This sounds more like a “crush” than an objective comparison of great ballplayers’ talents. (not that there’s anything wrong with that)
How about this…
Impact on the game: Babe Ruth. Totally revolutionized baseball single-handedly, and was probably the most famous living human for 10 years.
Best all-around player (at his peak*): Mantle, by a nose. Possibly just because he was a switch-hitter, and also hit baseballs farther than anybody.
Best all-around player (actual realized potential): Mays.
I think a BAAP has to excel at all 5 tools, and only Mantle & Mays are in that category. Nobody ever paid to see Ruth run the bases or patrol the outfield.
*In a similar “what might have been” line of thought, you could argue that Bo Jackson may have been the greatest running back ever, if only…
…not only Mantle or Mays.
I know this will be a singularly unpopular opinion, but honestly I think when a lot of dust has cleared, the guy people will view as the best ever was a different Giant.
Gives me no pleasure to say it, but there it is.
Before reading this thread, I had my own hierarchy that it was Ruth, Bonds, Cobb, then Mays. But re-reading Ted Williams’s numbers, dear God what a monster. To bookend his war years of 43’, 44’, and ‘45 with two straight years of 10.0+ oWAR is just staggering to me. Were the Leagues’ talent diluted by the War in his '42 season? Did a significant number of stars die in the War, also diluting the talent for '46 and '47? Because otherwise, I can’t see how you can’t just project him for another 10-11 oWAR for each of those three war years. Which would have him eclipsing Bonds and put him equal with Cobb.
Still, without taking away the sheer brilliance of Mantle though from '56-'58, I don’t see how Ruth still isn’t the GOAT. It is hard to compare eras though.
She ran the shows. She stood next to him when he signed. They had discussions about it. Yes I believe her. It was not her racism. She liked most of the people who signed whoever they were.
Interesting viewpoint. He Who Shall Not Be Named certainly could hit, hit for power, and run; and I think he won a few Gold Gloves in LF early in his career. Never had much of a throwing arm, though (Sid Bream), which is why he was in LF. So I’ll still go with Willie.
I was not a fan of the basket catch. I thought it was showing off. Catch it with 2 hands right over the throwing shoulder so you can get it back to the infield as fast as possible.
I read in a biography ca. 1969 that Mays learned the basket catch when he tried to correct a kid he was in charge of, teaching baseball, as Pvt Willie Howard Mays.
“OK”, the kid said. “But now, try it my way”
Mays did, and found that he had better control.
How? If you basket catch, you have to transfer the ball up to the proper position to throw. While you are doing that, some track star is running the bases. There are lots of close plays in baseball. Giving away a step or 2 is wrong.
I am bemused by the concept of one of us mere mortals telling one of the best defensive players of all time that “he’s not doing it right.” You go right ahead – I’ll wait here. 
I’d be interested to see how many runners tagged up and advanced on a Mays basket catch.
It’s quite possible that Mays only used the basket catch on routine fly balls with no runners on base. (my quickly fading memories of watching him play kinda support this).
I remember reading that Mays said that the basket catch put him in a better position(for him) to get the throw off as compared to a more conventional catch.
And don’t forget he wasn’t exactly a slacker in the arm department.
Mine too. Despite the spectacular entertainment he provided, it never looked like bravado to me.
Eight Gold Gloves, actually, the last of them at 33. But I’ll concede he probably wasn’t the all-around defensive player that Mays was.
Still, I think you may be underestimating the degree to which You Know Who was more valuable offensively than Mays (which is hard to process, given how good Mays was offensively himself!). Bonds career OBP and slugging percentage were .444 (Career! OBP! Of .444!) and .607, respectively, versus “only” .384 and .557 for Mays.
Even adjusting for the offensive inflation in Bonds’ time leaves Bonds with a career OPS+ of 181, versus 155 for Mays. Both guys played the same number of seasons (22): offensive wins above replacement for Mays, career, 136.2; Bonds,151.4.
