If you were starting a team today......
 

All players being the exact same age......Mantle, Mays, Aaron, Griffey Jr., or Mike Trout?

Mays

Clemente

Hi Kevin

Absolutely.....Mickey Mantle....."Mister Clutch" in the Big games.

These other guys cannot compare with Mickey's 18 - HR's in World Series play (1952 - 1964).

Mickey being a major force for his team being in that many W.S. during those years.


TED Z

T206 Reference
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Mantle, especially with the advancement in repairing knee injuries over the past 60 years the guy would be unstoppable.

Mays

Mays

Mays- Best pure baseball player ever

Trout

Aaron

Interesting question with several slam dunk answers

If the age was 58, I would take Satchel Paige.

If the age was 54. I would take Minnie Minoso.

And if the age was 15, it would have to be Joe Nuxhall.

For many of the ages in between I would take Willie Mays.

In film I would take Willie Mays Hayes of course.:D

Babe Ruth!

From that list, I would go Griffey or Mantle but would be happy with any on that list...also one not on that list...Bonds.

It is an interesting question, and I would assume that it includes the caveat that what a player accomplished in his career is not necessarily included for the team we are starting today. Mantle certainly proved he could hit 18 HR in the World Series, although I would hazard a guess that every one player on the list has the talent to possibly hit 18 home runs if given 273 PA in WS play.
My gut reaction is to say Trout, because he's the only player who has proven he can do it at the elite level under the current conditions.
Ruth is a good alternative to the answers given, and I think there could be others who would be fun to drop into 2019 and see what they could do if starting their young careers now... Bonds, Bo, Josh Gibson, Cobb... I guess I'd really love to see what Bo would have done if he committed to baseball and had the modern training methods, etc!

Aaron.

Say Hey!

Hank Aaron, mainly because I never got to see him play (in person) even though he came through Wrigley every year

Willie Mays first 5 tool player and the best that ever did it .

I vote for Mike Trout

from this list, Mays

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Mantle would be on TMZ every night lol

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Agree with this out of the players stated.

Also assuming players would restart their careers now I’m assuming everyone’s at full health so I’d choose Mantle. I’d also be more hopeful that he maybe wouldn’t be able to get away with quite as much night life and hopefully fewer hangovers at the ballpark.

I’m surprised Ted Williams hasn’t been mentioned yet. At any rate, he’s who I’d pick, though if I had to stick to the list, Trout.

Yea , hopefully he wouldn’t go the “Johnny football” route.

Yea Williams , Cobb and Ruth May make my top 3 (not in that order) and none are mentioned.

Kent Hrbek

Going to be a homer and go with Stan Musial! Mays would be my second choice.

Mantle hands down, its not even a contest
I'm surprised others were mentioned :)

Of those mentioned, Mays. Otherwise, Williams. Imagine Ted playing in the days of the 162 game schedule, with all the expansion (watering down the league's pitching talent), and not missing 5 years to military service.

Mantle didn't take care of himself; that self-destructive behavior puts him below a Mays or Williams in my book.

My position player would be Mays
My pitcher would be Gibson or Feller

In the post season only one of the big three performed better than he did during the regular season—Aaron. Mays stunk during the post season and Mantle had a lower batting average, SLG, and OBP than he had during the regular season. He did hit 18 HRs, but he was in the WS virtually every year from his rookie season until 1964. My choice would be Aaron.

There's more than one way to help win a World Series...

Mays

From the list - Mays

Team
 

Joe D
His stats compare or are better than all listed.

None of the above
 

Going with Ted Williams

Yes, Mays' ONE way....
As opposed to Mantle's World Series-record 18 home runs, 40 RBIs, 26 extra-base hits and 42 runs.

The problem with this is that Aaron was only able to deliver ONE postseason championship...
And for people mentioning Williams, he never brought home a single World Series win.
What's more important in the end... stats? Or championships?
Considering this, Mantle is king.

The Yankee teams, back in the day, were loaded with talent. Aaron and Williams didn't have the luxury that Mantle had in that respect if we're looking only at championships. Put Aaron or Williams on those same Yankee teams that Mantle played on, and both players bring home the hardware too.

Extremely doubtful.
The Yankees were a powerhouse first and foremost BECAUSE of Mantle.
And are you honestly going to say Aaron or Williams were as clutch??

