Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, DiMaggio - What order?
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In an attempt to get an enjoyable discussion to the correct forum, I'm linking from December pickups to here via the last post...
@KendallCat said:
>
Joe D was a great player but numbers wise he is far behind Ruth and Gehrig. He was impossible to strike out, and like Ted Williams he missed 3 prime years due to serving in the military for WW2 - they don’t make them like they used to and he should be revered for his service to our country along with many others. Having said that Teddy Ballgame put up crazy numbers, and besides his WW2 service he also missed several other seasons due to Korea and injury. His career numbers would have been insane, and would have hit 700 Hr’s and owned the all time RBI mark by a large margin. Not to mention his walks each season cost him a ton of hits, RBI, and Hr’s. Check his numbers some time and also Ruth and Gehrig’s by season - truly amazing.
I wouldn’t dispute a thing you said; I would only add this: being born on the left coast didn’t help Joe Di either as there’s a good chance that he’d have made the majors earlier had he been born out East.
It was a different time (the Cubs passed on him in part because they couldn’t get someone to go see him!) and he likely missed one or two years at the beginning of his career when he was youngest and healthiest. I'm going to be generous here and say that’s 5 years lost (for the math to come). That takes it from a 13 year career to an 18 year career. Now, I hear about ‘adding stats on for the war years’ all the time for guys like Bob Feller and Ted Williams but rarely for Joe. (Perhaps because he doesn’t really need it?). While I will always believe statistics are just a small piece in player evaluations and comparisons, since I can do basic math, his career stats, with average seasons* added on go from:
1390 R, 361 HR, 1537 RBI
...to something like:
1955 R, 508 HR, 2159 RBI
...which would have given him totals that were in right around what Lou Gehrig (16 seasons) and Mickey Mantle (18 seasons) had accrued.
And it just serves to further my point; Joe DiMaggio is kind of underrated because of today's emphasis on stats; the man only played 13 seasons.
*For the purposes of the 'numbers above', I took Joe's 162 game averages (they played 154 games then, but whatever) and then multiplied that by the percentage of the Yankees games that he played in in his 13 years (1736 games of 2002 is 87 percent).
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Comments
Mantle
Gehrig
Joe D
a bunch more
ruth (way over rated)
Joe D, Gehrig, Mantle, Ruth
I certainly agree that DiMaggio is extremely underrated. Most of the players who had good to great power were not (in the end) great hitters for average.
Mantle, Mays, Aaron and most of the 500 HR guys were all either below or just at .300 DiMaggio averaged almost as many HR as Mantle but hit 27 points higher. Joe D was also a SUPERB fielder and baserunner, a true 5 tool guy.
My list;
Ruth
DiMaggio
Mantle
Gehrig
I took all around ability as opposed to just hitting. Gehrig gets hurt because he played 1st base.
Babe Ruth OPS 1.164 OVERRATED? We all know he was a good, if not great pitcher as well.
Based just on hitting;
Ruth
Gehrig
DiMaggio
Mantle
I also did not "penalize" Ruth and Gehrig for their era or consider Joe's missing time or Mantle's injuries. To do so would be guessing.
Ruth overrated....................just wow.
I agree that missing seasons due to WWII should most definitely be considered when evaluating players.
Joe missed three years due to the war. You stated he missed two more due to being out west. He played his first full season at age 21. That is a pretty young start as it is. Not sure it is a good bet to assume he should have played at age 19 and 20 as a full time player and at full production similar to his prime. That is probably a little bit of a stretch.
What really 'hurt' his career totals(aside from the war years) was he retired at age 36. The guys like Williams, Mays, and Aaron played productively into their 40's. Joe's last season was clearly his worst season of his career.
Shouldn't Gehrig's disease be considered in the same vein though? He clearly had a lot left in the tank and then got a debilitating disease that forced him to retire... and then die soon after.
My take on the initial question is if we are talking about in their prime, then Mantle was the best in his prime in both production value and physical tools which is unmatched in history. We've had lengthy discussion on that in the past. Nobody provided enough evidence to refute it or cause me to alter that view...so I'm sticking with it
Peak wise:
Mantle
Ruth
Dimaggio
Gehrig.
