Willie Mays’ case as baseball’s GOAT: 24-time MLB All-Star was the perfect five-tool superstar

The baseball world lost a legend on Tuesday night with the passing of Willie Mays. Despite the gravity that the word “legend” carries, it still may not do justice to its greatness.

There’s a short list in every longtime, die-hard baseball fan’s head of the greats: Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Ty Cobb, Stan Musial, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams. Knowing what we know now, Josh Gibson should certainly be on that list. Obviously, Mays belongs at the top, alongside Ruth and Aaron. In fact, it can be argued that he is THE greatest player in baseball history.

In honor of Willie’s life, spanning 93 years of positivity and baseball ambassadorship, we will now make this case.

When you hear the term “five-tool superstar,” there is no greater historical example than May. We could go beyond five things too, because Mays was amazing at everything. He checked every virtual box you can imagine, winning MVPs, Gold Gloves (no Silver Sluggers yet, but he would have a full cupboard), a World Series, a Rookie of the Year and making an impressive 24 All-Star Teams. He turned professional at age 17 for the Birmingham Black Barons and reached Major League Baseball at age 20.

We can start with the easy stuff.

Mays scored 2,068 career runs, seventh all-time. He scored at least 100 runs in a season 12 times. Only nine players in history have done so, with Hank Aaron leading the way at 15. Mays finished with 1,909 RBI in his career, ranking 12th in history. He surpassed 100 RBI 10 times, one of 18 players in history to do so. The only players to surpass 1,900 runs and RBI were Ruth, Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, Musial, Cobb, Barry Bonds, Cap Anson, Hank Aaron and Mays.

Mays finished with 3,293 hits, now 13th all time. He doubled 525 times (46th) and tripled 141 times (63rd). His 660 home runs now rank sixth MLB history. Add it all up and his 6,080 total bases trail only Aaron, Pujols and Musial. His 1,326 extra-base hits rank sixth behind Aaron, Bonds, Pujols, Musial and Ruth.

In doing all of this, Mays posted a .301/.384/.557 line, which was good for a 155 OPS+, meaning he hit over .300 while being 55% better than the average hitter at getting on base and hitting for get strength all the time. his entire career.

Again, putting Mays into the story as a hit-and-run producer is the easy thing. He also led the majors in stolen bases four times and finished his career with 339 steals.

It’s a little harder to quantify defense, of course. We know everything about “The footprint“and it’s one of the most famous catches in baseball for a reason. The over-the-shoulder catch has a much greater degree of difficulty than any type of dive and Mays did it in the World Series by going straight back. He even spun around and made it a strong throw instead of basking in the glory of the catch.

Speaking of his arm, did you know he led the league in center field assists three times? He also finished second four times and third three times. In nine different seasons, he had at least 10 outfield assists.

Again, it’s hard to quantify defense, especially range in the pre-Statcast days, but there are statistics that tried. Total Zone Runs has May 12th of all time, with the only center fielder above him being Andruw Jones, who is generally considered the greatest defensive center fielder of all time.

We do everything we can to make sure people understand that we don’t think WAR is the only statistic worth using. It is not. There are countless useful statistics to help illustrate the obvious greatness. That being said, WAR is a comprehensive statistic that includes defense and baserunning with offense, so it’s useful for telling the full picture. Here is the all-time WAR leaderboard.

1. Babe Ruth, 182.6
2. Walter Johnson, 166.9
3. Cy Young, 163.6
4.Barry Bonds, 162.8
5. Willie Mays, 156.2
6.Ty Cobb, 151.5
7. Hank Aaron, 143.1
8. Roger Clemens, 139.2
9. Tris Speaker, 134.9
10. Honus Wagner, 131

An 8.0 WAR season is generally considered MVP caliber. Mays had 11 of them, behind only Ruth and Bonds’ 12. Nobody has more than nine anymore. If we define the criteria for 9 WAR seasons, Mays came in second with nine (Ruth had 10, no one else has more than eight). If we were to go to 10 WAR seasons, Mays and Rogers Hornsby would have six. Ruth was nine. No one else has more than three.

It’s incredibly difficult to compare eras, but this is probably the best we have and it says that Babe Ruth was the greatest player of all time. Keep in mind, of course, that he played in a segregated league that wouldn’t even allow Aaron or Mays on the field. I know this statement irritates people, but it’s a fact. The same goes for Johnson, Young, Cobb, Speaker and Wagner. If we said that the greatest player of all time would have to face the greatest competition possible, that would eliminate all of those players. Bonds, of course, has the PED asterisk, as does Clemens. Mays and Aaron are then left alone and there is little doubt that while Aaron may have been the better hitter – certainly the better power hitter – Mays was the better overall player.

If you wanted to say the best player in Major League Baseball against other MLB players at the time he played, the answer would probably be Ruth, but you can’t say against his peers because he didn’t play against all of his peers. Would he have been as good with the likes of Oscar Charleston, Cool Papa Bell, Turkey Stearns and Mule Suttles mixed in? We have no way of knowing. With Mays, we don’t have to wonder.

However, we don’t need to limit ourselves to just WAR, since the league has been integrated. We have already analyzed these numbers. Whether we’re talking runs, hits, doubles, triples, home runs, RBI, stolen bases, batting average, getting on base, power hits, outfield assists, any defensive metric that measures range, Mays is considered the best all-around position player that we have already seen. He led the league in most of those things multiple times. He walked more than he struck out in 10 seasons too!

Let’s also keep in mind that Mays lost an entire year of development to military service (1953, when he was 22). He came back the following season and won MVP, capturing the batting title with a .345/.411/.667 slash line, good for a 175 OPS+. The Giants won the World Series that season, and yes, this is the series that featured “The Catch.”

Perhaps some testimonials from people who saw him play could do him justice. Probably not, but I thought this quote was particularly great: “If someone came along and hit .450, stole 100 bases, and performed a miracle on the field every day, I would still look him in the eye and tell him Willie was better.” This is Leo Durocher, from Mays’ Hall of Fame page.

Do things like “everyone loved him” or “he was so sure he had a nickname like ‘The Say Hey Kid'” count? Probably not, but they say he exudes charisma and that never hurts in these discussions.

To be clear, I don’t necessarily believe that Willie Mays was the greatest player of all time. It could be Ruth. It could be Aaron. It could be Charleston or anyone else I mentioned in this column. Hell, maybe it’s a pitcher like Johnson or Clemens or Pedro Martinez or Tom Seaver or Greg Maddux. Maybe it’s Shohei Ohtani! No one knows for sure and anyone who claims otherwise is not being honest with themselves.

What I’m saying is that Willie Mays absolutely has a case – a very strong case – as the greatest player of all time. The night of his passing seemed like a good time to make that case.