The Yankees had pitching depth that far exceeded the Red Sox, and Yankee management integrated the team before Tom Yawkey did. He had the first shot at Willie Mays and Ernie Banks, and passed on both.

Making the assumption the careers are what they are - cannot change, just that they are all rookies at same time.

In post-season play, Hank Aaron easily tops them all: Mays BA .247, SLG .337, OPS .660 (really poor) - Mantle BA .257, SLG .535, OPS .908 - Hank Aaron BA .362, SLG .710, OPS 1.116 (now you're talkin'!)

From year #1 to year #last = Hank Aaron, bingo!

Who are you kidding ! ?

How about making a fair comparison ? ?

Aaron was only in two World Series (1957 & 1958)
Totals.... BA= .362, HR= 3, RBI = 9, SLG = .786 (1957) and .407 (1958)

Compare that with the 1952 and 1960 World Series totals...…
Mantle BA = .355, HR = 5, RBI = 13, SLG = .655 (1952) and .800 (1960)

Hey guy
I am fortunate (and old enough) to having seen all these stars play since 1947.
Unless you have, too, there is no way you can actually appreciate any of them.


TED Z

T206 Reference
.

Not kidding anyone, simply looked at the stats. Aaron had 3 post season appearances - in 1969 NLCS played 3 games, had 14 At Bats and posted really good numbers. Sorry the overall sample size is small compared to Mantle, but what can you do about that? Mantle probably had better overall teams to help get to more post season appearances.

If Mantle was THE reason the Yankees won so many pennants, then why did he only win 1/3 of the Yankee MVP awards during the 1951-1964 period?

Yankee MVPs:

1951 AL Yogi Berra
1954 AL Yogi Berra
1955 AL Yogi Berra
1956 AL Mickey Mantle
1957 AL Mickey Mantle
1960 AL Roger Maris
1961 AL Roger Maris
1962 AL Mickey Mantle
1963 AL Elston Howard

If this had any realistic bearing.... why aren't Maris, Berra or Howard considered better players than Mantle??? NO ONE being honest would even consider that, so this is meaningless. There have been discussions on here whether Maris is even HOF material, with the majority feeling he isn't (I think he is), so what relevance are MVP awards in the big picture?
When the things that are most important are considered, his World Series records and total Fall Classic victories... Mantle is tops.

I was an avid Yankee fan growing up in the Bronx. The guys I thought of as clutch players were Berra and Skowron, not Mantle. Williams or Aaron could have absolutely won as many championships or more if they were on the Yankees instead of Mantle.

Ted-Take the rose colored glasses off. If you want to cherry pick years I'll focus on 1961-63.

Its funny that Aaron and Williams are based on "what ifs" as opposed to actual facts. If they could take teams to World Series championships like Mantle did... they would have. There would be no need for conjecture and postulation.
Could've, should've, would've....

If Ted's opinions are through rose coloured glasses, with all due respect, yours are based on pure assumption.

I am not saying Mantle wasn't the overall best player on his team. Just like Mays was the best on the Giants, Aaron on the Braves, Clemente on the Pirates, and Williams on the Red Sox.

What I AM saying is that 6 times out of 9, when the sportswriters voted on who was the single Yankee most responsible for them winning the pennant during that given year, they named one of Mickey's teammates instead of him.

Point is, he was on a great team surrounded by all sorts of talent, so you can't give him all the credit for his many post-season opportunities. In 1962, Mantle played only 123 games, and in 1963 he played in only 65 games, but both years the Yankees won the pennant. In other words, they could win even with Mantle not in the lineup on a regular basis.

My dad grew up in Upstate New York, said many times Billy Martin was clutch and stepped it up in postseason.

Regular season: BA .257, SLG. .369, OPS .669
Post Season: BA .333, SLG. .566, OPS .937

Yeah, and the Red Sox, Braves and Giants couldn't win with Williams, Aaron or Mays.

With all due respect.....all I am saying is, if you are going to compare stats you must compare World Series performances. And, Aaron played in only two W.S.
As we all know, there were no League Play-off series in Mantle's timeframe.

So, I will reprise the numbers which show only World Series stats for comparison of Aaron and Mantle. Mantle wins this contest in every category except forBA.


You favor Aaron, I favor Mantle, and that's fine with me. But, my question to you is if Aaron was so great, why wasn't he more of a force in having the Braves
win more Championships ? They certainly had some great players back then (Mathews, Adcock, Crandall, Spahn, Burdette, Buhl, etc., etc.).


