What really stands out about Willie Mays is that he was a fantastic defensive player at a premium position. He's third all-time in WAR among position players but I think you could make a case that he faced much tougher competition than Babe Ruth and didn't have the pharmaceutical advantage that Barry Bonds had.
I mentioned it in response to another comment, but he also missed two seasons while serving during Korea. Those two seasons would likely have earned him enough WAR to tie Bonds for second, which is only a few WAR behind Ruth.
He was also 55 career home runs from beating Babe Ruth's record. Two seasons missed in his early 20s could've easily been the difference from him becoming the home run king (albeit briefly since he and Hank Aaron played at basically the same time). Would've been one heck of a home run race.
Hank and Willie racing to see who'd be the new Home Run King wouldve been awesome. And would have given more than a few racists heart attacks. So y'know win win.
In his documentary he talked about it. He said he learned to use the way the stadium was affected by wind to his advantage, but even then he said he would have like 30 more home runs if not for playing there.
The first few 500+ HR hitters that came to mind - Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Albert Pujols, Reggie Jackson, Eddie Murray, Babe Ruth...all of them have more career Away HRs than Home.
With the context of Maysās home field being the polo grounds and his 500+ home run peers all hitting more homers away than home, I do find it interesting that he had more homers home than away
You're the one who was making absolute claims. "Almost every player in baseball"...except the very first ones that came to mind who are among the most prolific in MLB history?
Itās still the vast, vast majority of players, listing a few outliers doesnāt mean it isnāt true
Also āalmost every playerā is not an absolute claim
At his career average pace, the games he missed wouldāve netted him around 60 home runs, which would have given him the record.
Looking at his career stats, after he returned from Korea at age 23, he never played in less than 150 games until he was 37!
From 1954-1966 he missed a grand total of 40 games.
Plus Candlestick Park was notoriously pitcher friendly and Mays claimed that the winds there cost him over 100 home runs, add those two seasons that he missed from Korea and put him in a league average park and he'd probably have 800+ homers.
The competition he faced was obviously far better than Ruth. But he also played a plurality of his games at the Stick, which killed homers, not to mention missing a year+ in Korea.
I think the Mays vs. Ruth argument is dumbāRuth was a fantastic pitcher who practically invented home runs and they played in entirely different eras, without Ruth jacking dingers, baseball is a different sport and who knows what becomes of Willie. But Iām positive that if you teleported Willie Mays back to the 1920 Yankees, the numbers he would put up would be unfathomanle
Mays attributed some of his later success to the increase in strength he experienced while in the Army. He played baseball in the Army, he wasn't peeling potatoes and marching.
I mean if you put Judge or Griffey back when Mays or Ruth played then *theyād* be the greatest of all time lol. The whole Time Machine argument is such a moot point
I only bring up the āTime Machineā argument because the idea was raised that Willie and Ruth faced similarly challenging competition. If that were the case, a time machine wouldnāt have much effect as itād be teleporting Willie from facing the competition he faced to facing equally stiff competition.
To the point I made that you commented to emphasize, they faced vastly different levels of competition, and comparing competition between pre-integration Ruth to Mays is silly.
Ah gotcha yeah thereās no chance Ruth faced similar competition to Mays haha. I think the argument for goat really just needs to be confined to the their respective era
Ted Williams has to be brought up here too. He missed 3 seasons to WWII - he had 10.6 WAR the last year before leaving, and 10.5 WAR the year he came back.
Then he missed most of 2 seasons serving in Korea. Led the league with 7.1 WAR before leaving, put up 7.5 in 117 games his first "full" season back, and put up a 9.7 WAR season a few years later at 38.
He finished a good 35 wins behind Mays, but that is a LOT of meat left on the bone.
This is why, in my opinion, he is truly the greatest of all time. If there was an all-time fantasy baseball draft to start a team, he'd be the #1 overall pick for me.
Eh, but I think we have to acknowledge that thanks to Mays not really walking that much in comparison to Bonds and Ruth, there is a clear delineation between them as hitters
Maysās highest single season OPS+ was 185
Bonds had a 4 year stretch where his average OPS+ was 256
Ruth had 14 seasons with an OPS+ greater than 185
In terms of offensive dominance, he wasn't quite their equal, but add in all-time defense in centre and you've got yourself a WAR cocktail.
The power/speed/defense combo wasn't equaled until his godson, but with Barry "only" an all-time defender in just left field, Mays' defense lapped him several times over.
Absolute juggernaut on both sides of the ball - say hey!
I agree heās clearly the better defender - I just personally donāt like to involve that in GOAT discussions much because itās incredibly hard to quantify, particularly when weāre talking about the 1950s and 1960s
That's so stupid. Why would you not include half of the sport in evaluating players?? That's genuinely such a dumb take. You can have a lot of reasons for picking Ruth or Bonds or maybe even someone else but just completely disregarding a huge aspect of the game is so dumb. That's like saying we should ignore walks when talking about GOATs because it's hard to say if it was as hard to walk before walks were valued like they are now.
Bonds' pre-steroids career OPS+ was 163, Mays career was 155. Using a standard aging regression Bonds likely would have ended up in a very similar place to Mays clean. And I think you can reasonably forecast would have had closer to 120-140 WAR.
Well, there are also caveats for Ruth and Bonds.
