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Cross-Sport · Era-Adjusted

Cross-Sport Era-Adjusted Seasons

Every sport now has an era-translated single-season board — “what would this year look like today?” Put them on one shelf and a question follows: whose season stood the furthest above everyone around them? We rank by z — robust standard deviations above the player's own era's positional peers — the one dominance measure that means the same thing whether you played forward in 1996 or running back in 1990.

Each season is z-scored against its own (season, position-group) peer distribution (robust: median & IQR, so outliers don't inflate the bucket) and re-projected onto the group's most-recent rated season. The translated value is within-sport currency and is never compared across sports; only the z is. Thin peer buckets are floored out so an early, sparsely-populated season can never mint a fabricated cross-sport rank. One honest caveat: z is normalized withineach sport's positional peer groups, and sports with finer position granularity (the NFL especially) tend to produce sharper z-tails — so the very top skews toward football. z is the most comparable axis that exists across sports, not a claim that one sport's ceiling is objectively higher. NFL rides its z-native era-adjusted board; NBA, NHL, and MLB ride theirs. MLS is absent — its value model isn't VAL-based, so there is no honest z to place it on this axis.

Dominance Twins

Seasons that stood equally far above their own eras — near-identical z, different games. The shared z-axis makes the comparison honest: this is what “equally dominant across sports” actually looks like.

  • Derrick Thomas 1991NFLz=5.63
    ≈ as dominant as
    Babe Ruth 1924MLBz=5.27
    z gap 0.36
  • Myles Garrett 2025NFLz=5.51
    ≈ as dominant as
    Ted Williams 1946MLBz=5.16
    z gap 0.35
  • Barry Sanders 1990NFLz=5.29
    ≈ as dominant as
    Babe Ruth 1923MLBz=4.90
    z gap 0.39
  • Mike Quick 1983NFLz=5.26
    ≈ as dominant as
    Rogers Hornsby 1924MLBz=4.85
    z gap 0.41

Showing 50 of 250 seasons. Ranked by z— robust standard deviations above the player's own era's positional peers. The translated value (→) is that standing re-expressed in the sport's modern currency and is within-sport only; z is the one axis comparable across sports.

  1. 1nflDerrick Thomas1991 · LB5.63
  2. 2nflMyles Garrett2025 · DL5.51
  3. 3nflJared Allen2011 · DL5.47
  4. 4nflBarry Sanders1990 · RB5.29
  5. 5mlbBabe Ruth1924 · BAT5.27
  6. 6nflMike Quick1983 · WR5.26
  7. 7nflShannon Sharpe1996 · TE5.22
  8. 8nflShannon Sharpe1994 · TE5.17
  9. 9mlbTed Williams1946 · BAT5.16
  10. 10nflTerrell Davis1998 · RB5.11
  11. 11nflChandler Jones2017 · DL4.95
  12. 12nflWesley Walls1996 · TE4.95
  13. 13nflBarry Sanders1997 · RB4.93
  14. 14mlbBabe Ruth1923 · BAT4.90
  15. 15nflBen Coates1996 · TE4.89
  16. 16mlbRogers Hornsby1924 · BAT4.85
  17. 17nflBen Coates1994 · TE4.84
  18. 18nflJustin Tuck2008 · DL4.84
  19. 19nflCharles White1987 · RB4.79
  20. 20nflJason Gildon1998 · LB4.77
  21. 21nflRandy Moss2003 · WR4.77
  22. 22nflJunior Seau1991 · LB4.74
  23. 23nflCooper Kupp2021 · WR4.64
  24. 24nflTony Gonzalez2003 · TE4.62
  25. 25mlbTed Williams1942 · BAT4.60
  26. 26nflEmmitt Smith1991 · RB4.55
  27. 27mlbBabe Ruth1927 · BAT4.52
  28. 28mlbBabe Ruth1926 · BAT4.50
  29. 29nflTony Gonzalez2004 · TE4.49
  30. 30mlbLou Gehrig1927 · BAT4.47
  31. 31nflAntonio Gates2004 · TE4.40
  32. 32nflTorry Holt2003 · WR4.40
  33. 33mlbTommy Holmes1945 · BAT4.38
  34. 34mlbWalter Johnson1918 · PITCH4.38
  35. 35nflBarry Sanders1991 · RB4.36
  36. 36nflTravis Kelce2022 · TE4.34
  37. 37mlbRogers Hornsby1922 · BAT4.34
  38. 38mlbStan Musial1948 · BAT4.31
  39. 39nflBen Coates1995 · TE4.29
  40. 40nflFrank Wycheck1996 · TE4.29
  41. 41nflTravis Kelce2018 · TE4.28
  42. 42nflCarlos Carson1983 · WR4.27
  43. 43nflJimmy Graham2013 · TE4.27
  44. 44nflRodney Holman1989 · TE4.27
  45. 45mlbAaron Judge2022 · BAT4.27
  46. 46mlbBabe Ruth1921 · BAT4.27
  47. 47nflEdgerrin James1999 · RB4.25
  48. 48nflLaDainian Tomlinson2007 · RB4.25
  49. 49nhlJaromir Jagr1996 · SKATER4.25
  50. 50mlbBabe Ruth1928 · BAT4.25