Career wise:
Ruth
Then the other three is pretty hard to separate.
Dieman, there can be a case made that Ruth was overrated. I don't think that is as far fetched as many would initially think. We've had good threads on that stuff on here before. I don't have it in me to do it again, lol.
Are you saying my fake numbers are off?
Maybe two is a stretch - I was just going off a guy like Bob Feller (same time frame) who had the word spread quickly - before out of high school. Joe’s PCL numbers are insane and while not the MLB it was a pro league. He may not have posted the same numbers but some numbers in my made up scenario. Maybe balanced with the inflated stats of 3 prime years he end up with 5 average ones? Not going to spend much time on stats let alone fake ones.
And I’m not making the case for DiMaggio as much as making a case that a case could be made.
You’re not wrong on Gehrig but for the purposes of discussion I just felt like a 16 year career was a fair representation - his tragedy certainbhurt his overall numbers too.
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I am not sure how Ruth can be overrated as he also carried a 2.28 era through 1200 innings and had a cy young quality year in 16 (had they given out the award then)
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Ruth
Mantle
Dimaggio
Gehrig
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Ruth
Gehrig
Mantle
DiMagio
Ruth - great power, high average (lifetime .342) and on top of that a great pitcher. Revolutionized the game.
Gehrig - Second on the list for grand slam home runs, behind A-Rod, who took drugs. Power and average .343
Mantle - Very fast runner, hit with power, stayed around to too long and ended up hitting less than .300 for lifetime average, but played in an era when averages were lower than the first two. Played in a lot of pain which may have limited his stats.
DiMagio - Power, batting average, graceful fielder, but did not put up numbers that are equal to the first two. Also the least liakeble person among the four.
BUT ... You left out Willy Mays who ranks with all of these guys
This is the correct order. Ruth and Gehrig’s numbers will crush DiMaggio’s numbers no matter what metric is used. Nothing against Joe D, but look up Ruth’s or Gehrig’s numbers on mlb.com on a season by season basis and you could argue they are the best of all time. While you are at it check out Jimmy Foxx’s numbers as well 😳 All of them had great careers, and that is what makes baseball so fun - using numbers to decide who is the best!
1951Wheatiespremium,
Fake numbers were fine.
Funny you mentioned Feller. If that same exercise is done with the 3 and 3/4 seasons Feller missed due to WWII.
Career wins and strikeouts as it stands:
266 wins and 2581 strikeouts
He averaged 25 wins per year and 266 strikeouts per season in the two seasons before the war and the two seasons after.
Giving him just 80% of those average seasons to fill in his missing 3 3/4 lost war years, his career totals would look like:
342 wins
3,379 strikeouts.
He would currently be top ten in both those categories all time.
I agree with Bill Jones.....the best 5 tool player ever has to be Mays followed by Mantle.
Ruth didn't face the pitching these other guys did and probably ran a 15.4 40...….hence very over rated.
And Bob Feller would have been the first guy to tell you that, too!
He was a fan favorite and very confident and signed anything and everything for a buck.
There’s an old joke that unsigned Bob Feller cards are worth more than signed Bob Feller cards because they’re more rare.
The heater from Van Meter.
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And just like most people picture old $1 bill George Washington when they think of the first president, most people think of fat old Babe Ruth. Here’s a shot of him in 1920 when he first came to the Yankees:
Now, he may not have washboard abs but he’s hardly a fat guy either. Rather, he was a actually a very good athlete. As many already know, it’s hard to be both poor and fat. He ate (and overate) once he made it because he said he wanted to make sure he would never feel hunger again. For the bulk of his career, he was in fairly good shape, could run well and had a solid arm (that of a former ace pitcher). At the end of his career, as his lifestyle caught up to him he began to resemble the big fat guy that he is often portrayed as - 1933 Goudey, as an example, being near the very end.
Amazing that he was just 53.
