.57 93.0%
Killebrew 160 96.88 7.60 8.31 91.5%
Mattingly 770 89.08 8.75 9.69 90.3%
Murphy, D 428 92.99 8.52 9.49 89.8%
Santo 126 96.83 6.66 7.46 89.3%
Mays 228 91.23 7.29 8.25 88.4%
Hrbek 204 87.25 8.43 9.64 87.4%
Munson 74 91.89 7.99 9.20 86.8%
Palmer 151 91.39 7.89 9.10 86.7%
Butler 93 81.72 7.88 9.14 86.2%
Stargell 145 95.17 7.41 8.62 86.0%
Bench 227 92.95 7.64 8.95 85.4%
Perry 110 89.09 7.33 8.67 84.5%
Cash 69 95.65 6.83 8.08 84.5%
Winfield 379 85.22 8.10 9.66 83.9%
McCovey 114 94.74 7.12 8.50 83.8%
Carlton 244 88.11 7.87 9.40 83.7%
Oliva 72 93.06 7.10 8.52 83.3%
Gibson 105 91.43 7.12 8.56 83.2%
Jackson 323 93.81 7.76 9.42 82.4%
Puckett 605 87.60 7.89 9.63 81.9%
Aaron 268 90.67 6.98 8.52 81.9%
Brett 559 85.87 7.78 9.53 81.6%
Carter 265 83.40 7.87 9.67 81.4%
Spahn 67 98.51 7.21 8.93 80.7%
Williams, T. 125 83.20 7.06 8.82 80.0%
Dawson 279 80.65 7.74 9.69 79.9%
Robinson, B. 122 84.43 6.86 8.60 79.8%
Blyleven 140 78.57 7.49 9.42 79.5%
Robinson, F 130 84.62 6.75 8.59 78.6%
Brock 103 94.17 6.93 8.83 78.5%
Niekro 126 88.89 7.19 9.22 78.0%
Mantle 198 91.92 6.31 8.10 77.9%
Boggs 564 81.91 7.20 9.29 77.5%
Clark 312 81.41 7.41 9.61 77.1%
Kaat 68 83.82 6.60 8.60 76.7%
Musial 44 95.45 6.52 8.57 76.1%
Kingman 90 82.22 7.36 9.68 76.0%
Kaline 184 85.33 6.20 8.18 75.8%
Hunter 130 93.08 6.98 9.21 75.8%
Fingers 96 88.54 7.10 9.37 75.8%
Feller 51 98.04 5.89 7.85 75.0%
Seaver 260 93.46 7.11 9.53 74.6%
Banks 93 92.47 6.31 8.50 74.2%
Clemens 1625 74.40 6.70 9.07 73.9%
Berra 64 81.25 6.19 8.50 72.8%
Williams B 86 82.56 6.16 8.49 72.6%
Morgan 146 78.08 6.17 8.68 71.1%
Molitor 427 71.43 6.70 9.51 70.5%
Hernandez 131 72.52 6.50 9.29 70.0%
Drysdale 90 93.33 5.72 8.23 69.5%
Murray 399 71.68 6.56 9.59 68.4%
Guidry 89 64.04 6.49 9.64 67.3%
Ripken 2267 64.76 5.92 8.91 66.4%
Gwynn 1603 73.61 5.75 8.74 65.8%
Smith, O 439 74.94 6.32 9.61 65.8%
Sandberg 555 73.33 6.21 9.47 65.6%
Yastrzemski 246 83.33 5.35 8.35 64.1%
Maris 77 88.31 4.65 7.38 63.0%
Mazeroski 70 81.43 5.09 8.41 60.5%
Henderson 692 61.42 5.58 9.50 58.7%
McGwire 2697 61.88 5.00 8.68 57.6%
Gossage 99 62.63 5.25 9.31 56.4%
Sutton 129 68.99 5.12 9.30 55.1%


Sorry I could not figure out how to make this more legible and still get the data in without retyping everything.

GDM67

Dave Cryer's Phil Niekro set used to have a higher completion percentage. I've added four cards to the composite since he retired his set.

scotgreb

Being a lifelong Clemente fan, I am highly partial but Andy Skrabalak's Clemente Master is exceptional.

It gets my vote as "best of the best".

mcholke

I just did a quick look at the Hall of Fame sets listing and only noted two Baseball Master sets having achieved HOF status: Mike Schmidt and Pete Rose sets. I was very impressed with the Ryan set with over 1,500 cards and almost complete. I noted of master sets consisting of over 100 cards, only two sets were at 100% complete, Koufax and Perez. I would be interested in other best of the bests thoughts.

Planemonkey

Thank you for including Catfish Hunter in your list, I put it together in about a year, but I am selling off my collection on ebay under my username yr_of_the_mnky ... sorry for the spam... I am moving to California and trying to raise cash for the trip.