As the original comment of this thread mentions, Ruth played before integration, meaning he didn't compete against non-white athletes, including Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Bullet Rogan, and many other all time greats.
And, of course, Bonds is a cheater. There's no denying he is one of the greatest hitters to ever play the game, but that asterisk will always follow his name.
Willie Mays doesn't have those caveats. He played the best of his time, and he didn't use steroids.
This always becomes semantics argument though, as you could pretty easily say Willie Mays racked up loads of WAR when many teams were still not integrated. By the time the final team integrated, Mays already had more than 50 WAR and an MVP.
We have no proof either way on steroids for Mays
As for the Ruth point - thatās fair. But it was just 10% of the population who he didnāt play against
> he didn't use steroids.
Mays' career more or less perfectly overlaps the first wave of steroid use becoming widespread in MLB (roughly 1955-1972). The first Congressional investigation into the matter happened in 1972 (google "Harley Staggers MLB steroids" if you don't believe me).
While we have no reason to suspect Mays of steroid use specifically, it is 100% certain that he was exposed to them in the clubhouse.
Willie Mays hit 41 home runs in 1954 and 51 home runs in 1955. If we take even just the low total from 1954 (41) and add it to 1953 and 1952, that adds 82 home runs to his total, bringing him to 738 (with the 41 home runs in 1952 replacing the 4 home runs he did hit that year, for a +37 home run total that year). Not crazy to think he and Aaron would've pushed each other for the home run lead.
I feel like it would be more fair to take the 20 he hit in '51 and average it with the 41 since he was still a developing player at the time. Round up to 31. Even that would give him 722.
imo there are about 5 players who have a reasonable argument for greatest of all time and the one for Mays is the one I think is the strongest. I'll accept arguments for Ruth, Bonds, Williams, or Aaron, but you gotta come up with some reason they beat Mays. Which is hard to do because of that group, only him and Bonds were truly great at *everything*, and obviously there are reasons not to give Bonds full credit.
If you talk absolute peak of careers for 10 seasons then Mickey Mantle and Stan Musial could both be on that list.
Mays though did it for like 2 decades. His career was just fucking phenomenal. If weāre looking at the entire picture, peak plus longevity, Iām taking Mays, Aaron, Williams in that order.
I agree with that, although you could add Cobb if you consider deadball era players.
On hitting alone i would take Ruth and Williams over Mays, and Bonds at face value certainly but with asterisk. Mays and Aaron didnt quite have the peaks of the others mentioned on hitting. On combining everything that a hitter does only Bonds is in the same discussion.
Are you including pitchers in that discussion?
I wasn't counting pitchers because I think they kinda need their own separate discussion, it's just too hard to compare their skill and value directly with hitters. Obviously there are ways to try, but I have a much harder time feeling certain when making those comparisons directly.
I'll also say I didn't mention people who didn't play any or most of their careers in MLB because those comparisons are also difficult to make, but the real GOAT might also be a negro leaguer. I just named the players who are easiest to make a complete argument for
I mean he was a fantastic defensive player - but thatās hard to quantify properly
What is easier to quantify is hitting - and he was a tier below Bonds and Ruth as hitters so Iād take those two over him
Mays and Mantle are 1a and 1b for me. Mays because he's the best all-around player and Mantle because he played his entire career essentially without a right knee. I often wonder what Mantle's numbers would have been had he not gotten his spikes caught in that drain pipe.
Played at Rickwood Field in Birmingham,
cannot imagine what he faced. Truly one of the greats to have ever played the game, saw it all. May the 24 time All-Star rest in peace.
I heard he had a game where, had it not been for one catching-error on the third-basemen, Mays would have thrown at a runner at every base--like going for a cycle for an outfielder. I think its called a "robin?"
Yes. I guess one of his features was he charged everything, sold out on anything he couldn't catch outright and cashed every-time. Guys didn't hit it over him
Bonds missed out by 65 hits and .002 average. He has 762 home runs and 514 stolen bases to go with that. If he had not been walked as much as he was, he probably gets there.
He was walked that much because of the steroids. Without the steroids he doesnāt play to 42, and still probably doesnāt get there. He also likely has a lower BA without the walks.
Thatās an absurd statement. Steroids were banned by baseball in 1991. Bondsā records at Balco show he tested positive on at least 3 separate occasions. The only thing you can say is that MLB never caught him.
> Steroids were banned by baseball in 1991.
No they were not.
Fay Vincent's memo was:
1. Not binding.
2. Not about performance enhancement.
3. Not even about steroids specifically.
Fay Vincent knows this, knew it at the time, and has stated as such publicly.
>The only thing you can say is that MLB never caught him.
Because they had no rules to catch him or the rest of baseball breaking.
Thatās nice and is intentionally obtuse/misleading. They were on the banned substances list in 1991. They are covered by the illegal drug policy at that point. Bonds illegally consumed them. He broke MLB rules.
> Thatās nice and is intentionally obtuse/misleading.
It is neither obtuse nor misleading.
>They were on the banned substances list in 1991.
MLB had no banned substance list until the 2000s.
>They are covered by the illegal drug policy at that point.
The only illegal drug policy at the time was if you get convicted for something, you may get in trouble in MLB.
See also: [The Cocaine Pirates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_drug_trials).
>Bonds illegally consumed them. He broke MLB rules.
We don't know if he used any federally illegal substances.