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Their 162 games averages from baseball-reference.com:
Player (R-HR-RBI-K-AVG and OBP/SLG/OPS)
Ruth...........141-46-143-86-.342 and .474/.690/1.164
Gehrig.......141-40-149-59-.340 and .447/.632/1.080
Mantle.......113-36-102-115-.298 and .421/.557/.977
DiMaggio...130-34-143-34-.325 and .398/.579/.977
Just offering them. No conclusions to draw but your own.
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Ruth, Mantle, Gehrig, DiMaggio
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
Just saying in today's game I would take all of these mentioned over Ruth in a heartbeat. They all would hit better, run better and I couldn't afford Ruth on defense.
My rankings would look like this:
1) Ruth/Mantle (tie)
3) Gehrig
Distant 4th) Dimaggio
You should have been Harry Frazee’s public relations guy back in 1919. You could have gotten him off the hook with the Boston fans ... until the 1920 season started when he hit 54 homers and batted .375.
Just don't see how you can put Mickey above Joe D. A walk is not as good as a hit. ;-) Note the SLG
Ruth
.
Mantle
.
.
Gehrig
.
.
.
.
DiMaggio
(with proportional spacing)
That's how I rank them pretty much however you weight peak and career value. I think you would have to give DiMaggio credit for having much better seasons in 1943-1945 than he had in 1942 or 1946 to even get him into the conversation with the other three, and I don't think that's reasonable. Joe D. was a great player, but his comparables are Mel Ott, Frank Robinson and Eddie Mathews, not Ruth, Mantle and Gehrig.
And what, exactly, will it take to put an end to this nonsense? Maybe a short list of the people who hit fewer triples than Babe Ruth:
Pete Rose
Vada Pinson
Tim Raines
Rod Carew
Explain to me how hitting triples in Yankee Stadium in the 1920's was a piece of cake for a man who was slow as molasses or stop posting this inane crap about Ruth being slow. He. Was. Not. Slow. Other than films of Ruth in his late 30's taking a slow home run trot, what is your basis for calling him slow?
It is difficult to accurately compare players from different eras. You play against who your opponent happens to be. You strategize according to who your opponent is. Great players don't always swing for the fences. Sometimes they need to hit to the right to advance a runner. Sometimes it is important to take a base on balls or just get on base somehow. It is a bit easier to have an opinion as to who is best between Mays, Aaron, Mantle and a few other greats from that era as they played during the same years. Of course they played in different Leagues and faced different pitchers. That being said my opinion which is based on how he fared against his contemporaries is
1. Ruth
.
.
.
.
2. Pick em
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Ralph
Ruth was much more athletic than most give him credit for. everyone has the end of career vision of him. Funny that so many remember Prime Willie Mays and place that over the image of 1973 Mays, but they dont do that with Ruth. With Ruth's Pitching value, I just dont see how anyone can place the other three over him.
After reading Dallas' post and reviewing the stats, I agree, Gehrig was better that DiMaggio.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Except offense was much higher in the 30's than it was in the 60's...hence the ease to achieve high batting averages, on base percentages, and slugging percentages. That is a very large factor. If you batted .280 in 1936, you were BELOW AVERAGE. In 1930, if you hit .295 you were BELOW AVERAGE. It was simply easier to get a hit then, compared to 20-40 years later.
For instance, Dimaggio had a higher slugging percentage than Mantle, but Mantle led the league four times compared to Dimaggio's two.
Mantle was in the top five in Slugging percentage 11 times. Dimaggio 10.
It is correct to say that walk is not as good as a hit. It is indefensible to say otherwise. However, it is just as indefensible to ignore the value of the walk...which is apporximately 2/3 the value of a single. When the value of the walk is included, and only ignorance or bias would not include it, then Mantle's value rises much higher than Dimaggio.
Mantle was in the top five in OB% 11 times. Dimaggio only 3.
Also, Mantle was the fastest player in the league, and when he was not the fastest, he would reside in the five or ten fastest...until the last few years of his career.
If you give the proper value of each walk, single, double, triple, home run, out made, etc...which is what batter runs does, then you get:
Mantle 859 adjusted batter runs for era and park.
