660 home runs, 12 Gold Gloves and … eight MVPs?! How modern analytics would have added to Willie Mays’ legacy
-
David Schoenfield, ESPN Senior Writer
Maybe the greatest baseball player of all time is Babe Ruth. Perhaps it’s Henry Aaron or Barry Bonds or Josh Gibson or Oscar Charleston. Proponents of a more antiquated version of the sport might argue for Ty Cobb or Honus Wagner. For a time, before injuries wrecked their careers and their potential stamps on ultimate greatness, it could have been Ken Griffey Jr. or Mike Trout or Mickey Mantle, for that matter. Maybe if Ted Williams doesn’t miss five seasons while serving in wars, he towers over the sport as the greatest hitter who ever lived.
You can, however, punch holes in the cases for any of those guys. Small holes — maybe they didn’t play center field, maybe they couldn’t throw, maybe their peak lasted only a few seasons — but still holes. You can’t find any holes for Willie Mays.
“There have been only two authentic geniuses in the world,” actress Tallulah Bankhead once said. “Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare.”
Williams himself once said, “They invented the All-Star Game for Willie Mays.”
Mays appeared in 24 of them.
Writer Joe Posnanski once came up with an idea called “The Willie Mays Hall of Fame,” because fans would complain that the standards for selection to Cooperstown were too low. It was a joke, of course. As Joe wrote, if Mays were the standard for the Hall of Fame, it would have only one member.
Mays could run.
How great was Mays on the basepaths? In 1971, he tied for the National League lead in a category called baserunning runs. He was 40 years old.
Mays could field.
Maybe his famous catch in the 1954 World Series wasn’t the greatest catch of all time. Mays himself said he made better plays. But it’s the catch everyone still talks about as the greatest ever — 70 years later it remains unsurpassed, a mythological play with video proof that he was worthy of each of his 12 Gold Gloves.
Mays could throw.
“[Mays] scooped the ball up at the base of the 406-foot sign, whirled and fired. It came in on one bounce, directly in front of the plate, and into the glove of catcher Tom Haller, who put it on the astonished Willie Stargell. It was described by old-timers as the greatest throw ever made in ancient Forbes Field,” Bob Stevens wrote of a 1965 game.
Mays could hit.
A lifetime average of .301, with many of his prime years coming in the pitching-dominant 1960s, when mounds were as high as Mount Everest and pitchers like Don Drysdale and Bob Gibson would buzz you with a fastball if they didn’t like the way you looked at them. Ten seasons with a .300 average and nearly 3,300 career hits. “As a batter, his only weakness is a wild pitch,” Bill Rigney, one of his managers, once quipped.
Mays could hit for a power.
He wasn’t a big man, listed at 5-foot-10 and 170 pounds, but he was all sinewy muscle with huge hands that gripped the bat like a toothpick. He finished with 660 home runs — and, if not for missing nearly two full seasons while serving in the Army, might have broken Ruth’s home run record before Aaron did. He led his league four times in home runs.
Two years ago, ESPN ranked Mays the second-greatest player of all time behind Ruth. Bill James had him third (behind Ruth and Wagner). Posnanski ranked him first. And here’s the thing: As great as Mays was, as brilliant as his all-around play, as highly ranked as he appears on these lists, Mays might be even greater than we believe.
Mays won just two MVP awards in his career, in 1954 and 1965. If we consider modern analytics and how voting philosophy has evolved over the past couple of decades, Mays might have won … well, let’s consider how many MVP awards he might have won under modern criteria.
In Mays’ era, the MVP award usually went to a player on the pennant-winning team. Other subjective qualities like leadership factored into the thought process, and writers were loath to give it to the same guy every season. Today, the focus is much more on statistical value — the best player as opposed to just the key player on a first-place team.
So, let’s go year by year and dig into Mays’ career — remember, he’s competing with inner-circle Hall of Famers such as Aaron, Frank Robinson, Ernie Banks, Roberto Clemente, Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson for MVP honors. We’ll skip his rookie season of 1951 and then his two seasons in the Army and start with 1954.