TED Z

T206 Reference
.

By your logic, Billy Martin was a better player than Ernie Banks.

A team has many players, one of which may be a superstar. Sure, it helps a lot for the superstar to put up big numbers. But the rest of the big bunch counts for a whole lot more on a team trying to win rings. If I were to analyze it, I would start with the pitching, top to bottom, of Mantle's Yankees vs. Aaron, Mays, etc. teams. Pitching is a big factor if a team is going to go far. The Yankees "gelled" as a great team together, all components worked, Mantle was recognized as top dog, but the supporting cast was darn good and clutch overall.

No, that's your logic.
Again, ad nauseam, IF Williams, Aaron and Mays could've taken teams to World Series championships like Mantle did... They would have. It's simple.

Again, Mantle did not single-handedly take his team to all those championships. In fact, most of the time he was not even named most valuable on his own team.

Yet, look at the World Series records he holds.... They say you're wrong.
And of course he was the most integral component to the Yankees success, whether you want to admit it or not.

This thread feels like it's devolving into a cry to recognize yet another new and ridiculous stat. Let's call it MAR. :cool:

MVPs Above Replacement, commonly abbreviated to MAR, is a non-standardized sabermetric baseball statistic developed to sum up "a player's total contributions to his team." A player's MAR value is claimed to be the number of additional MVP awards his teammates have received above the number of expected MVP awards his teammates would have won if that player were substituted with a replacement-level player: a player who may be added to the team for minimal cost and effort.

Mays. The best I've ever seen.

The Red Sox didn’t have any pitching, and I don’t see how that is the fault of their left fielder. The one year they did, they won 104 games and the pennant, as Williams won his first MVP. When Williams came up, their best pitcher was 39 year old Lefty Grove. After the war, once Ferriss and Hughson came up lame, they were carried by Mel Parnell (who himself was injured from 1952 onward) and Ellis Kinder, who didn’t break out until he was 35. Williams was a big part of the 1950 offense that scored 1,000 runs (he had 28 HRs in 89 games despite an elbow injury at the ASG that nagged him for the rest of his career). But that team finished in third, because they had one pitcher with an ERA below 4.00.

Gehrig-RBI machine.

Williams, Aaron and Mays simply did not have the talent around them the way that Mantle did, either in the lineup or on the mound. They did for short periods of time but not for the extended period of time during their careers as Mantle did.

Same holds true for Trout. Can anyone argue that he's not the best player in baseball right now? But can he get his team to the postseason, even with the extra wild card spots? He can't, because he doesn't have the talent around him.

He was in more World Series so of course he has bigger numbers.

As far as him being the most integral part of his teams, your argument is not with me, it is with the sportswriters, who, yet again, 6 times out of 9, named one of Mickey's teammates, NOT Mickey, as being the most integral player responsible for the success of that season.

I don't accept the premise that only World Series stats measure a player's value. If that was the case, then Billy Martin (5 WS home runs) was far better than Ted Williams, which is silly. For that matter, Mantle hit only .257 in the World Series with a .374 slugging average, while Martin hit .333 with .371 slugging average.

Back to the original question, if I could have one of these guys, I would want many years of production. That means Aaron or Mays. A good argument can be made either way but I would choose Mays over Aaron because I want the defense and speed.

Player Hits Runs RBI Homers SB Avg.
Aaron 3771 2174 2297 755 240 .305
Mays 3283 2062 1903 660 338 .302
Mantle 2415 1676 1509 536 153 .298

I agree with everything you are saying here. But, there is another significant factor which we haven't mentioned......Casey Stengel. Stengel was a "genius" on knowing how to manage
his players and the pitchers in order to get the best out of them.

I remember back in the Fall of 1949 when the Yankees were in a 3-game play-off series vs the Red Sox. His ace pitcher Allie Reynolds was off to a bad start. Stengel brings in Joe Page
(his closer) in the 6th inning. Page shuts out the Red Sox for 4 innings (allowing them only one hit) to win the game. Stuff like that in a crucial play-off game you just never forget.

In another situation.....the Yankee starter is having a bad day, Stengel thought nothing of bringing in his ace starter Allie Reynolds in relief to win the game. I could post on many more
such stories which would fill up numerous Net54 page of many exciting BB games (and events) which I recall from my youth.

