Willie Mays vs. Mickey Mantle: Who Was Better?

Centerfielders Willie Mays, who died yesterday at 93, and Mickey Mantle, who died in 1995 at 63, both entered major league baseball in 1951 in New York City, Mays for the National League Giants and Mantle for the American League Yankees. Which one was better?

It’s often assumed that, due to New York dominance of the media, that famous New York ballplayers must have been overrated. But there is little statistical evidence of that. Mays and Mantle were incredibly good and probably should have won more Most Valuable Player awards than they did. According to Baseball Reference’s best all-around synthetic statistic, Wins Above Replacement, Mays led National League position players (i.e., non-pitchers) ten times in value while winning the MVP only in twice, in 1954 and 1965. Mantle led the American League six times, while winning three MVPs (1956, 1957, and 1962).

For example, Brooklyn Dodger centerfielder Duke Snider was a worthy peer of Mantle and Mays from 1953-1956 before receding to mortality, but New York sportswriters, more hostile than provincial scribes, tended to write stories about why is the Duke such a dog? (Snider never won an MVP. You could argue that sportswriters were biased toward NYC catchers, voting three MVPs each to the Yankees’ Yogi Berra and the Dodgers’ Roy Campanella.)

Because of the lack of interleague play, Mays and Mantle only met head to head in the 1951 and 1962 World Series, with Mantle’s Yankees winning both. Overall, Mays won one championship in four World Series across 22 seasons, while Mantle won seven rings in twelve World Series over 18 years.

Mantle was a greater slugging force at his peak.

But, overall, Mays was greater than Mantle across the full length of their careers due to staying remarkably healthy: Mays played in 24% more games than Mantle despite missing most of 1952 and all of 1953 to military service. Mays’ endurance didn’t seem all that remarkable back then because his peer Hank Aaron of the NL Braves played in 10% more games than Mays did and eventually proved to be the guy, not Willie, who broke Babe Ruth’s career record for homers.

In general, black ballplayers tend to stay healthier in their 30s. For example, Mays hit 52 homers in 1965 at age 34, finally winning his second MVP, while Mantle hit only 19 that year and no more than 23 in any season before retiring after his 1968 season at age 36 after becoming too immobile to play the field. In contrast, Mays remained pretty good through age 41 in 1972, before finally declining embarrassingly in 1973.

On the other hand, if the American League had introduced the designated hitter in 1969, Mantle probably had a few more decent seasons in him as a DH.

When healthy, as in 1956, 1957, and 1961, Mantle appears to have been a significantly better slugger than Mays and about as fast of a runner, although less likely to exploit his speed on the basepaths. For instance, for his career Mantle grounded into double plays only about half as often as did Mays and was successful on 80% of his (relatively rare) attempts at a stolen base compared to 77% for Willie. Mays, on the other hand, hit about twice as many triples, especially when playing early in his career in the Polo Grounds with its silly 485 feet to dead centerfield fence.

It’s inevitable to ask in 2024 whether Mays and Mantle had somehow gotten hold of steroids ahead of everybody else when Mays hit 51 homers in 1955 at age 24 and Mantle hit 52 homers in 1956 at the same age.

But steroids seems implausible.

The first hint of steroids in individual sports are in weight events at the 1956 Olympics and we don’t have any record of them showing up in American team sports until LSU won the college football championship in 1959. There are multiple photos of Mays and Mantle shirtless in their locker rooms in the mid-1950s and they look like what they were: naturally ripped guys, the best athletes out of 200 million Americans, who didn’t much lift anything heavier in the off-season than a shotgun (in Mantle’s case) or a golf club (in Mays’ case):

Here’s Mantle in the early 1950s:

Mantle seems like absolutely the last guy to work out on steroids. And yet in 1956 he hit .353-52-130.