Saturday, November 30, 2024

Williams Vs. DiMaggio: When They Were Playing in The American League, Who Was Better?

 

 

Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio were two of the greatest baseball players of all time. No one will refute that. The two men have been linked together since the magical Summer of 1941 when both men officially put the mark on their respective Hall of Fame careers: DiMaggio hit in 56 consecutive games and Williams became the last man to hit .400, marks that have stood for more than eight decades and that no one in the sport has come close to matching ever since.

Both men are icons for their respective teams, though in the case of DiMaggio he was ‘only’ the third in the list of Yankee legends to play in the teams remarkable four decade dominance of baseball, starting with the arrival of Babe Ruth and ending – temporarily  - in 1964 when the Yankee dynasty collapsed. The two are inexorably linked because they represent ‘the greatest rivalry in the history of baseball’, although during the 20th century there was no contest as to who the better franchise was. (Things have shifted in the Red Sox direction during this one.) But because DiMaggio and Williams’s career intersected during the brief period in the 1940s when the Red Sox looked like they were going to be a dynasty, the two outfielders are linked in the way that few Red Sox players during this period were. Indeed for much of that period the biggest link the two teams had were the players who got traded between the franchises with the Yankees inevitably getting the better of the deal.

And because both men were at their peak during this period, the debate has lingered: just who was better, Williams or DiMaggio. It’s worth noting that at the time Boston sportswriters built the idea that DiMaggio was the better player because according to them DiMaggio was a clutch hitter and Williams had gaudy statistics but never came through when the Red Sox needed him too. That is unfair to Williams and it’s not particularly fair to DiMaggio: the Yankees did just fine after he retired in 1951 and most of the time they won the pennant by such huge margins that even when DiMaggio wasn’t doing well, the Yankees did pretty well.

So with the distance of time, perhaps we can actually ask a different question: when both men were playing at the same time in the American League, who was the better player: Jolting Joe or the Splendid Splinter?

This is actually fairer than it might sound. Williams was a rookie in 1939 and DiMaggio at the time was starting his fourth season in the majors. Both men missed the same three year period due to their service in World War II: 1943-1945. And both men did suffer major injuries during the end of the decade that hurt their productivity. DiMaggio missed the first six weeks of the 1949 season due to bone spurs and only played half of the season and Williams suffered a broken wrist halfway through the 1950 season which ended a brilliant season for him.

So in this article I will look at Williams’s and DiMaggio’s performance during the period where the two men were directly competing against each other (and making pitchers in the American League miserable): 1939-1942 and 1946-1951.

For the record I will not use sabermetrics but only their basic statistics as well as where they ranked in the standings in the American League in the seasons they played. I think that’s a fair comparison as we’re also comparing them to the rest of the league.

 

1939

Williams broke in with the Red Sox and had arguably the greatest rookie season of all time: he hit .327 with 31 home runs and drove in 145 runs, which more than led the American League. (In fact he led both leagues in that category. He also led the lead in total bases with 344, was second in Doubles and runs scored and fourth in slugging percentage. Had there been a Rookie of the Year award, he would have been the unanimous winner.

Nevertheless DiMaggio outperformed him by a considerable amount that year. He batted .381, drove in 126 runs, hit 30 home runs, and was second in the American League in slugging percentage. He did all this even though he missed six weeks of the season with an injury which does boggle the mind. He won his first Most Valuable Player award and he thoroughly deserved it.

 

1940

Williams received such booing during this season that he vowed never to tip his cap after a home run because of it. And if Boston fans considered his second year performance disappointing, I actually side with Williams. He hit .344, second in the league to DiMaggio, hit 23 home runs and drove in 113 runs. He was third in total bases, led the league in runs scored and was among the top five in doubles and triples. Apparently Boston fans are harsher even when they have a legend.

The Yankees did not win the American League Pennant that year (the only time between 1936 and 1943 that didn’t happen) but DiMaggio had another great season. He batted .354 for his second batting title, hit 31 home runs and drove in 133 runs. He was just behind Williams in total bases and second in the league slugging percentage. DiMaggio was slightly better than Williams that year. However Hank Greenberg had a monster season and when the Tigers won the American League pennant, Greenberg won his second MVP. Apparently DiMaggio was booed at Yankee Stadium too that year.