Or maybe you don’t hold with the newer stats. OK. Here’s a 162 game comparison of an average season from each guy:
Mays: .302/.384/.557, 28 HR, 103 RBI, 112 R, 18 SB on 24 ATT (75%)
Bonds: .298/.444/.607, 41 HR, 108 RBI, 121 R, 28 SB on 36 ATT (78%)
(Those steal numbers surprise me… I wouldn’t have guessed Bonds would have averaged 28 steals a year for his career. But his best stolen base seasons outstrip Mays’, on top of everything else).
IMO, Mays was a sensational baseball player, and someone I’d much rather watch and root for.
Bonds was the best player of all time.
Bonds still gives up 30 points of on-base, 80 points of slugging, and 45 of batting average (if you care) to Ruth; he came close (which was something I thought I would never see in my life and I’m not yet 40) but didn’t quite do it, IMO.
162 game averages for:
Ted Williams: .344/.482/.634, 37 HR, 130 RBI, 127 R, and practically no SB. OPS+ of 190.
Ty Cobb: .366/.433/.512, 6 HR, 103 RBI, 120 R, 48 SB (hard to tell what the caught stealing stats are at baseball-reference) OPS+ of 168.
Babe Ruth: .342/.474/.690, 46 HR, 143 RBI, 141 R, 8 SB. OPS+ of 206. He averaged a season of 206… <giggles to self>.
Gosh, every time I look at Williams, I get more and more impressed. To re-ask my questions a few posts higher in the thread, were Williams’s 41, 42, 46 and 47 numbers artificially elevated because of the War? Hard to think that 3 more years of compiling numbers at his '41-'47 pace wouldn’t merit his inclusion in the GOAT debate. I agree that it’s Ruth as the GOAT, but Williams is a lot closer to Ruth, and IMHO, about equal with Bonds, than I would’ve thought before this thread.
It’s really funny to me that it seems you’d have to look to Bonds’s defense of 20.4 dWAR to break the tie.
I believe you misunderstood the story I quoted.
Mays was the teacher. He had never seen the basket catch, and thought the kid using it was making a mistake, so as his teacher, tried to correct him.
But when Mays tried the basket catch (at the kid’s suggestion), he liked it and made it immortal.
Baseball is like that sometimes - it was a washed-up minor leaguer who showed Christy Mathewson the fadeaway pitch.
I’d say not. The war hadn’t even started in the '41 season, in '42 I’d suspect that most of the attrition hadn’t yet occurred, and in '46 and '47 everybody was back. So any War effect would, in my opinion, have only happened in '42, and was probably minimal.
Keep in mind that Teddy Ballgame also missed most of two seasons for the Korean War, when he was only 33/34.
Yeah, I think Williams probably edges out Bonds as a hitter, though by a very narrow margin (certainly, the difference between Williams and Bonds is far smaller than the difference between Bonds and Mays). But as you note, Bonds was a superior defensive player, and of course, Williams didn’t steal bases at all where Bonds was a genuine stolen base threat early in his career. I still give the edge to Bonds.
Ruth? Well, truthfully, I feel completely inadequate to the task of comparing Ruth to more modern players like Bonds (or Williams or Mays). It really doesn’t even feel like they were playing the same game. Ruth faced a higher mound; the other guys faced African American and Hispanic athletes. Ruth didn’t have to contend with super-specialty relievers and the range of pitch types he had to handle was less varied; on the other hand he did what he did without benefit of steroids or any modern training methods. I won’t argue with someone who feels that Ruth is the GOAT, but my gut instinct is that it’s Bonds.
Incidentally, I think Alex Rodriguez cost himself a place in the argument by going to the Yankees and moving off shortstop. A-Rod’s career hitting numbers place him right alongside Mays as a hitter - .302/.387/.570, a fair number of steals, 43 home runs and 129 RBI per 162 games. His OPS+ is “only” 145, and his career oWAR is “only” around 105. Those numbers look merely Hall of Fame worthy for a guy who played half his career at third base, but probably would look staggering from a career shortstop.