Quote:
Originally Posted by oldjudge
Obviously, by this time everyone knows that Player A is Joe DiMaggio and player B is Mickey Mantle. After Mantle retired in 1969 baseball selected its’ all time team. the outfield: Ruth, Cobb and DiMaggio. In 1994, Ted Williams was asked to rank the greatest hitters ever. On his list DiMaggio was number 5, Mantle was number 12. I just think that after both have been long retired Mantle continues to get better relative to DiMaggio. This is just hitting. As a fielder DiMaggio was clearly better. Mantle was routinely replaced in late innings for defensive purposes. DiMaggio was the premier center fielder of his day.
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As far as Ted Williams' ranking of the 20 greatest hitters go,
here is the list:
1) Babe Ruth 2) Lou Gehrig 3) Jimmie Foxx 4) Rogers Hornsby 5) Joe DiMaggio 6) Ty Cobb 7) Stan Musial 8) Joe Jackson 9) Hank Aaron 10) Willie Mays 11) Hank Greenberg 12) Mickey Mantle 13) Tris Speaker 14) Al Simmons 15) Johnny Mize 16) Mel Ott 17) Harry Heilmann 18) Frank Robinson 19) Mike Schmidt 20) Ralph Kiner
So he's got DiMaggio ahead of Cobb, and Al Simmons 4 places ahead of Frank Robinson.
"In 1994, Ted Williams opened his Hitters Hall of Fame in Hernando, Florida. He celebrated the event by inviting hundreds of former ballplayers and one current player — Tony Gwynn.
Williams enshrined the top twenty all-time hitters using his own "secret formula" which he stated was a combination of on base percentage and slugging average."
His "secret formula" is just OPS. OPS+ would come later.
Mantle and DiMaggio have the same OPS for their careers (.944) thanks to Mantle's drop off in his final four seasons. Mantle led the League in OPS 6x, DiMaggio led the League in OPS zero times.
Mantle's career OPS+ was 172 despite the drop off in his last four seasons to DiMaggio's 155.