 

1941

Trying to decide who had the better year in 1941 is trickier than it sounds and DiMaggio did end up beating Williams for the MVP that year. Williams’s 1941 season has been racked by many statisticians as arguably the best single season a hitter had whose name was not Babe Ruth. In addition to his .406 average, Williams led the league in home runs, slugging percentage, bases on balls and runs scored.

But DiMaggio’s season was, obviously, not that bad. He batted .357, drove in 125 runs to lead the American League (Williams finished fourth that year with ‘only’ 120) was second in runs scored and slugging to Williams, finished ahead of him in doubles and was the league leader in total bases with 348. You throw in that the Yankees won the pennant by 17 games after finishing third the previous year as well as the 56 game hitting streak, I can’t understand why the sportswriters named DiMaggio MVP in 1941.

Williams obviously had the better season but all things considered, I’m still inclined to put them at dead even for this year.

 

1942

There’s no question who the better player in 1942 was by any metric. Ted Williams won his first triple crown: he hit .356 with 31 home runs and 137 runs driven in. He also led the league in total bases, runs scored and slugging percentage. DiMaggio, by contrast, had was to that point his first ‘off-season’ in his seven years in baseball: he ‘only’ hit .305 with 21 home runs and 114 runs batted in. He was better in other categories, among the league leaders in total bases, runs scored and triples – and he and Williams tied with 186 hits apiece.

The problem was not that DiMaggio was named MVP and Williams wasn’t it was that the American League MVP that year went to Yankees second baseman Joe Gordon in one of the strangest choices the sportswriters had made to that point in the  awards history. It would have made more sense to name DiMaggio or Charlie Keller, another Yankee outfielder Most Valuable Player. By naming Gordon it really did seem like the sportswriters were demonstrating an pro-Yankee bias or more likely an anti Ted Williams one. Sadly it was far from the last time it would happen, even in this brief period.

 

We start up again in 1946 after both men, like the rest of America, returned home at the end of World War II.

 

1946

DiMaggio was not himself when he returned from his hiatus. He hit .290 with 25 home runs and 95 RBIs, career lows for him and the first time he’d never hit .300.

Williams by contrast came back swinging – literally. He batted .342, hit 38 home runs and drove in 123 runs. He finished second in all three categories – batting average to Washington’s Mickey Vernon, the latter two categories to Hank Greenberg – so some argued that he only received his first MVP because the Red Sox won the American League Pennant. What that fails to account is that he led the league in slugging percentage, runs scored and total bases, just as he had done in 1941 and 1942.  He also was among the league leaders in hits and doubles and walked 156 times, positively Ruthian numbers. There’s no question he earned this one.

DiMaggio by contrast only managed to finish in the top five in home runs and slugging percentage. The talk around the league was that he might be washed up.

 

1947

This one’s a dilly. Williams won his second triple crown, batting .343, with 32 home runs and 114 RBIs. He also led the league in total bases, runs scored and slugging percentage and was walked 163 times.

DiMaggio’s season was a slight improvement from 1946 – he hit .315 with 20 home runs and drove in 97 runs and was second in total bases and slugging percentage to Williams. Still there was no question who the best hitter in the American League was that year. What’s more DiMaggio’s numbers were not the most impressive among his own teammates. In the clearest example his fellow outfielder Tommy Henrich drove in 98 runs, scored 109 runs and hit 35 more doubles, easily surpassing DiMaggio’s figures in all three categories.

Yet DiMaggio was named the American League MVP – by one vote over Williams. Williams would point out justifiably one of the critical factors that a notable Boston sportswriter named Mel Webb left Williams off his ballot completely. Had he received even a tenth-place vote Williams would have been the MVP. There’s more to the story than that, obviously, but it does how Williams’s reputation with the Boston media – which was one of mutual loathing – affected his reputation at the time, particularly in comparison with DiMaggio.