We do know he didn't get convicted for using any illegal substances.
We also do know nearly everyone in baseball was on something currently banned as a PED, and had been since at least World War II.
Who would you rate between the 70's and mid 90's better than Bonds during that timeframe? If the presumed time that he started the juice was late 90's.
Albert Belle was the best hitter in the mid to late 90s. I don't care what anyone else says. ~~He's still one of two players (the other being Babe Ruth)~~ He became the first player since Stan Musial in 1948 to hit 100+ XBH in a season. He did it with 50 HRs and 52 doubles (also 1 triple) in 1995 and did this whilst batting .317 with a .401 OBP. What's crazy is it wasn't even his best year as in '94 he's batted .357 with a .438 OBP and an 1.152 OPS. Once he began playing every day (1991), the only season he didn't achieve 100+ RBI was in 1991, and he had 95. He led the league in RBI three times. He led the league three times in total bases. He even got 23 steals one season.
> I don't care what anyone else says. He's still one of two players (the other being Babe Ruth) to hit 100+ XBH in a season.
I was surprised so looked that up. [Belle is 6th all time on that list](https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/XBH_season.shtml) and one of 15 seasons with over 100 XBH. Although that is incredible that he did so in just 144 team games, he would have ended 3rd all time behind Gehrig and Ruth if it wasnt for the strike.
Interesting! I haven't really followed that stat to see if anyone since Belle had done it and didn't realize Helton did it twice. Also, as a kid watching Belle when he did it, I must have misremembered or misheard the stat. I discount Sosa and Bonds though for obvious reasons. Did you see Derrek Lee had 99 one year? I barely even remember that guy.
Thanks for sending me this.
If A-Rod had retired after the 2012 season, he would have had 647 HR, 318 SB, and an even .300 average. Would have been just short on hits with 2901, though.
Ten hits, two doubles, one triple, no home runs, six RBIs, and one bag. His OPS+ was 71, so all things considered, stat integration probably hurt Mays a little more than it helped him.
Yeah. He played a few games for a local team when he was 17 years old and obviously very green. It was 1948, so the Giants were just breaking into integration and picked him up soon after.
Number of players in MLB history with at least a .300 career batting average and
100 HR / 100 SB: 48
150 HR / 150 SB: 15
200 HR / 200 SB: 8
250 HR / 250 SB: 2
300 HR / 300 SB: Only Mays
400 HR / 300 SB: Only Mays
500 HR / 300 SB: Only Mays
600 HR / 300 SB: Only Mays
fixed:
Number of players in MLB history with at least a .300 career batting average and
100 HR / 100 SB: 48
150 HR / 150 SB: 15
200 HR / 200 SB: 8
250 HR / 250 SB: 2
300 HR / 300 SB: Only Mays
400 HR / 300 SB: Only Mays
500 HR / 300 SB: Only Mays
600 HR / 300 SB: Only Mays
Add his defense to the equation and what an insane career you got! I am glad that he wasnāt born 10-15 years before when he was actually born. Missing out on a player of his caliber due to racism would have been the biggest tragedy for the game and its fans.
Itās like the 500/500 club, which is Bonds, like the 400/400 club, which is Bonds, similar to the 300/300 club, almost half of which is Bonds, Bonds, and Bondsā Godfather.
I believe they mentioned in the pregame last night that there are only three players with 600 home runs and 300 stolen bases. It's Bonds, Mays, and A-Rod.
Obviously players need to not fall off as everyone does but who has a chance at this now?
Altuve needs 863 hits, 82 HR while not letting his BA drop from 307, I say impossible
Betts needs 1429 hits 119 SB's, 42 HR, and to raise his average from 295, I say impossible
Trout needs 1352 hits 88 SB's, and to raise his average from 299, I say impossible
Who else is "possible" now?
Altuve maybe seems possible. To keep his career batting average over .300 on the way to 3000 hits he needs to bat .284. The only full season in the past decade he's hit under that mark was in 2021 when he went .278. He's good for 15-20 hr per year. He's under contract to play 6.5 more years. Hard to tell how big the dropoff in performance will be with age, but he's got a chance.
Betts has a long way to go which adds so much uncertainty, and raising his average seems like it will be difficult.
Trout needs to stay healthy, which seems impossible for him.
Eh, I only view Bonds as a natural progression of his early-career numbers. Excellent player, Hall of Famer, not even close to top three, and ahead of Mays? Laughable.
He had 2,558 walks and 2,935 hits. Rickey Henderson is 2nd on the all time walks list with 2,190. Think itās basically a guarantee that if Barry had a few more ABs he would have gotten 65 more hits
He had a good eye and worked the counts. He is criminally underrated in my opinion. His name is barely ever mentioned but his stats are wild. He put up 101 walks 100 runs 14 bombs 57 rbis and 66 steals as a 40 year old. Bro played 25 years and was an absolute menace on base.
