Player Appreciation: Ted Williams

Just take a minute and compare Teddy Ballgame to some of the greatest hitters playing today.

Hitting at a career .334 clip, Albert Pujols has the highest batting average among active players. He's batted above .350 for a single season twice. That's comparable to Williams, who reached the mark four times. Both sluggers hit in the middle of their team's order, which means they were expected to produce runs. When looking at the following numbers, remember that Williams' seasons were eight games shorter than Pujols' are:

• Player ********** 130 runs scored ********** 130 RBI
• Pujols ************* 2 times ********** 5 times
• Williams ************* 6 times ********** 7 times

Alex Rodriguez is one of the game's premiere sluggers. He has the third-highest slugging percentage among active players, behind Pujols and Manny Ramirez.
Ted Williams is second only to Babe Ruth when it comes to the career slugging mark. For his career, he slugged .634.
Alex Rodriguez has slugged above .634 just once in his entire career.

One thing that separates Williams from so many great hitters is that he rarely struck out. Let's look at Ichiro Suzuki here. The fantastic right fielder is the ninth- toughest hitter to strike out in baseball. He has struck out 65 times or more five times in his career.
Teddy Ballgame struck out 64 times as a rookie and never had that many whiffs again.

It's hard to forget how dominant Ken Griffey Jr. was for a stretch of 12 years. Well, during Junior's prime he collected four home run titles, one RBI crown, and one slugging title. Williams won four home run crowns, nine slugging titles and paced the league in runs batted in four times.
Twice Griffey lead the league in at-bats per home run. Williams did it six times.

Manny Ramirez is third among active players in on-base percentage, with just Pujols and Todd Helton ahead of him. However, comparing him to Williams shows just how off the charts the Splendid Splinter was.
Ted Williams' career on-base percentage is .482, second only to a man named Ruth. You've heard of that guy. Anyway, Ramirez' best single season on-base mark is .450. That's 32 points below Williams' career average.

Now let's compare Williams to some of the all-time greats. We'll readily admit Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio were better all-around players. But, with the exception of Ruth, none of them - not even Bonds - was anywhere near as good a hitter as The Kid.

Hammerin' Hank was more than a home run machine. He had a higher average than George Brett, Mickey Mantle and Pete Rose. But comparing him to Williams puts both in perspective. Williams had higher career on-base, slugging and batting averages by more than 30 points in each. His average 162 game season included six more home runs, 17 more runs driven in and 20 more runs scored.

The first "Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived" was Ty Cobb. It's hard justifying comparing a player from the dead-ball era to Williams, but if we're going to claim Thumper's the best there ever was, we need to compare him to Cobb. The Georgia Peach had a batting average 24 points higher than Teddy Ballgame. And despite never hitting more than nine home runs in a season, Cobb had seven campaigns of 100 runs batted in. But Williams brought such striking power to the plate he has to be considered a better overall hitter. Williams lead his league in on-base percentage 12 times, compared to Cobb's nine. He also lead the league in slugging nine times, one more than Cobb. Williams' 162 game average of runs scored and driven in are more than Cobb, 127 to 120 runs and 130 to 103 runs driven in.

Joe DiMaggio was the closest thing to a rival Williams had. Offensively, however, Williams was insanely better. Consider: Williams won twice as many home run and RBI crowns, three times as many batting titles and had on-base and slugging percentages of almost 100 points higher than DiMaggio.

When Barry Bonds was shattering several records and writers were calling him "The greatest player ever" they were totally ignoring the reality that the conversation starts and ends with Ruth. But that wasn't their only over sight. Those writers acted like they'd never heard of Williams. Afterall, Williams' batting average was .46 points higher. As a slugger, Williams dominated his peers even more than Bonds did. The surly Giant/Pirate won exactly one RBI crown and two home run titles. Williams won four and six respectively. And for all the walking Bonds did later in his career, Williams actually averaged more walks per 162 games, 143 to 139. Both players lead their leagues in on-base percentage 10 times. Sounds like they're evenly matched. But now would be the time to bring up Williams' time in the service. He paced the league in that category the seasons before and after he left for World War II.

We admit it's tough to argue Ted Williams was better than Ruth, who revolutionized the game on a daily basis. But Williams might have perfected what Ruth began. After all, he slugged at a Ruthian pace, but didn't strike out nearly as often. He also had a slightly higher batting average and on-base percentage.