Dimaggio 422 adjusted for era and park
Even if you add three years due to the war for dimaggio; he had 36 batter runs the season before the war and 27 the season after the war. That still would not bring him close.
You are 100% correct.
This particular discussion - started by me - was specifically about the Four Greatest Yankees and how DiMaggio often seems to be listed as the 4th.
One other thing I wanted to mention (and someone else can fact check me, please, to get the details):
Joe DiMaggio, for most of his public appearances, was introduced as the ‘Greatest Living Baseball Player’ just about everywhere he went - it was basically a condition of his appearing. I often thought this was a very vain thing and almost too arrogant at times. Then I found out the truth.
Around 1969, the sportswriters of America actually held a vote about this topic - Who is the greatest living ball player? Considering the year and the fact that many, many guys in the discussion for GOAT now were alive and eligible and had played most of their career, it is rather telling that people who had actually seen them all play baseball elected Joe DiMaggio to the position - by a rather wide margin. It is easy to take the stats and go back retroactively and assign value. The leading candidates have their 162 game averages below - for all you stay guys.
As for stats, I shudder to think that someone in the future will call Rafael Palmiero one of the greatest baseball players of all time (when we’re all dead in 100 years) and those future folks will think everyone from our era who saw him play and did not tout his brilliance was an idiot.
Runs
DiMaggio 130
Williams 127
Mantle 113
Mays 112
Robinson 111
Aaron 107
Hits
DiMaggio 207
Williams 188
Aaron 185
Mays 178
Robinson 178
Mantle 163
HRs
Williams 37
Aaron 37
Mays 36
Mantle 36
DiMaggio 34
Robinson 16
RBI
DiMaggio 143
Williams 130
Aaron 113
Mays 103
Mantle 102
Robinson 86
Batting Ave
Williams 0.344
DiMaggio 0.325
Robinson 0.311
Aaron 0.305
Mays 0.302
Mantle 0.298
OB%
Williams 0.482
Mantle 0.421
Robinson 0.409
DiMaggio 0.398
Mays 0.384
Aaron 0.374
Slugging
Williams 0.634
DiMaggio 0.579
Mantle 0.557
Mays 0.557
Aaron 0.555
Robinson 0.474
Total Bases
DiMaggio 368
Williams 345
Aaron 337
Mays 328
Mantle 304
Robinson 271
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Defensive metrics are useless but Mays and DiMaggio, respectively, are widely considered the best two fielders listed there.
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My order of them is meaningless - just the order of the pages as I searched them - so the 'Except' is unnecessary. You are talking to a guy who argues for Mantle as the best hitter of all time so I need no convincing that he outranks Joe. And I do think some of the case you make for Mickey is a bit of a statistical manipulation as excellent statisticians such as yourself are want to do. To me, OBP, SLG, Peak Value, WAR and all the other stuff is just combining and playing with the basic numbers until the list looks the way people want it to look. I think some careful consideration of the 'regular stats', when taken as a whole, give the clearest picture possible of a baseball player, rather than combining them all (and in some instances, giving weight) to create a 'stat' which produces the desired result.
Baseball players hit and run and homer, they don't OBP and OPS, though they do slug in percentage of the times.
While I question none of the math you presented, and I don't have any complex math to back it up myself, intuitively speaking, I think that if you consider Mickey's exceptional walk totals along with his high propensity for striking out and weigh that against DiMaggio's uncanny ability to put the ball in play and never strikeout while generating considerably more hits on average in a season, you get two ball players whose ability to help a team win a baseball game throughout their career are on a remarkably similar level. More than I have ever given it credit for in the past.
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@dallasactuary - First off speed is not what determines triples. It is where the ball is hit and how good the defense is. Ruth could not have played at his level in Mantle and Mays' era and would even do worse in today's game. The game is so much better now and the players are so much better and there are so many players now that are so much better. And the pitching is soooooooo much better.
Well then how about adding in stolen bases to better gauge Ruth's complete lack of speed?