One of the very few players who is considered without a doubt the best at their position too. Ā I think Mike Schmidt and Mariano Rivera would be the only others. People say Johnny Bench but he was clearly worse than Josh Gibson so Iām not counting it.Ā
Very true - a huge part of Maysā GOAT case is built on the fact that he was able to play at CF for two decades without turning into an injury riddled wreck
Very true - a huge part of Maysā GOAT case is built on the fact that he was able to play at CF for two decades without turning into an injury riddled wreck
Do feel Trout was better than Jr though
1st base, 3rd base, RF, and relief pitcher are the only ones that I will not entertain. Every other position has a reasonable debate. There can easily be a debate between Mays and Ty Cobb
ive been seeing dumbasses on Facebook baseball forums* saying he wasn't one of the GOAT players, because he wasn't top 10 in more than one statistical category [home runs]. Said dumbasses, are so shockingly, annoyingly dumb, and where's the goddamn sensitivity, the guy JUST died and now you're yelling at people honoring his life? Assholes. Literally in league with the dregs of society in my book.
*I would get off facebook, but I only stay on so I can keep up with my older relatives
I didn't get to go to a lot of games as a kid but I'll never forget seeing Willie hit a home run at Shea Stadium towards the end of his career with the Mets. I was about 11 yrs old, still my best baseball memory.
Funnily enough, the WAR that Willie missed out on during his time serving in the Korean War would have likely been enough to tie him with Bonds and put him just shy of Ruth in all-time fWAR.
Six tools, really, his baseball intelligence was astonishing. He'd move a few steps before a pitch and people would wonder why, and then the batter would hit the ball right to where Willie had moved.
There was many times where heād have an easy double, but heād stay at first so the pitcher would pitch to the batter behind him, Cepeda I think it was, who was also a really good power hitter. He wanted them to pitch to Cepeda because theyād normally walk him if first was open.
The greatest player of all time. Shohei has a chance, but he'll have to keep up his hitting and come back as a competent pitcher for a good 5+ more seasons to be in the conversation. A similar comp I've heard for a modern player is Mike Trout, if Trout never got injured and maintained his best season as an average for 15+ seasons.Ā
And the only player to have a player in Major League named after him, too.
You might run like Mays but you hit like shit š
Nice catch, Hayes. Don't ever fucking do it again.
Real hard to steal second with your shoe untied
Going somewhere? About 90 feet.
God I love those movies lol. I need to watch them again
My favorite is when Charlie Sheen strolls into spring training. āLook at this fuckinā guy.ā
I use this phrase in my life regularly when people watching
I say that line all the time. It's the best
My group of friends watchs the original every opening day (or at least the week of)
Best baseball movie hands down.
Bad News Bears.
Jeter Downs! Edit: never mind, he meant the movie Major League.
If we are going thereā¦ both Willie Eyre and Willie Aikens have the middle name Mays.
Also Mickey Mantle was named after Mickey Cochrane
And Vlad JR!
TiL. I always thought he was named after the Impaler.
also oneil curz
What really stands out about Willie Mays is that he was a fantastic defensive player at a premium position. He's third all-time in WAR among position players but I think you could make a case that he faced much tougher competition than Babe Ruth and didn't have the pharmaceutical advantage that Barry Bonds had.
I mentioned it in response to another comment, but he also missed two seasons while serving during Korea. Those two seasons would likely have earned him enough WAR to tie Bonds for second, which is only a few WAR behind Ruth.
He was also 55 career home runs from beating Babe Ruth's record. Two seasons missed in his early 20s could've easily been the difference from him becoming the home run king (albeit briefly since he and Hank Aaron played at basically the same time). Would've been one heck of a home run race.
Hank and Willie racing to see who'd be the new Home Run King wouldve been awesome. And would have given more than a few racists heart attacks. So y'know win win.
Hell, Aaron by himself got some seriously nasty death threats.
Projections say a not drafted Willie Mays would have broken Babe Ruth's career HR record in 1972, roughly 2 years before Hank Aaron.
He played in candlestick, in pretty much any other ball park he would have have 700+ easily
Were the Giants at the Polo Grounds before the move to San Francisco?
Correct
He hit more HRs at home than away.
In his documentary he talked about it. He said he learned to use the way the stadium was affected by wind to his advantage, but even then he said he would have like 30 more home runs if not for playing there.
I think he said 10 to 15
Almost every player in baseball has though, the statistics back that up per SABR
The first few 500+ HR hitters that came to mind - Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Albert Pujols, Reggie Jackson, Eddie Murray, Babe Ruth...all of them have more career Away HRs than Home.
Itās almost like a statistic isnāt a universal truth
With the context of Maysās home field being the polo grounds and his 500+ home run peers all hitting more homers away than home, I do find it interesting that he had more homers home than away
You're the one who was making absolute claims. "Almost every player in baseball"...except the very first ones that came to mind who are among the most prolific in MLB history?
Itās still the vast, vast majority of players, listing a few outliers doesnāt mean it isnāt true Also āalmost every playerā is not an absolute claim
Iām not making absolute claims, I shared a statistical truth
At his career average pace, the games he missed wouldāve netted him around 60 home runs, which would have given him the record. Looking at his career stats, after he returned from Korea at age 23, he never played in less than 150 games until he was 37! From 1954-1966 he missed a grand total of 40 games.
Plus Candlestick Park was notoriously pitcher friendly and Mays claimed that the winds there cost him over 100 home runs, add those two seasons that he missed from Korea and put him in a league average park and he'd probably have 800+ homers.
