Dave Studeman at The Hardball Times ranks the top 40 pitchers of all time, according to Win Shares Above Bench since 1900.

Three Cubs show up on the list (only including those who played at least a significant portion of their career with the Cubs): Greg Maddux (#8); Mordecai Brown (#13); and Ferguson Jenkins (#23).

Walter Johnson is, of course, number 1, which reminds me of the wonderful biography of Johnson written by his grandson Henry Thomas, Walter Johnson: Baseball's Big Train.

A few items of interest:

• FanGraphs has some exciting plans: real time(!) Win Probability data for all big league games in 2007 and a minor league stats database. I, for one, am looking forward to a historical minor league stats site less cluttered than the incomparable (at this time) The Baseball Cube.

• In other site happenings, Phil Bencomo of the underappreciated Cubbiepalooza has joined Derek Smart at Cub Town, forging a well worth reading duo.

• I received The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2007 for Christmas and am now in the process of enjoying reading it. Rog G. of The Cub Reporter gives us "Ten Things" he's learned from the book that will give you a glimpse of how good it is.