Welcome Guest | Login or Register

Mantle vs. Mays

Francesca had a show yesterday on Willie Mays, which featured the author of a new book on Willie’s life.  It was very interesting.  Francesca said that he was a big Mantle fan (because he was a Yankees and not a Giant fan), but he also said that Mays was a better all around ballplayer.

I take issue with that.  Of course, either Mantle or Mays would be by far the best player in the game today.  They were that good, no great.  But you can’t just look at stats to judge player’s greatness and I think that is what Francesca and other fans do when they make this comparison.

You have to ignore that last four years of Mickey’s playing career since he was a shell of the player he was during his first 14 years in the game.  Longevity gives Mays the big edge in overall stats and he deserves credit for always keeping himself in shape and having the benefit of good genes along with good sense when it came to his career.  He also was a flashier player.  His running style was exciting and his defensive play in centerfield was marvelous.  On this point I spoke to many fans who saw DiMaggio play in his prime as well as Mays and Mantle.  All said (including my Dad who was a great Yankees and DiMaggio fan) that DiMaggio was the better center fielder.  I know that does not sit well with current fans, but very few fans today saw DiMaggio play and, therefore, most of them can’t believe that anyone was better than Mays.

Mantle was every bit an effective a center fielder as Mays, without the flash.  He had greater speed than Mays and this helped him patrol the vast outfield of Yankee Stadium when the left field gap was 457.  Mays stole more bases but Mantle was faster down the line and he was told not to steal bases because of his fragile legs.  His stolen base percentage was one of the highest of all time.

Mays hit 302 lifetime vs. 298 for Mantle, which is a push.  Mays had more home runs because he played for 24 years, vs. Mantle’s 18 years, and only 14 good ones.  But that still does not tell the entire story.

When Mantle stepped to the plate everything stopped in the ballpark.  You were not going to the food stand (they didn’t have food courts then) when he was on deck.  He hit the most majestic, long home runs since the Babe, some of the longest on record long before the taint of steroids.

It’s unfair to compare Mantle’s post season stats (all World Series games) vs. Mays since Mays’ post season play is limited.  Nevertheless, in 20 Worlds Series games Mays hit no home runs, had six RBIs and batted around 250.

I saw both play, though, due to my age, I do not remember the first eight years of their respective careers.  In those years Mantle owned New York and, in fact, I have read where he was the best player of the 1950’s.

Give me Mays and Mantle and I win every year.  But I do not believe that Mays was the better all around ball player.

Just not much to write about.  This is the most controversy-free spring training camp I have ever witnessed.  A-Rod reports and Newsday doesn’t have one mention of his name… well maybe one, but almost as an after thought.  So far, Jeter has no contract issues, neither does Mo – because of Jeter’s press conference, Burnett loves Posada and Joba and Hughes don’t care about anything; they just want to pitch.  Oh and there will be no complacency.  And if I hear the word complacency from another beat writer, I’ll scream.

Absolutely no surprise, we could have scripted it ourselves. Jeter will not talk contract for the entire year. His presentation yesterday seemed more relaxed and less of the semi-robotic non-speak which is all he usually offers.

All Jeter needs is a solid year, if it approaches his performance of last year he has more cards, will the fans stand for him being dissed with a short-term low (relative) dollar contract offer after the season? Does the front office care about fan reaction?

Cashman has let a lot of aging talent go in the past, Bernie, Matsui, Jeter, even Pettitte in his first NYY life (though that last one was more George).  But Cashman will need armor plated underpants not to treat Jeter as the icon he is.

Ok, let’s get some serious baseball talk going now that the guys are holding full squad workouts.  All kidding aside about how bad this outfield is going to be.  Let’s take a prelim look at the relative strengths and weakness of this club heading into spring training.

First the positives:

Full season of A-Rod.  He’s back and better than ever!  A-Rod is rested, hip injury resolved and relaxed now that he’s got the elusive world series ring.  A full season of a healthy A-Rod will go a long way to helping the club defend its title this summer.  With a little rest at the DH, Girardi should easily be able to keep A-Rod fresh and capable of putting up a typical top 5 MVP like season.

