New York Yankees: Why Joe DiMaggio Makes All-Time Team and Mickey Mantle Doesn’t
May 26, 2011 · Jesse Golomb SoapBoxSportsByte · Jump to comments
Article Source: Bleacher Report - New York Yankees
Note: This is part of a series for Baseball Digest in which I pick each Major League team’s best player/coach at every position. The complete Yankees list is up on the website. The complete Dodgers list will go up early next week.
Yankees All-Time Centerfielder: Joe DiMaggio
Surprised? Probably not.
Now think for a second…who’s missing from this list? (Waiting…Waiting…)
Now your brow is starting to furrow, no?
Let me take this space to preempt your outrage. There’s little debating Joe DiMaggio’s place in the Pantheon of Yankee-dom.
But leaving out Mickey Mantle—a man who was the favorite player of an entire generation of fans, whose performance at his peak may have had no rival in the history of the game—is bound to incur some rage from someone, somewhere, right?
Mantle’s legacy precedes him: His rare pre-injury combination of top-end speed and raw power, his .298/.421/.557 line, his reputation as an all-time great who might have been the all-time great, had one of his innately debilitated knees not exploded after a run-in with a drainpipe in the Yankee Stadium outfield.
Choosing between him and Joe D—kind of like deciding between Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis—is the kind of decision that will confound and divide: Based entirely on personal taste and preference, it has no single right answer. That’s why I’m going to take this space to elevate DiMaggio’s achievements—not diminish the Mick’s.
In fact, let’s elevate the Mick’s first.
In 1956, he put together what may be the greatest all-around season in the history of the game: 52 HR, 130 RBI, 132 R, 10 SB, a .353/.464/.705 line and a 12.2 WAR. He preceded that with a 10.1 WAR in ’55, and followed his Triple Crown ’56 season with a 12.0 WAR the next year. For good measure, he had an additional 11.1 WAR campaign in 1961.
To put that in perspective, six-time combined MVP winners Alex Rodriguez and Albert Pujols have never once posted a single season that topped 10.0 WAR.
But Joe D did, posting a 10.1 WAR in an insane 1937 sophomore season (46 HR, 167 RBI, .346/.412/.673) and a somehow higher 10.6 in ’41. And while he may not have possessed the All-American Golden Boy mystique that Mantle did, his achievements may be even more impressive.
Forget the hitting streak, which carries a whole legend (or song, or article, or book) with it. It may be one of the most impressive feats in the history of American sports, but 56 games of one season does not define a career, or does it distinguish one career from another.
Instead, DiMaggio’s longevity is both what he should be most known for and what separates him from Mantle. I mentioned previously how I value short-lived excellence more than long-run consistency, but DiMaggio is the rare exception. He not only had those two 10-plus WAR seasons, but he remained a remarkably consistent and valuable player until the day he retired.
He never once posted a WAR under 6.0 in a full season, with his “lesser” seasons coming in a 1949 season.
In ’49 he was a five-win player despite only playing 76 games and a career-culminating ’51 campaign where he still was worth 3.2 WAR. He only once twice batted less than .300 in a full season—with a .290 and a .263 in injury-plagued years. His career .325/.398/.579 line speaks words in and of itself.
Some remark at his relatively unimpressive home run totals, but this is somewhat of a moot point. DiMaggio played in the pre-renovation Yankee Stadium, where left-handed batters were given the gift of a short porch and righties received the death sentence of cavernous left and center fields.
Mantle, who was a switch-hitter but batted primarily from the left side, received many of the benefits of the latter. DiMaggio was forced to cope with playing half of his games in a ballpark that would swallow up anything but his most crushing blast.
Jesse Golomb researches and writes for BaseballDigest.com. He is also the creator and writer of SoapBoxSportsByte, a blog that incorporates statistical analysis as well as fan perspective into daily pieces on the MLB, NFL and NBA. He can be followed on Twitter @SoapBxSprtsByte, or contacted by email at golombjesse@gmail.com.
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