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Reality Check (OT-baseball)

Posted By: Rich Munitz
Date: Friday, 8 July 2011, at 12:12 a.m.

In Response To: Reality Check (OT-baseball) (adambulldog)

I'm not sure how you come up with Williams being close to Ruth in slugging. Williams was one of the greatest sluggers of all time for sure, but still had a career slugging percentage of .634 as compared to Ruth's .690. That is a huge difference (nearly 10%). Ruth averaged 9 more home runs per 162 games than Williams and I don't think the ballpark accounts for anything close to that many. Ruth was not the predictable pull hitter that Williams was and while Yankee Stadium has a short distance down the right field line, it quickly enlarges to right-center; and you have to consider how many of the far right field shots would have gone out anyway if the fence had been 20 feet further back. Ignoring home runs, Williams and Ruth average nearly identical total batted bases. Williams and Ruth had nearly identical career batting averages (.344 vs .342). Williams walked a bit more and thus had a slightly higher career on-base pct (.482 vs. .474). However, if we're making excuses, it is only fair to say that Williams may have walked more because he did not have Gehrig batting right behind him. Ruth also had solidly better RBI and Runs averages. To complete the offensive picture, Ruth had 123 career stolen bases to Williams 24.

Yes, Williams lost 3 years, but if you look at his career stats, you will see that he was rather consistent throughout his entire career. There is no reason to believe that he would have performed anything much better than average had he played those three years, and that time off may have left more in the tank for his later years when he did not decline as much as most players do. Ruth also lost hitting opportunity early in his career due to his pitching and the pre-1920 dead-ball/spitball/dirty-ball era.

In the end, Williams may have been a slightly better basic hitter than Ruth, but Ruth's slugging edge clearly wins in terms of who was the best offensive player of all time.

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