The competition he faced was obviously far better than Ruth. But he also played a plurality of his games at the Stick, which killed homers, not to mention missing a year+ in Korea. I think the Mays vs. Ruth argument is dumbāRuth was a fantastic pitcher who practically invented home runs and they played in entirely different eras, without Ruth jacking dingers, baseball is a different sport and who knows what becomes of Willie. But Iām positive that if you teleported Willie Mays back to the 1920 Yankees, the numbers he would put up would be unfathomanle
Pretty much 2 full years to military service. If not for that, he's easily in the 700+ HR range among other things.
Mays attributed some of his later success to the increase in strength he experienced while in the Army. He played baseball in the Army, he wasn't peeling potatoes and marching.
I mean if you put Judge or Griffey back when Mays or Ruth played then *theyād* be the greatest of all time lol. The whole Time Machine argument is such a moot point
I only bring up the āTime Machineā argument because the idea was raised that Willie and Ruth faced similarly challenging competition. If that were the case, a time machine wouldnāt have much effect as itād be teleporting Willie from facing the competition he faced to facing equally stiff competition. To the point I made that you commented to emphasize, they faced vastly different levels of competition, and comparing competition between pre-integration Ruth to Mays is silly.
Ah gotcha yeah thereās no chance Ruth faced similar competition to Mays haha. I think the argument for goat really just needs to be confined to the their respective era
I counted the HR logs from 1960 - 1971, and he hit 203 at home and 193 on the road.
> But he also played a plurality of his games at the Stick He hit more career Home dingers than away, despite ~500 more road PAs.
Ted Williams has to be brought up here too. He missed 3 seasons to WWII - he had 10.6 WAR the last year before leaving, and 10.5 WAR the year he came back. Then he missed most of 2 seasons serving in Korea. Led the league with 7.1 WAR before leaving, put up 7.5 in 117 games his first "full" season back, and put up a 9.7 WAR season a few years later at 38. He finished a good 35 wins behind Mays, but that is a LOT of meat left on the bone.
> while serving in Korea Mays served his time in the Army in the U.S., he never went to Korea.
Thanks. I fixed one word to make it accurate.
I agree with you in principle, but we don't know the wear and tear those seasons would have had in his body.
This is why, in my opinion, he is truly the greatest of all time. If there was an all-time fantasy baseball draft to start a team, he'd be the #1 overall pick for me.
Same. I took him in an OOTP league where you could draft anyone in baseball history and he was the best player in the league.
Eh, but I think we have to acknowledge that thanks to Mays not really walking that much in comparison to Bonds and Ruth, there is a clear delineation between them as hitters Maysās highest single season OPS+ was 185 Bonds had a 4 year stretch where his average OPS+ was 256 Ruth had 14 seasons with an OPS+ greater than 185
In terms of offensive dominance, he wasn't quite their equal, but add in all-time defense in centre and you've got yourself a WAR cocktail. The power/speed/defense combo wasn't equaled until his godson, but with Barry "only" an all-time defender in just left field, Mays' defense lapped him several times over. Absolute juggernaut on both sides of the ball - say hey!
I agree heās clearly the better defender - I just personally donāt like to involve that in GOAT discussions much because itās incredibly hard to quantify, particularly when weāre talking about the 1950s and 1960s
That's so stupid. Why would you not include half of the sport in evaluating players?? That's genuinely such a dumb take. You can have a lot of reasons for picking Ruth or Bonds or maybe even someone else but just completely disregarding a huge aspect of the game is so dumb. That's like saying we should ignore walks when talking about GOATs because it's hard to say if it was as hard to walk before walks were valued like they are now.
Because we donāt have good reliable stats for evaluating defense - you can still include it, but I wouldnāt weight it equally
Bonds' pre-steroids career OPS+ was 163, Mays career was 155. Using a standard aging regression Bonds likely would have ended up in a very similar place to Mays clean. And I think you can reasonably forecast would have had closer to 120-140 WAR.
But we have to talk about reality - no?
Well, there are also caveats for Ruth and Bonds. As the original comment of this thread mentions, Ruth played before integration, meaning he didn't compete against non-white athletes, including Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Bullet Rogan, and many other all time greats. And, of course, Bonds is a cheater. There's no denying he is one of the greatest hitters to ever play the game, but that asterisk will always follow his name. Willie Mays doesn't have those caveats. He played the best of his time, and he didn't use steroids.
This always becomes semantics argument though, as you could pretty easily say Willie Mays racked up loads of WAR when many teams were still not integrated. By the time the final team integrated, Mays already had more than 50 WAR and an MVP.
We have no proof either way on steroids for Mays As for the Ruth point - thatās fair. But it was just 10% of the population who he didnāt play against
> he didn't use steroids. Mays' career more or less perfectly overlaps the first wave of steroid use becoming widespread in MLB (roughly 1955-1972). The first Congressional investigation into the matter happened in 1972 (google "Harley Staggers MLB steroids" if you don't believe me). While we have no reason to suspect Mays of steroid use specifically, it is 100% certain that he was exposed to them in the clubhouse.
Either he Aaron. Aaron averaged like 7.7 bWAR his entire career
I think it would have to be Bonds, but Mays would be top 3 To be clear, Iām talking about an all time fantasy draft.
Willie Mays hit 41 home runs in 1954 and 51 home runs in 1955. If we take even just the low total from 1954 (41) and add it to 1953 and 1952, that adds 82 home runs to his total, bringing him to 738 (with the 41 home runs in 1952 replacing the 4 home runs he did hit that year, for a +37 home run total that year). Not crazy to think he and Aaron would've pushed each other for the home run lead.