Mark Tex more comfortable.  In that same vein, Mark Tex had a great year.  He’s probably going to be even more effective this season as he knows what to expect, is more comfortable in his place in the order and the stadium.  The media and the fans know what he’s all about and have embraced him to allow him to work through those inevitable slumps.  Hey, no slump with the glove for this guy.

Joba and Hughes.  Another year of maturity.  No innings limit on Joba.  A high limit on Hughes (180 innings).  There’s an open competition for the 5th spot, but no matter how that shakes out, both guys have had success as the 8th inning guy to set up for Mo.  Hey, that’s a plus, isn’t it?

Deep Rotation.  Cashman did a good job with acquiring Vasquez.  Over the long season, he will make a difference and may, as my friend Mike T says, become the #2 starter. 

Now on to the weaknesses:

Injuries.  It’s a fact.  This is an older club.  In order of most likely to get hurt: 1) Posada; 2) Pettitte; 3) Mo; and 4) Jeter and A-Rod.  Which always brings us to the bench.  The bench is not a strength and if any of these guys goes

Joba and Hughes.  That’s right they are on the plus side and the negative side.  Everyone knows that they both have great potential.  But they are listed as a potential negative here because this is the year.  Enough of the babying.  Enough of the excuses.  They have a couple of big league seasons under their belt and now is the time.  No more 3 1/3 innings starts from Joba only to have him say: “Well, I struck out 5 today.”  Hughes, we don’t want any excuses either.  If they both do not perform up to capabilities, the team might survive because of overall depth, but it will be disappointing.

Outfield and Bench.  We’ve gone over the outfield.  Suffice it to say, they might be a wash in terms of offense overall, but defensively they are still weak.  I don’t know who has the throwing arm out there, I guess we’ll see.  The bench is similarly a problem, anyone in the field goes down, it’s Ramiro Pena.  Not that he can’t play defense, but the infield is the strength of this team offensively.  They have to be concerns. 

Clutch Factor.  It’s listed here and admittedly it’s always difficult to envision.  All I know is that Damon and Matsui were clutch.  You might have valid reasons for not resigning either one because of age or injury.  But, you can’t get around the fact that in a big spot, for one at bat, Yankee fans had confidence when either of those two guys stepped to the plate.  The new guys might prove to be clutch eventually too… but, we knew that Damon and Matsui could be counted on, it’s got to be listed as a negative.

This team should be north side of 95 wins.  Problems may emerge as they always do during the season, and it might get the Red Sox back into things.  The Red Sox are easily an 89 win, 92 win team.  They have real good pitching.  They have a very solid lineup one through nine.  Ellsbury, Scutaro, Pedroia, Youkilis, Martinez, Ortiz, Beltre, Cameron, Drew.  Very solid indeed.  They are going to have their way with most clubs.  They do not have the one player who can match our top guys, but the whole may be greater than the sum of its parts.  That lineup will be a pain, not in quite the same way as in past years – they won’t hit as many HRs, but they have good, contact, line drive hitters.  They play better defense than in the past.  You can’t count on them to mess up a bunch of plays defensively anymore.  Scutaro, is a real nice clubhouse addition.  I sense that they have a real good mix over there.  Anyway, there will be more time to talk about them.  Hope this makes the site less boring.

This site has been way to boring recently. I stumbled across this funny video and though I’d share.

The site is working Much faster.  Nice!

So Damon gets 1 year, $8 million from Detroit.  I guess this saves a little face being that is is higher than the rumored $7 million per year the Yankees offered. I’m sure it makes him sleep much better.  By the way, I thought Detroit got rid of Granderson to cut payroll?!

The Yanks sign Chan Ho Park for $1 million.  Okay. He was impressive out of the pen for the Phillies last post season.  It’s good to have another experienced arm out there.  This move can help a lot.  It can’t really hurt.

Good job!

I know it may not look like it, but major updates and upgrades were performed on the site today.  It took me much longer than expected, but everything seems to be working now.  It may be a good idea to clear the cache (temporary internet files) of your browser to avoid some weird errors.  If you do see a problem, let me know.

Thanks,

Your faithful web administrator