1954
Actual winner: Willie Mays
Mays hit .345/.411/.667 with 41 home runs in leading the Giants to the pennant. He led the NL in WAR at 10.4. While he won easily, he somehow received only 16 of the 24 first-place votes. He would almost certainly be the unanimous winner today.
Hypothetical MVP tally: 1
1955
Actual winner: Roy Campanella
Mays’ finish: Fourth
The Dodgers won the pennant, and Campanella, their catcher, had a fine season with 32 home runs and a .318 average. Mays hit .319 with a league-leading 51 home runs and 1.059 OPS, easily topping Campanella in WAR (9.2 to 5.2). Today, it’s likely a two-man race between Mays and Dodgers center fielder Duke Snider (8.6 WAR), who had 42 home runs and 1.046 OPS. The Dodgers winning the pennant helps Snider, but Mays’ home runs and defense give him the slightest of edges. He takes home his second trophy.
Hypothetical MVP tally: 2
1956
Actual winner: Don Newcombe
Mays’ finish: 17th
Mays tied Snider for the lead league in WAR at 7.6, with Aaron at 7.2. Newcombe won 27 games. Today, it’s a three-man race among the outfielders. The Dodgers won the pennant, but it’s another coin flip. We’ll give this one to Snider and keep Mays at two.
Hypothetical MVP tally: 2
1957
Actual winner: Henry Aaron
Mays’ finish: Fourth
Mays did lead Aaron in WAR (8.3 to 8.0), but Aaron led the NL in home runs and RBIs and his Milwaukee Braves won the pennant. This one goes to Aaron.
Hypothetical MVP tally: 2
1958
Actual winner: Ernie Banks
Mays’ finish: Second
Tough one. Mays again leads in WAR (10.2), but Banks wasn’t far behind (9.3) Banks did outhomer Mays (47 to 29) and out-RBI him (129 to 96), but Mays hit .347 to Banks’ .313 and had the higher OPS while playing in a tougher hitters’ park. Modern voters would know that Banks hit .340 at Wrigley with 30 home runs and a more pedestrian .287 with 17 home runs on the road. No. 3 for Mays.
Hypothetical MVP tally: 3
1959
Actual winner: Ernie Banks
Mays’ finish: Sixth
Banks, with 10.2 WAR, was the deserving winner (Mays was at 7.8, a “down” year for him).
Hypothetical MVP tally: 3
1960
Actual winner: Dick Groat
Mays’ finish: Third
Groat was the shortstop for the Pirates, the surprise pennant winner, and had a fine season, hitting .325 with good defense, but he also had just two home runs and 50 RBIs. Writers at the time valued his leadership and gritty toughness. Teammate Don Hoak was second in the voting. But Mays towered over both in WAR (9.5 to 6.1 and 5.4) and would win today. That’s No. 4.
Hypothetical MVP tally: 4
1961
Actual winner: Frank Robinson
Mays’ finish: Sixth
Mays was second in WAR to Aaron with Robinson, on the first-place Reds, fourth. Robinson led the league in OPS and might still win today, although in a much tighter vote (he received 15 of the 16 first-place votes back then).
Hypothetical MVP tally: 4
1962
Actual winner: Maury Wills
Mays’ finish: Second
In my book, one of the worst MVP votes ever. The voters were infatuated with Wills breaking the single-season stolen base record with 104, but Mays was the much more valuable player — 10.5 WAR to 6.0 — and he got denied in a close vote even though the Giants beat Wills’ Dodgers in a tiebreaker to win the pennant. Give Mays his fifth MVP.
Hypothetical MVP tally: 5
1963
Actual winner: Sandy Koufax
Mays’ finish: Fifth
This debate would make heads explode in 2024. Koufax (9.9 WAR) went 25-5 with a 1.88 ERA and 306 strikeouts. Mays led the league with 10.6 WAR, hitting .314 with 38 home runs and his usual Gold Glove defense. Aaron (9.1 WAR) led with 44 home runs and 130 RBIs. The Dodgers won the pennant, which is how Koufax easily won. In 2024? Pitchers don’t usually factor into the voting (well, they also don’t pitch 311 innings). I’m giving Mays No. 6.