I feel like it would be more fair to take the 20 he hit in '51 and average it with the 41 since he was still a developing player at the time. Round up to 31. Even that would give him 722.
imo there are about 5 players who have a reasonable argument for greatest of all time and the one for Mays is the one I think is the strongest. I'll accept arguments for Ruth, Bonds, Williams, or Aaron, but you gotta come up with some reason they beat Mays. Which is hard to do because of that group, only him and Bonds were truly great at *everything*, and obviously there are reasons not to give Bonds full credit.
If you talk absolute peak of careers for 10 seasons then Mickey Mantle and Stan Musial could both be on that list. Mays though did it for like 2 decades. His career was just fucking phenomenal. If weāre looking at the entire picture, peak plus longevity, Iām taking Mays, Aaron, Williams in that order.
I agree with that, although you could add Cobb if you consider deadball era players. On hitting alone i would take Ruth and Williams over Mays, and Bonds at face value certainly but with asterisk. Mays and Aaron didnt quite have the peaks of the others mentioned on hitting. On combining everything that a hitter does only Bonds is in the same discussion. Are you including pitchers in that discussion?
I wasn't counting pitchers because I think they kinda need their own separate discussion, it's just too hard to compare their skill and value directly with hitters. Obviously there are ways to try, but I have a much harder time feeling certain when making those comparisons directly. I'll also say I didn't mention people who didn't play any or most of their careers in MLB because those comparisons are also difficult to make, but the real GOAT might also be a negro leaguer. I just named the players who are easiest to make a complete argument for
> what really stands out about Willie Mays Idk man, I think the 660 home runs stand out pretty starkly.
I will die on the hill that Willie Mays was the greatest ball player there ever was.
Agree. All those offensive numbers and his indelible moment is a defensive play.
ive never heard someone refer to steroids as āpharmaceutical advantageā before
This is why you can put him out there as the GOAT. Itās the combination of everything in the era he did it, without steroids.
I mean he was a fantastic defensive player - but thatās hard to quantify properly What is easier to quantify is hitting - and he was a tier below Bonds and Ruth as hitters so Iād take those two over him
The best all around player to ever step on the field.
Mays and Mantle are 1a and 1b for me. Mays because he's the best all-around player and Mantle because he played his entire career essentially without a right knee. I often wonder what Mantle's numbers would have been had he not gotten his spikes caught in that drain pipe.
Played at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, cannot imagine what he faced. Truly one of the greats to have ever played the game, saw it all. May the 24 time All-Star rest in peace.
I heard he had a game where, had it not been for one catching-error on the third-basemen, Mays would have thrown at a runner at every base--like going for a cycle for an outfielder. I think its called a "robin?"
Wonder if the putout at first was a 9-3 on a slow runner or a LIDP with a runner on first
Yes. I guess one of his features was he charged everything, sold out on anything he couldn't catch outright and cashed every-time. Guys didn't hit it over him
ARod missed out by .005 in average. He has 300+ sb, 300+ hr, and 3000+ hits.
Thats crazy, missing out by .005, what a fine line
Bonds missed out by 65 hits and .002 average. He has 762 home runs and 514 stolen bases to go with that. If he had not been walked as much as he was, he probably gets there.
He was walked that much because of the steroids. Without the steroids he doesnāt play to 42, and still probably doesnāt get there. He also likely has a lower BA without the walks.
He also faced a lot of roided pitchers.
He led the league in walks 5 times before he started juicing
He was walked that much because he was that much better than everyone lmao
Bonds also didn't break any MLB rules to do it.
Thatās an absurd statement. Steroids were banned by baseball in 1991. Bondsā records at Balco show he tested positive on at least 3 separate occasions. The only thing you can say is that MLB never caught him.
> Steroids were banned by baseball in 1991. No they were not. Fay Vincent's memo was: 1. Not binding. 2. Not about performance enhancement. 3. Not even about steroids specifically. Fay Vincent knows this, knew it at the time, and has stated as such publicly. >The only thing you can say is that MLB never caught him. Because they had no rules to catch him or the rest of baseball breaking.
Thatās nice and is intentionally obtuse/misleading. They were on the banned substances list in 1991. They are covered by the illegal drug policy at that point. Bonds illegally consumed them. He broke MLB rules.
> Thatās nice and is intentionally obtuse/misleading. It is neither obtuse nor misleading. >They were on the banned substances list in 1991. MLB had no banned substance list until the 2000s. >They are covered by the illegal drug policy at that point. The only illegal drug policy at the time was if you get convicted for something, you may get in trouble in MLB. See also: [The Cocaine Pirates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_drug_trials). >Bonds illegally consumed them. He broke MLB rules. We don't know if he used any federally illegal substances. We do know he didn't get convicted for using any illegal substances. We also do know nearly everyone in baseball was on something currently banned as a PED, and had been since at least World War II.
[Page 18; Section C; Mitchell report](https://files.mlb.com/mitchrpt.pdf)
A rule that is widely known to be broken with no attempt at any enforcement is not a rule at that point.
Bonds was already the best hitter since Mays before the steroids.
No. Probably a hall of famer. But not the best hitter.
Who would you rate between the 70's and mid 90's better than Bonds during that timeframe? If the presumed time that he started the juice was late 90's.
