The baseball world lost one of its integral legends on Tuesday with the death of Willie Mays. For some, the sport lost its greatest player of all time.
There’s no shortage of ways to praise Mays’ 23-year career in the major leagues, from the objective numbers to the subjective anecdotes. He was the best attacking player in the history of his midfield position, and he was responsible for the most iconic defensive highlight. He dominated, he entertained, he lived on in the memories of every witness to his playing career.
Hits: 3,293. Home runs: 660. All-Star selections: 24. Gold Gloves: 12. MVP awards: 2 (arguing he deserved a few more). Home run titles: 4. Stolen base titles: 4. A World Series title, a Rookie of the Year award, a batting title, a four-home run game and even the inaugural Roberto Clemente Award for Sportsmanship. It is difficult to imagine a more complete CV.
But Mays somehow doesn’t come up as often as some others in the conversation about baseball’s GOAT. For a century, the standard answer was Babe Ruth. Then Barry Bonds disrupted the conversation for a while, and he still does if you’re willing to ignore certain crimes.
Let’s fix that.
Is Willie Mays the MLB GOAT?
A case can absolutely be made that there has never been a baseball player greater than Mays, especially when you take into account a few complications related to the way Wins Above Replacement is being used to direct the debate.
To start, let’s take a look at the Baseball Reference rankings for all-time WAR:
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
Notice a few things about the guys before Mays?
We don’t need to dwell on this too much – you probably already know how much the following statement means to you – but it must be said: Willie Mays is the all-time leader in WAR among MLB players who participated in a integrated competition and never used steroids.
Would Ruth have been as dominant as Mays if he had been born 25 years later and faced the wave of black talent that hit the MLB in the wake of Jackie Robinson? It’s impossible to say. But it’s not a stretch to argue that the era in which Mays played for the Giants was when the league’s talent level was at its highest, when every young boy in America grew up wanting to be a baseball player and was given the opportunity.
If that’s enough to sell you on Mays, fine, but it’s also entirely possible to support him while accepting the premise that Ruth and others had no advantage because the WAR we use now is not the same as the WAR. used at the time, even though it is treated similarly in the record books.
WAR changed the way defenses were calculated after Willie Mays played
It is relatively easy to calculate offensive WAR over the many decades of MLB history. Almost everything on the board can be summed up in a few numbers that have survived the transition from literal record books to the online ledgers used today. Mays hit a home run on May 18, 1957, and we have a good idea of the effect it had on the game and how impressive it was considering the pitcher, the park and the era.
Calculating defensive WAR is not that simple, as there is no hard record of how many great catches a player has made in his career.
That matters quite a bit when you realize that Baseball Reference records Mays’ career impact on the field as 18.2 wins above replacement. That number ranks 69th on the all-time defensive WAR leaderboard, which is good, but not quite in line with Mays’ defensive reputation. Kevin Kiermaier is a very good defender, but it’s hard to imagine anyone saying he should be more than 10 spots ahead of Mays.
For the outfield, today’s defensive evaluation essentially consists of a human or computer watching a play and recording how far a player had to run to make (or not make) a catch. Unfortunately, the system Baseball Reference uses for defensive WAR, Baseball Info Solutions Defensive Runs Saved, only goes back to the 2003 season.
For seasons prior to 2003, Baseball Reference uses something called Total Zone Rating, which does not include any form of player tracking. Here’s what B-Ref says it does instead:
Total Zone Rating (TZR) is a non-observational fielding system that relies on several forms based on the level of data available, ranging from basic fielding and pitching statistics to play-by-play, including batted ball types and target location. As much data as available is used per season.
When play-by-play is available, TZR uses information such as ground balls fielded by infielders and outfielders to estimate the hits allowed by infielders. It uses runners’ progress and out information to determine arm ratings for outfielders, double play ability for infielders, and arm ratings for catchers.
TZR is an impressive feat of statistical engineering, but its limitations for our purposes are obvious. It also becomes even more limited for seasons before 1953 (Mays debuted in 1951) due to a lack of play-by-play data.
The point is, the tool used to evaluate where Mays historically ranks against his peers has some flaws. Normally that’s not a big deal, as long as you realize that WAR has a lot of variability (the critics will never hesitate to point out when the metric favors a player who seems to be lacking in other numbers compared to another), but here: it’s a problem.
But is it enough to close the 26.4 war gap between Mays and Ruth, whose defensive evaluation is tricky for the same reasons? Again, it’s impossible to say, but it’s definitely worth considering.
Mays is remembered as perhaps the greatest defensive midfielder of all time, leading the position in Gold Gloves with 12, and he is rated by WAR as only a pretty good defender. If you don’t think Mays’ defense was better than anything the numbers at the time could portray, then you’ve clearly never spoken to anyone who saw Mays play in person.
Willie Mays was the best hitter-fielder combination ever
There are a number of ways to challenge Mays’ supremacy, including a lack of team success, as he only won one World Series ring (a tainted one at that). The counterargument to that: change Mays and Mickey Mantle, and see how well the New York Yankees did in the 1950s and 1960s. Rings are a very silly way to argue an MLB GOAT, so we won’t dwell on it.
Instead, let’s think of Mays with a wide lens. For twenty years, he was one of the most productive and consistent players in the league, retiring with an OPS+ of 155 (meaning his OPS was 55% better than league average, taking park and era into account). At the same time, he was the best defensive highlight machine in baseball; it’s just a shame that his career predates the days when highlights became a thing.
If you care how high a player’s ceiling was, Mays posted six seasons above the historically elite mark of 10 WAR. If you care how high a player’s floor was, Mays’ worst OPS+ from 1954 to 1966 was 146. He slashed .296/.369/.557 with a league-leading 40 steals that year. If you care about a player’s character, look at all the memories of the people who met him.
When it comes to picking the baseball GOAT, there really isn’t an angle that doesn’t end up with Mays on the list, and that’s why so many people will pitch him as the best ever. Your personal preferences may vary, but Mays’ career does not.
