Bonds wins sixth NL MVP Award

Major League Baseball ^ | November 18th, 2003 | Chris Shuttlesworth

[CommerceComet]

In my initial post, I said that Aaron put up significantly better career numbers than Mays or Mantle. It is an indisputable fact that Aaron had 95 more HRs and 394 more RBIs than Mays. I didn't say that Aaron was better than Mays (or Mantle).

As a matter of fact, I would rate Mays overall as a better player than Aaron. The only dispute between us is how much better was Mays. It seems I would say a quarter step ahead, you would say a whole step.

Evaluation of players is affected by how much weight a person places on each of the five tools. For an outfielder, I put much more weight on hitting and hitting with power than I do on defense and arm. This is why I discount Mays' larger advantages in defense and arm relative to Aaron's slight advantage in hitting.

This is also why I rate Mantle at his peak as better than Aaron and Mays. (Surprise, surprise, coming from someone with my screen name.) Mantle's 3-5 best seasons in hitting dominate the 3-5 best seasons of Mays and Aaron and overcome the advantages Aaron and Mays have in the other areas. This is really splitting hairs since the three excelled at all phases of the game.

[Archie Bunker on steroids]

Sorry I missed the discussion. My expert opinion would have enhanced the debate.