Career
Mantle - 153
Ruth - 123
Gehrig - 102
DiMaggio - 30
Cecil Fielder - 2
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DiMaggio was overrated because he played in New York. This has long been a problem when the sportswriters vote on these things. The New York players get more than their share of publicity, and a disproportionate number of writers work the New York beat.
Williams by far the better hitter. His batting stats are far better. He played in park that was not kind to left handed power hitters. He put up good to great numbers when he was in his late 30s, and he often did not have the quality players around him. The pitchers could more easily pitch around him than was the case with DiMaggio and great teams around him. And to top it off, Williams lost four years in his prime to military service, including his time in Korea, which never should have happened.
DiMaggio came up a couple of years before Williams. He was washed up in 1950. Williams almost hit .400 in 1957. He put up respectable numbers in 1959, the year he retired.
The two advantages DiMaggio had were (1) he was a graceful outfielder; Williams wasn’t. (2) DiMaggio was a star player in New York.
you don't have to run very fast when you hit a Ya Ya
DiMaggio was also one of the fastest and BEST baserunners of his time and a better fielder in Center.
Mantle led the league in SLG more times (using your argument) because it was easier then. Ted Williams, Jimmy Foxx and Hank Greenberg beat Dimaggio from 39-41 when Joe was second. Overall Joe was #2 in SLG 5 times.
You can't have both side of the debate, if offense was so much better in the 30's (DiMaggio's last year of leading the league was in 1950 btw) then it stands to reason that Mickey would have an easier time being a league leader in the 60's (even though he was at his best in the mid to late 50's). These guys careers overlapped, so we are not talking about a big difference of time.
AGAIN OB%, that Mantle dominates, is based on his walks, which has been conceded. in the first half of his career this had some good value for Mickey in the second half not so much. Clean-up hitters are not paid to walk.
Joe also quit right away when he lost his greatness, Mickey hung on for a couple of years, (I know he was still a STUD, I'm tired of arguing about 1967-68). But these were the individual players choices, who knows if Joe could have had a "bounce back" year or two. No one. No one knows if he would have had monster years while in the army either.
Your adjusted for park numbers are simply garbage. Mantle hit roughly 2/3rds of the time from the left side, DiMaggio 100% from the right. Yankee stadium was HUGE in left center and center field in those years, yet DiMaggio out-slugged him. If anything the park was MUCH harder for DiMaggio than for Mantle. Whoever is crunching those numbers is leaving something out!
Mantle was superior in walking, that's it. He was also better at striking out, a stat most of us like to quote a LOT better than you do.
That's what I'm talking about baby!!!!!!!!
Just STOP!
You can not compare those 4 guys to todays hitters. Yes, they were good players for their time, but todays players have to put up with the shifts which takes away from the hitters big time.
If this were a NY popularity contest than Mickey Mantle would have won. He barely moved the needle. DiMaggio blew everyone away in the vote. Everyone.
Ted Williams was a great hitter. Better than Joe DiMaggio 'by far' is a bit of a stretch in my humble opinion though I can live with better. 'The war years' and 'playing in a park that stymied their power' applies to both men since each lost about 25% of their prime to war and Yankee Stadium basically did to righties what Fenway does to lefties. I also think glossing over playing an excellent outfield is unfair. If I am playing a game of baseball (not running a simulation) and have two great hitters and one guy is the best defensive centerfielder in baseball and the other isn't capable of much more than loafing around left field until his next at bat, there is no difficulty in that decision - if I am playing to win the game.
And again, with real baseball games in mind, it's also worth pointing this out (which the stat guys hate and jump all over):
If Ted Williams had swung at a few more pitches outside the zone at the expense of his batting average and all those glorious walking trips to first base while also playing a little harder in the field, then maybe the Red Sox may have hung a few banners in those 86 empty years between 1918 and 2004.
But hey, great batting average and OPS. They hang banners for that, too, right?
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Red Sox (1914 - age 19)
Yankees (1925 - age 30)
Boston Braves (1935 - age 40)
First half of your post is SPOT ON. Williams was a better hitter than DiMaggio, I would not say "by far" but he was better.