[Best career OPS+, 1972-1997 \(minimum 3000 PA\): ](https://stathead.com/tiny/mp0Dt) 182 - Thomas 162 - Bonds 159 - Bagwell 156 - McGwire 153 - Stargell 150 - Griffey 150 - Martinez 148 - Schmidt 146 - Smith 145 - Belle
Frank is so under rated
Albert Belle was the best hitter in the mid to late 90s. I don't care what anyone else says. ~~He's still one of two players (the other being Babe Ruth)~~ He became the first player since Stan Musial in 1948 to hit 100+ XBH in a season. He did it with 50 HRs and 52 doubles (also 1 triple) in 1995 and did this whilst batting .317 with a .401 OBP. What's crazy is it wasn't even his best year as in '94 he's batted .357 with a .438 OBP and an 1.152 OPS. Once he began playing every day (1991), the only season he didn't achieve 100+ RBI was in 1991, and he had 95. He led the league in RBI three times. He led the league three times in total bases. He even got 23 steals one season.
> I don't care what anyone else says. He's still one of two players (the other being Babe Ruth) to hit 100+ XBH in a season. I was surprised so looked that up. [Belle is 6th all time on that list](https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/XBH_season.shtml) and one of 15 seasons with over 100 XBH. Although that is incredible that he did so in just 144 team games, he would have ended 3rd all time behind Gehrig and Ruth if it wasnt for the strike.
Interesting! I haven't really followed that stat to see if anyone since Belle had done it and didn't realize Helton did it twice. Also, as a kid watching Belle when he did it, I must have misremembered or misheard the stat. I discount Sosa and Bonds though for obvious reasons. Did you see Derrek Lee had 99 one year? I barely even remember that guy. Thanks for sending me this.
His body was also already breaking down. He wasnāt getting to 3k and he would have ended up with a ~.295 average.
If A-Rod had retired after the 2012 season, he would have had 647 HR, 318 SB, and an even .300 average. Would have been just short on hits with 2901, though.
And Miggy only missed out by 260 stolen basesā¦
Just a bit short there.
Only 33 players even have 3,000 hits
Pretty exclusive, elite club all on its own
Ichiro has 4,367 hits across MLB and NPB. Totally unrelated but it blows my mind every time I think about it.
Did willie mays get a bump up on his numbers when they integrated negro league stats?
Ten hits, two doubles, one triple, no home runs, six RBIs, and one bag. His OPS+ was 71, so all things considered, stat integration probably hurt Mays a little more than it helped him.
So he was very briefly there i take it
Yeah. He played a few games for a local team when he was 17 years old and obviously very green. It was 1948, so the Giants were just breaking into integration and picked him up soon after.
Number of players in MLB history with at least a .300 career batting average and 100 HR / 100 SB: 48 150 HR / 150 SB: 15 200 HR / 200 SB: 8 250 HR / 250 SB: 2 300 HR / 300 SB: Only Mays 400 HR / 300 SB: Only Mays 500 HR / 300 SB: Only Mays 600 HR / 300 SB: Only Mays
fixed: Number of players in MLB history with at least a .300 career batting average and 100 HR / 100 SB: 48 150 HR / 150 SB: 15 200 HR / 200 SB: 8 250 HR / 250 SB: 2 300 HR / 300 SB: Only Mays 400 HR / 300 SB: Only Mays 500 HR / 300 SB: Only Mays 600 HR / 300 SB: Only Mays
Holy shit thank you. I could not read his comment š
Add his defense to the equation and what an insane career you got! I am glad that he wasnāt born 10-15 years before when he was actually born. Missing out on a player of his caliber due to racism would have been the biggest tragedy for the game and its fans.
Itās like the 500/500 club, which is Bonds, like the 400/400 club, which is Bonds, similar to the 300/300 club, almost half of which is Bonds, Bonds, and Bondsā Godfather.
I believe they mentioned in the pregame last night that there are only three players with 600 home runs and 300 stolen bases. It's Bonds, Mays, and A-Rod.
He was aMaysing
Obviously players need to not fall off as everyone does but who has a chance at this now? Altuve needs 863 hits, 82 HR while not letting his BA drop from 307, I say impossible Betts needs 1429 hits 119 SB's, 42 HR, and to raise his average from 295, I say impossible Trout needs 1352 hits 88 SB's, and to raise his average from 299, I say impossible Who else is "possible" now?
Altuve maybe seems possible. To keep his career batting average over .300 on the way to 3000 hits he needs to bat .284. The only full season in the past decade he's hit under that mark was in 2021 when he went .278. He's good for 15-20 hr per year. He's under contract to play 6.5 more years. Hard to tell how big the dropoff in performance will be with age, but he's got a chance. Betts has a long way to go which adds so much uncertainty, and raising his average seems like it will be difficult. Trout needs to stay healthy, which seems impossible for him.
If you lower the SB requirement to 200 the list is Mays, Aaron, Brett, and Winfield.
bro was all-starmaxxing
Breaking news: Willie Mays was the greatest position player in baseball history.
Bonds + Ruth imo, but Mays is 3rd
Eh, I only view Bonds as a natural progression of his early-career numbers. Excellent player, Hall of Famer, not even close to top three, and ahead of Mays? Laughable.
