The Hall of Fame of Uniform Numbers

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by sebie43

Being raised in Hockeytown me and Lidstom go way back, in fact we share rookie years.I never saw Joe D play but i know this, Nick Lidstrom is the SECOND best defenseman of all time, no question.
Now is Joe DiMaggio the second best CF of all time? Its hard to compare careers, longevity? Lidstrom...consistency? Well I dont know. I know its apples and oranges .Anybody else weigh in on #5?

I had baseball reference run a report of all players who between 1900 and 2014 accumulated 3,000 or more plate appearances, of which 75% of games played were as a center fielder. There are 92 such players. And on that list, Joe DiMaggio is the #2 center fielder in modern baseball history. Tris Speaker played much of his career in the dead ball era (which ended in 1919. Speaker started playing in 1907). The only player ahead of DiMaggio on the list is Willie Mays. DiMaggio's OPS + is 155. Mays put up a 156 OPS +. Willie Mays lost nearly two years of his baseball career when drafted by the army during the Korean War. Mays was 21 and 22 in his second and third year. Joe DiMaggio, however, lost three full seasons of his prime (1943, '44 and '45 when he was 28, 29 and 30) to military service in the air force.



Bill James stated that DiMaggio lost more home runs due to his home ballpark (Yankee Stadium) than any other player in history. Mickey Mantle stated that he and Whitey Ford witnessed many DiMaggio blasts that would have been home runs in any other stadium beside Yankee Stadium. 1.

These numbers, of course, only measure offense. And while Mays was an outstanding defensive outfielder, DiMaggio was a pretty good outfielder in his own regard.

You have to think that if DiMaggio has those three seasons in his prime, he exceeds 500 home runs and 2,000 RBI. And his OPS + goes up by at least one point, tying Mays, if not 2.

So the short answer, is Joe DiMaggio the second best center fielder of all-time? I would say yes, as far as center fielders of the modern era are concerned. He might even be, and in my opinion would have been, the best center fielder in modern baseball history.