DiMaggio was regarded as the second best hitter and BEST overall player (I'll throw in a "by far" here) in the major leagues. He excelled at every aspect of the game. Further it was said he NEVER threw to the wrong base or made a baserunning mistake, also had a great arm.
Not sure about the second half. That was discussed in Ted's day right up until now. One one occasion Ted DID hit the ball down the left field line for his only (I think) inside the park HR and the pennant winning run in a 1-0 ballgame (if memory serves).
It's hard for me to argue with any opinion Ted had on hitting! His response to your theory was that it would start a "bad habit" and make him a worse hitter. His number 1 advice on hitting was "get a good pitch to hit", anything outside the strike zone would then not qualify. Hard to argue with either of you, but I'm going with Teddy Ballgame this time.........sorry!
Correct, they were better than today's hitters. Take away the juicers records and the old timers hold a lions share of the records.
Do a little research. They shifted against Ted Williams and he is still the best (or second best) hitter of all-time.> @galaxy27 said:
Nice photos!
My point, better stated, is that sometimes I wonder if guys like Ted Williams (or a guy like Joey Votto today with a similar approach) put their hitting above the team’s winning.
I completely understand and agree that questioning Ted Williams on hitting is insane. Granted. However, hitting is but one component of the game and the object of playing is to score more runs than the other team and nothing else. Being the best hitter of a fan title and an annual award and does not impact winning and losing one bit.
Sometimes lost in all the confusion of statistics is the simple fact that hits that drive in runs win real baseball games.
For the 162 game average, Joe averaged around 19 more hits and hit around 3 fewer HR than Ted Williams. Ted walked more, Joe struck out less.
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Ruth
Gehrig
Mantle
DiMaggio
@1951WheatiesPremium said.. However, hitting is but one component of the game and the object of playing is to score more runs than the other team and nothing else. Being the best hitter of a fan title and an annual award and does not impact winning and losing one bit.
How can trying to get a hit ever be a bad thing?
Cherry picking.
It’s the approach, @DIMEMAN !!!!
I don’t discount who Ted Williams was as a hitter and that his approach helped to make him what he was.
However, I would prefer a batter coming up to the plate have the attitude ‘I have to do whatever it takes to win this game’ not ‘I have to wait for a good pitch.’
I understand there are people who feel that those two things are mutually exclusive. That you can’t have one without the other.
That’s a fallacy. Plain and simple. Many, many players change their bat grip, stance, choke up, etc. over the course of a career, a season and even an at bat. You make adjustments - minor and major - or at least you should.
And I’ll try to stop the avalanche of ‘why wouldn’t you want a guy to get the best possible hit’ with this concept - every at bat is unique and I don’t always want your best hit. Sometimes I just want contact. I may want a fly ball. I may want you to expand the zone because you own this guy, the guy on the mound owns the guy behind you and we need a run. He’s going to be pitching you carefully and nibbling with four away and you may need to reach and poke one down the line even if it’s a little off the plate.
It’s a game. You have to find ways to win it.
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When you put the ball in play, things happen and Joe rarely struck out.
A fly ball to right that moves a runner from 2nd to 3rd gets very little love in the stat department. But if the next guy singles to drive him in and the game ends 1-0, it’s one of the biggest plays of the game, isn’t it?
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The aversion to putting the team above ‘my’ strike zone is not exclusive to Ted Williams, either. And it doesn’t preclude him from being a fantastic ball player, which he most certainly was. There are plenty of fantastic and even Hall of Fame players who had or have that exact attitude and approach - it helped to make them great.
I prefer, however, the player who values winning above all else - even their own strike zone.
Recognize - Mark Texiera and many other sluggers have quipped ‘The Yankees don’t pay me to bunt’ as their defense for terrible situational hitting. Shame on this who accept the excuse or proliferate this belief.
No, Mark - the Yankees pay you to help the organization win games in any and every way possible.
Lastly, am I the only one who saw Bryce Harper go from one of the better all around hitters in baseball to a guy who almost exclusively swings for the fences? Seriously, I can’t be the only one seeing it.
Approach matters.