I'll leave it for another day, though.


TED Z

T206 Reference
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Mickey Mantle----always! ----Brian Powell

I started the thread without giving my opinion, but my choice would be Mantle...

Like when he picked Turley over Whitey Ford for game 7 against the Pirates, and then used every other starter in relief instead of Ford. I think Stengel won because he had a stacked team and a farm team in Kansas City, not because of his strategy.

Exactly!

I have the audio recording of Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series. The key play that saved it was Mantle's running catch of Hodges' shot to left-center. As Hodges comes to bat, the announcer mentions that Stengel climbs to the top of the dugout and waves Mickey over several steps. A couple pitches later, Mantle just barely saves the perfecto.

Stengel truly was a great, great manager.

The last thing I'll say on the topic is that my opinion is based on actual facts, history, and what Mantle did.
The differing opinions, with all due respect, are based on conjecture, what ifs and mere possibilities. If you gave Aaron, Mays and Williams Mantle's team, there is no way anyone can say that they would've done the same.... Its possible, but there are no guarantees... No one can argue that. So it's just wishful thinking, nothing more.
Mantle did it, those other players did not.

Bottom line, I'm basing this on facts, not what might have been.
The same can't be said for the differing opinions.

Hard facts always trump conjecture....

My final word is this: Take a typical Yankee championship year. Plug in the production of Mays (or Aaron) for that same year instead of Mantle's, and the Yankees still win. And since Mays and Aaron took better care of themselves, their careers lasted longer and their total production was far superior.

Since we are only starting a team, rather than looking at postseason success, I would take Tris Speaker. He had the tools and intelligence to play in different eras and be great. All time doubles leader, incredible speed, outstanding defense, and as he got older he became a mentor to players - so he was one of those personalities you want in the clubhouse... early day version of Mike Trout.

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The Yankees in the 50s had a major league farm team in Kansas City (also in the AL) complete with a shuttle bus. Now that's depth.

But I am torn. Behind Tris Speaker, I might make take Frank Robinson. MVP in two leagues. Intelligence that transferred to managing.

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Hi Mark

Oct 8th 1956....believe it or not....I stayed home from school that day and watched the Perfect Game on our 12" TV .

Thanks for recalling that tremendous catch by Mickey of Gil Hodges 400+ foot drive to Yankee Stadium's left-centerfield ("death valley"). If Mickey was not as fast a runner as he was,
we wouldn't be talking about that unprecedented Perfect-No-Hit game that day.

Not only did he save the day for Don Larsen, Mickey hit a HR in the 4th inning that went on to be winning hit. For Sal Maglie pitched a pretty darn good game for the Dodgers.



TED Z

T206 Reference
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A lot of people don't realize that Maglie retired the first 11 Yankees before Mantle hit that home run. So it was a duel perfect game with 2 out in the bottom of the 4th inning.

So with that logic, you'd pick Whitey or Yogi or even Scooter over any other players of their time, since they 'did it'.

Mickey was great, one of the greatest, but I'd still take Willie. But I couldn't blame anyone for taking any of the other choices.

Mark

Apparently, Stengel was quite impressed with Maglie's performance that day, that the Yankees signed him up in the Summer of 1957.

The final pitch....does a photograph of a significant moment in BaseBall get much better than this ?


http://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan7...photoAutog.jpg



TED Z

T206 Reference
.

I've had a similar discussion with the Pastor at the church I attend. The fact that he grew up not only watching the Yankees, he also grew up in the dugout and locker room. After going back and for about great players in the 50's and 60's he point blank said that Mantle was the best player he had ever seen. He pointed out that Mantle played most of his career injured, but talent wise he said that nobody was better that he saw. So after this discussion and going back and forth on several players I will have to agree with him.
I'll go with Mantle.

From Jane Leavy's biography of Mantle.
Q. Who was better, you or Mays?
A. Expletive Willie.

Great line about Willie from Leo Durocher, who immediately recognized his supreme talent -- "If he could cook, I'd marry him."

Another Durocher/Mays anecdote. Apparently when Willie got the call to the bigs from Minneapolis he was extremely nervous and Durocher phoned him. After Willie explained he was afraid he might not be able to hit big league pitching, Durocher asks him, what are you hitting now? Willie replies .488 LOL. Durocher says, well son, do you think you can hit two bleeping fifty for me?