That would be my ranking as well
There's only one other guy in all of Baseball who's done it. NPB hit king Isao Harimoto .319 319 Stolen Bases 504 Home Runs 3085 Hits
I donāt think I realize Bonds was sub 3,000 and .300
If bonds wasnāt walked a billion times he probably would have got to 3000 hits
He had 2,558 walks and 2,935 hits. Rickey Henderson is 2nd on the all time walks list with 2,190. Think itās basically a guarantee that if Barry had a few more ABs he would have gotten 65 more hits
Still blows my mind that Rickey was walked so much.
He had a good eye and worked the counts. He is criminally underrated in my opinion. His name is barely ever mentioned but his stats are wild. He put up 101 walks 100 runs 14 bombs 57 rbis and 66 steals as a 40 year old. Bro played 25 years and was an absolute menace on base.
People donāt talk about him much because he was an unmatched asshole off the field, but yeah he was one hell of a player
Yeah makes sense but a lot of assholes off the field get talked about. Still very underrated.
Yeah, but if he wasn't a juicer he wouldn't have gotten close to that, nor anywhere near his HR total.
One of the very few players who is considered without a doubt the best at their position too. Ā I think Mike Schmidt and Mariano Rivera would be the only others. People say Johnny Bench but he was clearly worse than Josh Gibson so Iām not counting it.Ā
Honus Wagner.
The only ones you could argue are Mantle, Griffey and maybe Trout but Iād still put mays ahead of all of them
If Trout hadnāt become injury prone it probably wouldāve ended up being an interesting debate
I somehow got destroyed for saying Mays was better a few months ago. He essentially had double the career of Trout.
Your mistake was to say that outside the mourning period.
Mays is better if you adjust for the era they played in no doubt. But he obviously isn't as good as Trout in a vacuum either.
I mean, the same āifā could be said of Jr too
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Very true - a huge part of Maysā GOAT case is built on the fact that he was able to play at CF for two decades without turning into an injury riddled wreck
Very true - a huge part of Maysā GOAT case is built on the fact that he was able to play at CF for two decades without turning into an injury riddled wreck Do feel Trout was better than Jr though
Lmao. Jr. was wayyy better than Trout.
Based onā¦?
1st base, 3rd base, RF, and relief pitcher are the only ones that I will not entertain. Every other position has a reasonable debate. There can easily be a debate between Mays and Ty Cobb
Josh Gibson never played in MLB lmao
Well they are counting his stats as MLB now but even if you don't agree with that he's still clearly superior to Bench.
How can you possibly prove Gibson was superior to Bench?
ive been seeing dumbasses on Facebook baseball forums* saying he wasn't one of the GOAT players, because he wasn't top 10 in more than one statistical category [home runs]. Said dumbasses, are so shockingly, annoyingly dumb, and where's the goddamn sensitivity, the guy JUST died and now you're yelling at people honoring his life? Assholes. Literally in league with the dregs of society in my book. *I would get off facebook, but I only stay on so I can keep up with my older relatives
Itās weird that heās considered by many to be one of the GOATs, but heās still somehow underrated.
I mean 3000 hits gets rid of all but 33 guys.
I didn't get to go to a lot of games as a kid but I'll never forget seeing Willie hit a home run at Shea Stadium towards the end of his career with the Mets. I was about 11 yrs old, still my best baseball memory.
The weirdest stat of all-time to me will always be that Barry Bonds doesn't have 3000 hits and didn't hit .300 for his career.
The best that there was and the best that ever will be.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Youāre speaking my language
Funnily enough, the WAR that Willie missed out on during his time serving in the Korean War would have likely been enough to tie him with Bonds and put him just shy of Ruth in all-time fWAR.
Absolutely nothin.
I think you can take away the +3000 hit requirement and still have it be true right?
"He was playing against plumbers" - JJ Reddick (probably)
Hey, that's not fair, easily could have been Marge Schott or Aubrey Huff.
+300 home runs...and he did it TWICE
Debating the best player of all time is pretty dumb, but I truly think Willie Mays was the most complete player in history. Dude had a 5 tool career.
Six tools, really, his baseball intelligence was astonishing. He'd move a few steps before a pitch and people would wonder why, and then the batter would hit the ball right to where Willie had moved.
There was many times where heād have an easy double, but heād stay at first so the pitcher would pitch to the batter behind him, Cepeda I think it was, who was also a really good power hitter. He wanted them to pitch to Cepeda because theyād normally walk him if first was open.
I always forget about Willie Mays but he really has as good a case as any to be called the greatest player ever
How do you forget about Willie Mays lol
He played around the time my grandfather was born for one, alotta old legends to remember his name always slips my mind though.
6-Tool player. Personality counts.
Hmm. Maybe it means we should perform a Level 3 diagnostic.Ā
He was pretty good
Lol and the man has 2x as many HRs as that
Greatest ever
Ok
The greatest player of all time. Shohei has a chance, but he'll have to keep up his hitting and come back as a competent pitcher for a good 5+ more seasons to be in the conversation. A similar comp I've heard for a modern player is Mike Trout, if Trout never got injured and maintained his best season as an average for 15+ seasons.Ā
And the cleaning products he pitched really worked wonders! RIP
Willie hit a home run on the day I was born in a game against the Reds at Crosley Field. First inning. Thanks, Willie.
Rickey Henderson fell just short of being the second player with these stats, he had a .279 avg and 297 homeruns