I am not trying to antagonize you; I am actually just looking for more information by which to compare them. You’re a smart guy and a good writer and while I don’t always agree with the delivery, you put many worthy points to consider in your posts.
In these thought experiments I agree that it’s hard to add fairly to Joe D to get to Mickey but I thought taking away time at common points from Mickey might create a more level ground by which the evaluate them.
I think for many of the best players, ages 27-30 tends to produce some of the best seasons of a career and Mickey is no exception. Hard to think Joe puts up three clunkers with the seasons that bookended it, you know?
I don’t think it’s a stretch to concede that Joseph Paul DiMaggio would have been a credible major league baseball player in 1934-35. The league was a step below the bigs BUT was comprised of many future and former major leaguers, founded only two years after the AL and at the time Joe played only two clubs had any affiliation with Major League teams. Since there was no MLB team west of St. Louis until the Dodgers moved to California in 1959, this was where the best players on the left coast began their careers. In his first full season he had a 61 game hitting steak and the next season batted . 398 with 154 runs batted in and 34 home runs. His team won the 1935 PCL title, and DiMaggio was named the league's Most Valuable Player.
Any guy like that can contribute to a major league team in some way and with the benefit of hindsight, I feel like it’s a mistake to call this an ‘if’...
Oh, I know you weren't being antagonistic and it was not my intent to be, either. The much shorter version of my objection to your theory is that while I agree that it is reasonable to give DiMaggio credit for (a) his PCL years, (b) his war years, and (c) his first few post-war years, the adjustments required are so substantial in each case, requiring DiMaggio to perform better in his hypothetical years than he ever did in his actual years, that I'm just not willing to go there.
Mantle, in the four years in question, was considerably worse than in the four years before them; i.e., he peaked earlier than normal. Did DiMaggio peak in 1941, at about the same age Mantle peaked? Your theory, if the result is to be that DiMaggio was as good as Mantle, requires us to assume the answer is "no", that DiMaggio still had his best years ahead of him and was robbed of them by the war.
Consider: if Mantle had gone to war at the same ages as DiMaggio, your theory would credit him with performance at 27-30 better than he actually did and there would be no way DiMaggio could possibly catch him. In fact, Mantle would pass Ruth, so the comparison wold really be moot. So add that to my objections: DiMaggio is getting significantly more credit for not playing than Mantle gets for playing.
But, just to make sure this is perfectly clear, I am not saying you're wrong. I am saying that the number of assumptions required, and the magnitude of the impact of those assumptions, is just too much for me. The Dickie Thon remark earlier was not snarky; Thon was a great player at 24-25 and hitters (especially shortstops) with numbers like his at 24-25 usually go on to the HOF. All we have to "if" away is the beaning he got at the start of the 1984 season. If Thon doesn't get hit in the head by a pitch in 1984, he probably goes on to the HOF. I think that's a true statement, but I am not going to declare Thon better than Jim Fregosi, for example, because the hypothetical credit required is just too great.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
Comments
Oh, I know you weren't being antagonistic and it was not my intent to be, either. The much shorter version of my objection to your theory is that while I agree that it is reasonable to give DiMaggio credit for (a) his PCL years, (b) his war years, and (c) his first few post-war years, the adjustments required are so substantial in each case, requiring DiMaggio to perform better in his hypothetical years than he ever did in his actual years, that I'm just not willing to go there.
Mantle, in the four years in question, was considerably worse than in the four years before them; i.e., he peaked earlier than normal. Did DiMaggio peak in 1941, at about the same age Mantle peaked? Your theory, if the result is to be that DiMaggio was as good as Mantle, requires us to assume the answer is "no", that DiMaggio still had his best years ahead of him and was robbed of them by the war.
Consider: if Mantle had gone to war at the same ages as DiMaggio, your theory would credit him with performance at 27-30 better than he actually did and there would be no way DiMaggio could possibly catch him. In fact, Mantle would pass Ruth, so the comparison wold really be moot. So add that to my objections: DiMaggio is getting significantly more credit for not playing than Mantle gets for playing.
But, just to make sure this is perfectly clear, I am not saying you're wrong. I am saying that the number of assumptions required, and the magnitude of the impact of those assumptions, is just too much for me. The Dickie Thon remark earlier was not snarky; Thon was a great player at 24-25 and hitters (especially shortstops) with numbers like his at 24-25 usually go on to the HOF. All we have to "if" away is the beaning he got at the start of the 1984 season. If Thon doesn't get hit in the head by a pitch in 1984, he probably goes on to the HOF. I think that's a true statement, but I am not going to declare Thon better than Jim Fregosi, for example, because the hypothetical credit required is just too great.
Because every good thread needs a hot dog vendor.