The best baseball players born on Oct. 16

Who are the best players born on each day of the year? We have a list for every day on the calendar.

Here’s a subjective ranking of the top five for Oct. 16.

1) Bryce Harper (1992)
On a Friday night back in May 2011, 18-year-old Bryce Harper -- hitting a cool .390 for the Class A Hagerstown Suns -- held court with a small group of reporters who made the trek to Lakewood on the Jersey Shore.

At one point, Harper was asked if anything about his transition to Minor League ball had been harder than he thought it would be.

"Not much," Harper deadpanned.

For that matter ... had anything in his life been harder than he thought it would be?

"No, not really," Harper said without missing a beat. "It's just baseball. You just have to go out and have fun and play."

Make no mistake, this matter-of-factness wasn't arrogance, he was simply telling it like it was. Along with his prodigious talents on the baseball field, Harper has always had the ability to stay above the fray -- very necessary for someone who has been in the spotlight since being dubbed baseball's LeBron James by Sports Illustrated at 16 years old.

With that kind of buildup, it's very difficult to expect Harper to have lived up to expectations. And yet, there isn't much he hasn't done. Harper was a slam-dunk No. 1 overall pick, tore up the Minor Leagues, was called up to the Nationals expediently and won NL Rookie of the Year in 2012. Three years later, he had one of the finest seasons in recent memory en route to his first MVP award; he repeated the feat in 2021. He won the Home Run Derby in his final year in Washington as the fans chanted, "Let's go Bryce!"

This isn't to say it has indeed always been easy. Harper was unable to get the Nationals to the promised land, left for Philadelphia with a record contract and saw his former squad win it all the following season. He's been criticized for not hustling enough then immediately got injured by, well, hustling; he's dealt with clown questions and unwritten rule gatekeepers. He was beaned in the face and won the MVP anyway.

Amid all that, we've all watched Harper grow up like a baseball Truman Show. He's got a wife and two kids. He's active in the community. He loves his fans. Many originally expected Harper to be an antihero, but instead they got a great player and a likable dude.

Harper surpassed 40 WAR and 250 homers before he turned 30, and his deal with the Phillies runs through 2031; judging by his MVP season in 2021 and him leading Philadelphia to the Fall Classic in '22, there's plenty of thunder left in his bat. If he keeps playing at a high level, the Hall of Fame will absolutely be in play. And you know someone as competitive and driven as Harper still has a World Series title firmly in his sights.

Even for someone whose first decade in the sport was so consequential, for Bryce Harper, the best may still be yet to come.

2) Goose Goslin (1900)
A natural talent known for swinging himself out of his socks like Babe Ruth, Goose Goslin is for now the only Hall of Famer -- for baseball, at least -- born on Oct. 16. Goslin won two World Series titles, most notably hitting a walk-off single to clinch Detroit's first championship in franchise history. (Somehow, there's footage of it!) He also hit .316 for his career and drove in 100-plus runs 12 times.

Besides being an excellent player -- if overshadowed by contemporaries like Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Ty Cobb -- Goslin was a certified character. Among his quirks, he grew up on a farm and strengthened his body by milking cows, he attempted to use a zebra-striped bat (umps wouldn't allow it), and he once badly injured his collarbone throwing a shot put for a half-hour straight with a high school track team. How good was this dude? He still hit .379 that year.

3) Tim McCarver (1941)
A solid backstop who enjoyed a 21-season career, McCarver was better known for his broadcast career, which was excellent. But that shouldn't take away from what he did on the field. McCarver was not a star, but was widely respected, at his peak making two All-Star teams and finishing second in the voting for the 1967 NL MVP. (Orlando Cepeda finished first, while Roberto Clemente finished third. Good company!)

But broadcasting was his true calling, as McCarver won six Emmy awards and was widely regarded as one of the best doing it. As McCarver told the Boston Globe in 2003, as good as he was, it was still a unique challenge: “I was nervous, very nervous. Broadcasting a World Series was not even close to playing in one. ... From a player’s standpoint you think you know about 85 percent of the game. Then you go upstairs and find out you’re wrong about that.”

4) Kevin McReynolds (1959)
On a loud team in a loud city, McReynolds was known for being near totally quiet while serving as one of the cornerstones of the late-80s/early 90s Mets, annually hitting his 20-something homers and playing a solid left field. A steady contributor, McReynolds did have his high points. He finished third for the NL MVP in 1988 -- ironically splitting votes with teammate Darryl Strawberry, paving the way for Kirk Gibson to win. In the process, McReynolds -- hardly regarded as a speed demon -- set a record with 21 steals without being caught. Memorably, he also won both ends of a doubleheader with home runs.

5) Dave DeBusschere (1940)
DeBusschere was an NBA Hall of Famer, a two-time champion with the New York Knicks and made the NBA's list of the top 50 players of all time. So what is he doing on this list? Well, DeBusschere also played professional baseball, and at one time he had a bright enough future as a pitcher that the White Sox protected him from the Minor League draft, losing future back-to-back Cy Young Award winner Denny McLain in the process. DeBusschere did pitch well during his brief time in the Majors and Minors, and it's tempting to wonder what could have been had he picked baseball, or if he kept trying to pursue both sports. But given how his hoops career ended up, one has to think he had zero regrets about his decision.

Others of note

Art Devlin (1879)
No less than Grantland Rice named Devlin as the third baseman on his All-Time Giants team -- Matt Williams was a bit after his time -- and he was considered to be the best of his era in the field. Devlin, who played football at Georgetown and coached the NC State team before his baseball career, didn't possess much power, but he used his speed to great effect, once leading the Majors with 59 steals.

Jonathan Schoop (1991)
One of just 17 Major Leaguers from Curaçao as of the end of the 2024 season, Schoop was once a hotshot prospect for the Orioles who settled in as a steady infielder with pop for multiple teams. His high point -- unless you count his exploits in the Little League World Series -- was the 2017 season, when he hit 32 homers for the Orioles, made the All-Star team and got down-ballot MVP votes.

Dave Sisler (1931)
The son of Hall of Famer George Sisler, Dave didn't reach his father's heights, but he carved out a nice career as a serviceable pitcher. The sort of guy who's naturally good at everything, Dave Sisler starred at Princeton in both baseball and basketball, and then had a good run as a vice chairman for investment firm A.G. Richards after his playing career.

George Strief (1856)
Strief wasn't a particularly notable player -- he hit .208 in five seasons and his -1.6 WAR ranked last of any player born on Oct. 16. He then retired and became a police officer. But every dog has his day, and for Strief, that day was June 25, 1885, when he became one of just two players in history to hit four triples in a game. (The other was fellow turn-of-the-century player Bill Joyce.)

Want to see more baseball birthdays for Oct. 16? Find the complete list on Baseball Reference.