Quote:
Originally Posted by rats60
I don't think he was as good as Mays, Mantle, Williams, Clemente, etc. I don't see his cards ever equalling those players' values.
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Best yardstick for me for comparing players across different eras and conditions of play, at least from the standpoint of offensive production, is Bill James' runs created vs league runs created per 27 outs. It is much more detailed than OPS+. By that criterion, Williams was far and away the best, at 250% for his career (Ruth was at 240%, by the way), and Mantle is the only other one of those you have named over 200% (right around 215%, as I recall). Mays and Aaron were both in the 180% range, with a small advantage to Mays, with Clemente far, far, far behind at 142%. Overall, of course, Clemente would make up some of the difference with his glove and arm, but nowhere near enough to even begin to compete with the others. All of them except Williams were outstanding fielders, with Mays arguably the best CF of all time. Mays and Aaron fall significantly behind Mantle by this yardstick because they consistently made 60-70 more outs than he did to get pretty much the same production--never underestimate the value of a player who, like Williams and Mantle, draw an outstanding number of walks--plate discipline, coupled with dangerous power, makes for a lot of walks and hence runs scored. Check out Williams and Mantle's runs scored totals (with Williams, especially before he went off to Korea in 1952--120, 130, 140--and this from a guy who certainly no one would have called fast). See also Ralph Kiner--six seasons of more than 100 runs scored due to drawing tremendous amounts of walks from a guy who really had no speed to speak of--just plate discipline and tremendous power (led NL in HR's seven consecutive seasons, and major leagues in HR's 6 times, hitting over 50 HR's twice, and drawing as many as 137 walks).
Just my thoughts,
Larry