 

1948

The American League enjoyed one of the great pennant races in baseball history in this year with Boston, Cleveland and New York fighting all season for the pennant. The Yankees would be eliminated on the next-to-last day of the season and the Red Sox would famously lose a one-game playoff to Cleveland.

Williams and DiMaggio each had one of their greatest seasons, though they would lose the MVP to Cleveland’s player-manager Lou Boudreau who also had one of the great seasons in major league history. Keeping that in mind, let’s focus on DiMaggio and Williams.

Williams batting .369, winning his fourth batting title and also led the league in slugging percentage and doubles. He hit 25 home runs, drove in 127 runs and scored 124 runs.

DiMaggio hit .320 but hit 39 home runs and drove in 155, both of which were enough to lead the American League. He also led the league in total bases with 355 forty more than Williams. He was second in slugging percentage to Williams but was also  among the league leaders in hits and triples.

Now there’s no question Boudreau deserved the MVP that year: in addition to posting offensive numbers that were among the highest for a shortstop to that point history, he was also the team manager had more pressure on him than Williams or DiMaggio did. But among the two men in question, I think I have to give the edge to the Yankee Clipper in this one. Even in the last game, after the Yankees had been eliminated, he played all nine innings and hit two singles and two doubles. He never gave up.

 

1949

This one is an easy one because DiMaggio missed the first six weeks of the season and only came to bat 272 times that year. His .346 average, fourteen home runs and sixty seven RBIs are impressive but despite the stories you hear (and I may tell some of them later) DiMaggio was not the best player in the American League.

Williams clearly was. He batted .343, with 43 home runs and 159 runs driven in. He missed his third triple crown by an eyelash. He led the American League in total bases, runs scored, doubles and slugging percentage and was second only to Dale Mitchell in hits. He walked a ridiculous amount – 162 times, second only to Babe Ruth for a single season, He won his second American League MVP deservedly.

But whatever possibility the Red Sox had for a dynasty dissolved on the final day of the 1949 season. The Red Sox had come close to winning two consecutive American League pennants only to lose them both on the final day of the season. Williams would never get this close to one for the rest of his career and I have little doubt his reputation began to dissolve still further for that period in Boston.

 

1950

At the All-Star break of the 1950 season Williams was hitting .321 with 25 home runs and 83 RBIS. While catching a liner of the bat of Ralph Kiner, he fractured his elbow, missed a third of the season. He finished hitting. 317 with 28 home runs and 97 RBIs. It took him out of contention for most of the league leaders – and was no doubt  a big part of how the Red Sox who had one of the best offensive seasons in history, lost the American League pennant by four games to the Yankees.

DiMaggio was a shell of his former self in 1950 but that shell was still very capable of doing amazing things. He hit .301, with 32 home runs and drove in 122 runs. He led the league in slugging percentage and managed 307 total bases.

DiMaggio might get this by default but it was an impressive season anyway. He was among the league leaders in home runs and RBIs and would have been a better choice for MVP then Phil Rizutto, in my opinion. (So would Yogi Berra for that matter but that’s neither here nor there.)

 

1951

This was DiMaggio’s last season for a reason. He batted .263 with 12 home runs and 71 runs driven in. He knew he no longer had it and rather than hang around any longer he chose to leave the stage after the Yankees won the World Series.

Williams was the better player that year by far, hitting .318 with 31 home runs and driving in 126 runs. He led the league in slugging percentage and total bases, scored 109 runs and was walked a ridiculous number of times. So naturally the writers gave the MVP to Yogi Berra.

No I won’t trash Yogi. During the 1950s he was deservedly one of the most respected players in the game. He deservedly won the MVP in 1954 and 1955, finished second in 1950, 1953 and 1956 and fourth in 1952. I could argue he deserved to win in 1950 as much in any of those years and let’s not pretend he wasn’t revolutionizing the position of catching in more ways then one. And for the record Williams thought he was one of the greatest hitters he’d ever seen.