Hypothetical MVP tally: 6
1964
Actual winner: Ken Boyer
Mays’ finish: Sixth
Boyer was no slouch, and he led the NL in RBIs as his Cardinals won the pennant on the season’s final day (the Giants finished fourth, three games back). No doubt, the Giants’ inability to win more pennants, despite Hall of Famers such as Juan Marichal, Willie McCovey and Orlando Cepeda surrounding him, hurt Mays in the MVP voting. The Giants can rightly be viewed as underachievers given their top-line talent and were certainly viewed as such back then. But Mays? Not his fault. He had an 11.0 WAR while leading the NL with 47 home runs and .990 OPS. I have to think he’d win today in a landslide with that WAR. That’s No. 7.
Hypothetical MVP tally: 7
1965
Actual winner: Willie Mays
Finally, 11 years after his first MVP win, Mays takes home another — posting a career-best 11.2 WAR after hitting .317/.398/.645 with 52 home runs. He got only nine of the 20 first-place votes, however, as Koufax (six) and Wills (five) split votes from the first-place Dodgers. Anyway, Mays would win today to give him No. 8.
Hypothetical MVP tally: 8
1966
Actual winner: Roberto Clemente
Mays’ finish: Third
Marichal and Koufax tied for the lead in WAR at 9.7, with Mays at 9.0 and Clemente at 8.2. Koufax might win today (he finished second) given 27 wins, a 1.73 ERA, 323 innings and 317 strikeouts. Our heads would explode with those numbers, but Mays would certainly place in the top three in his final great season.
Hypothetical MVP tally: 8
After that, Mays tailed off, so he finishes with eight MVP awards — one more than the seven Bonds has as the all-time leader.
Then again, maybe it doesn’t take going back in time and making Mays an eight-time MVP winner to appreciate his stature among the game’s best. He was, after all, a genius. Fifty-one years after his final game, that still seems like the appropriate description.
-
Jorge Castillo
NEW YORK — Giancarlo Stanton, one of the first known adopters of the torpedo bat, declined Tuesday to say whether he believes using it last season caused the tendon ailments in both elbows that forced him to begin this season on the injured list.
Last month, Stanton alluded to “bat adjustments” he made last season as a possible reason for the epicondylitis, commonly known as tennis elbow, he’s dealing with.
“You’re not going to get the story you’re looking for,” Stanton said. “So, if that’s what you guys want, that ain’t going to happen.”
Stanton said he will continue using the torpedo bat when he returns from injury. The 35-year-old New York Yankees slugger, who has undergone multiple rounds of platelet-rich plasma injections to treat his elbows, shared during spring training that season-ending surgery on both elbows was a possibility. But he has progressed enough to recently begin hitting off a Trajekt — a pitching robot that simulates any pitcher’s windup, arm angle and arsenal. However, he still wouldn’t define his return as “close.”
He said he will first have to go on a minor league rehab assignment at an unknown date for an unknown period. It won’t start in the next week, he added.
“This is very unique,” Stanton said. “I definitely haven’t missed a full spring before. So, it just depends on my timing, really, how fast I get to feel comfortable in the box versus live pitching.”
While the craze of the torpedo bat (also known as the bowling pin bat) has swept the baseball world since it was revealed Saturday — while the Yankees were blasting nine home runs against the Milwaukee Brewers — that a few members of the Yankees were using one, the modified bat already had quietly spread throughout the majors in 2024. Both Stanton and former Yankees catcher Jose Trevino, now with the Cincinnati Reds, were among players who used the bats last season after being introduced to the concept by Aaron Leanhardt, an MIT-educated physicist and former minor league hitting coordinator for the organization.
Anthony Volpe, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt and Austin Wells were among the Yankees who used torpedo bats during their season-opening sweep of the Brewers.