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Leave it to a New York guy to bring up Ted Williams and his selfishness, it rarely gets mentioned by anyone but sadly I will admit it’s true. Either way I personally would take Ted Willians over Ruth, Gehrig, Joe D and Mantle.
If it’s any consolation, the 2018 Red Sox may be best recent example I can think of a team that did a fantastic job of ‘doing whatever it takes to win’ as Alex Cora’s baseball intuition often flew directly in the face of sabermetrics and statistical analysis.
Worked out ok.
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Already disproved everything you ever said about walks in other threads and specifically in regard to Mantle and the players behind him etc... Maybe go back and read those threads. I already made every point you made look silly and ridiculous and backed it up. I'm not writing all that again.
Hitters are paid to create runs. Walks create a certain amount of runs, singles a certain amount, etc... You having a 'feeling' on what those are don't mean anything. What they actually are, do mean something.
Putting the ball in play has a value and each and every runner advanced on an out is recorded and accounted for. It is not as much you think.
I do agree on Dimaggio and being righty in Yankee stadium. That does have an effect, but not nearly as much to cover 400 runs in production. That is batter runs.
As for hitting environment, it was simply easier to get hits in the 1930's compared to the 60's. Just like it was easier for pitchers to prevent runs in the deadball era than it is now. Now unless you want to believe that every pitcher in the deadball era with a lower era than Seaver, Drysdale, Pedro are better than them because their ERA's are much lower, then you also understand what i am talking about. However, it is possible you do believe that, so maybe I shouldn't use that as an example, lol.
I'm not manipulating a single statistic. The only manipulation comes from people who assume what each event's value is. A guy who assumes that a single has four times the value of a walk is wrong. The millions of play by play data lays all that out clearly and hitting is a very linear event. There is no room for guess or implies.
A single has a value, a walk has a value, a double, an out made etc... There really isn't any room for opinion in those. Zero. So opinions are meaningless in regard to that.
There is room for opinion on what matters more, peak or career. As for knowing the value of a walk...opinions are useless.
Same for knowing the value of putting hte ball in play. We know exactly how many times Dimaggio advanced a runner with an out. That isn't some mystery. Same for Mantle. We know how many times he did.
In the end, 850 batter runs gives a value that is about 95% precise for Mantle's hitting value, compared to what Dimaggio's was.
And if you don't understand the context of league offense, then consider that scoring three runs in 1966 will produce more wins than scoring three runs in 1936...and that is what matters.
And finally, if you don't understand the value of walks and negate them to irrelevent, go out and coach a team and have your pitcher walk the leadoff hitter every inning since they are meaningless in your book....and see how well you do, lol.
PS. We know the situation of each and every Mantle walk too....so before you say something stupid about that, we already know and valued accordingly, lol
Finally, all this garbage about Dimaggio knowing how to win. If he played on the Washington Senators, then he never would have been to a World Series. He won becasue they had elite teams better than anyone else. Period. He was great and a big part of it...but lets not get carried away with that comp to Ted Williams...all that you said about Williams is just a guess. It has no factual bearing and most likely the opposite is true.
Williams was a far greater fighter/competitor/man than you ever were 1951premiums...and thats why you collect his cards and he never knew you existed...so I highly doubt your intuition is correct in your assessments on his 'approach'.
I myself would blow two heaters by you and your approach and then make you look silly on a slider, lol
For those who say that Babe Ruth was slow, he stole 123 bases in his career. His highest number was 17 in 1921 and 1923. He was not exactly out to beat Ty Cobb's record of 893, but that as one of Cobb's specialties. Ruth hit just 179 fewer home runs than Cobb's stolen base total.
Joe Demaggio stole 30. Stealing bases was not his job, and you stood a chance of getting injured when you tired. Most super stars did not risk it for team success reasons.
Still I don't see where you could call Ruth slow when he was in his prime.
I love the personal attacks. I’m sure in the simulations you run on your computers you are the strike out king!
But what’s your xFIP? LOL!
Curious about the rare, mysterious and beautiful 1951 Wheaties Premium Photos?
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/987963/1951-wheaties-premium-photos-set-registry#latest