 

Conclusion

The two men actually matched up better than I expected when I began writing this article. Williams was clearly the better player in both his MVP season as well as the two in which he won the Triple Crown. Comparing the two men in DiMaggio’s season isn’t strictly fair, but let’s count it for the record.

But DiMaggio was  clearly better than Williams at the start of his career and compares very well with him in several critical marks. The two men were better matched in 1941 than it would seem at first glance and DiMaggio was clearly statistically superior in 1948 to Williams. It might not be fair to compare DiMaggio to Williams in 1950 but the fact that DiMaggio was not only lagging quite a bit but had to take more rests than usual does lead me to think the two men might have finished favorably had Williams had been hurt.

DiMaggio hit 260 home runs and drove in 1105 runs during this period. Williams hit 273 home runs and drove in 1208. Williams scored 1295 runs. DiMaggio scored 978.

That last statistic speaks to one way Williams is clearly superior to DiMaggio. DiMaggio spent his entire career as a player surrounding by superb hitters around him, Tommy Henrich and Charlie Keller at the start of his career, Berra at the end of it. DiMaggio had all sorts of protection.

Williams by contrast never had anyone close to as good as him in the lineup. There would be some Hall of Famers – Bobby Doerr and Jimmy Foxx – as well as some very good hitters – Vern Stephens and Johnny Pesky but Williams was walked an absurd amount of the time because it was safer to do that and pitch to the next man down. That’s part of the reasons his numbers took such a nosedive in the latter stages of his career; he was still hitting as well as ever but there was no one base to drive ahead of him.

And it’s also the reason why his peak ended not long after DiMaggio’s career ended. Don’t get me wrong he was still as he himself put it ‘the greatest old hitter alive’, capable of batting .388 at 39 and winning a battle title when he was 40. And it’s not like his power disappeared: he hit 29 home runs at the age of 42. But the rest of the offensive lineup was, frankly, inoffensive. After he came back from Korea he never drove in more than 89 runs the rest of his career. There were some solid hitters in the lineup during the 1950s – Jackie Jensen and Frank Malzone – but they did not strike fear into the hearts of pitchers the way Williams still could at 40.

DiMaggio drove in 100 runs or more six times during this period. Williams drove in 100 runs every year but 1950 and that was due to extenuating circumstances. To be a little fairer DiMaggio drove in 120 runs four of those times and Williams did seven times.

Williams hit 30 home runs or more seven times during this period. DiMaggio did so 5 times. Williams hit 40 or more four times and DiMaggio never came close. To be fair DiMaggio only hit 40 home runs once in his entire career, when he hit 46 home runs in 1937; it was not easy to hit that many in the House that Ruth Built.

 Williams won four of his six batting titles during this period; DiMaggio won two. DiMaggio did manage to hit .350 three times during this period, the exact number as Williams did. DiMaggio, it’s worth noting, did flirt with .400 in 1939 before settling down at .381. Williams next highest total was .369, while DiMaggio hit .357 in 1942.

It was famously said DiMaggio only had one weakness: doubles. He hit 288 of his 390 during this period as well as 88 of his 131 triples. Williams hit 396 doubles during this period but only hit 61 triples. And it must be added how much he was walked: Williams led the league in walks almost every year during this period, getting more than 140 seven times. DiMaggio by contrast never was walked as many as 100 times during his entire career: his highest total was 80 and that was in his next to last season. That’s the thing about the Yankees; there was no such thing as an easy out.

And it is worth noting DiMaggio was, if anything, harder to strike out than Williams was; he only struck out 361 times in his entire career. His highest total was 39 in his rookie year, which means his batting eye only got better from that point on. And for all of Williams’s incredible eyesight, pitchers did have a better chance of striking him out than DiMaggio. He struck out 45 times or more five times during this same period. Bob Feller might have thought he had a better chance to strike out Williams than DiMaggio.

 At the end of the day I think Williams was a better hitter than DiMaggio during the period they were in direct competition but the margins are far closer than I expected them to be. Of course when it comes to who the better human being was that’s no contest – but I’ll save that for another article.

 

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