Stanton explained he has changed bats before. He said he has usually adjusted the length. Sometimes, he opts for lighter bats at the end of the long season. In the past, when knuckleballers were more common in the majors, he’d opt for heavier lumber.
Last year, he said he simply chose his usual bat but with a different barrel after experimenting with a few models.
“I mean, it makes a lot of sense,” Stanton said. “But it’s, like, why hasn’t anyone thought of it in 100-plus years? So, it’s explained simply and then you try it and as long as it’s comfortable in your hands [it works]. We’re creatures of habit, so the bat’s got to feel kind of like a glove or an extension of your arm.”
Stanton went on to lead the majors with an average bat velocity of 81.2 mph — nearly 3 mph ahead of the competition. He had a rebound, but not spectacular, regular season in which he batted .233 with 27 home runs and a .773 OPS before clubbing seven home runs in 14 playoff games.
“It’s not like [it was] unreal all of a sudden for me,” Stanton said.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone described the torpedo bats “as the evolution of equipment” comparable to getting fitted for new golf clubs. He said the organization is not pushing players to use them and insisted the science is more complicated than just picking a bat with a different barrel.
“There’s a lot more to it than, ‘I’ll take the torpedo bat on the shelf over there — 34 [inches], 32 [ounces],'” Boone said. “Our guys are way more invested in it than that. And really personalized, really work with our players in creating this stuff. But it’s equipment evolving.”
As players around the majors order torpedo bats in droves after the Yankees’ barrage over the weekend — they clubbed a record-tying 13 homers in two games against the Brewers — Boone alluded to the notion that, though everyone is aware of the concept, not every organization can optimize its usage.
“You’re trying to just, where you can on the margins, move the needle a little bit,” Boone said. “And that’s really all you’re going to do. I don’t think this is some revelation to where we’re going to be; it’s not related to the weekend that we had, for example. Like, I don’t think it’s that. Maybe in some cases, for some players, it may help them incrementally. That’s how I view it.”
-
Eli Lederman
USC secured the commitment of former Oregon defensive tackle pledge Tomuhini Topui on Tuesday, a source told ESPN, handing the Trojans their latest recruiting victory in the 2026 cycle over the Big Ten rival Ducks.
Topui, ESPN’s No. 3 defensive tackle and No. 72 overall recruit in the 2026 class, spent five and half months committed to Oregon before pulling his pledge from the program on March 27. Topui attended USC’s initial spring camp practice that afternoon, and seven days later the 6-foot-4, 295-pound defender gave the Trojans his pledge to become the sixth ESPN 300 defender in the program’s 2026 class.
Topui’s commitment gives USC its 10th ESPN 300 pledge this cycle — more than any other program nationally — and pulls a fourth top-100 recruit into the impressive defensive class the Trojans are building this spring. Alongside Topui, USC’s defensive class includes in-state cornerbacks R.J. Sermons (No. 26 in ESPN Junior 300) and Brandon Lockhart (No. 77); four-star outside linebacker Xavier Griffin (No. 27) out of Gainesville, Georgia; and two more defensive line pledges between Jaimeon Winfield (No. 143) and Simote Katoanga (No. 174).
The Trojans are working to reestablish their local recruiting presence in the 2026 class under newly hired general manager Chad Bowden. Topui not only gives the Trojans their 11th in-state commit in the cycle, but his pledge represents a potentially important step toward revamping the program’s pipeline to perennial local powerhouse Mater Dei High School, too.
Topui will enter his senior season this fall at Mater Dei, the program that has produced a long line of USC stars including Matt Leinart, Matt Barkley and Amon-Ra St. Brown. However, if Topui ultimately signs with the program later this year, he’ll mark the Trojans’ first Mater Dei signee since the 2022 cycle, when USC pulled three top-300 prospects — Domani Jackson, Raleek Brown and C.J. Williams — from the high school program based in Santa Ana, California.
Topui’s flip to the Trojans also adds another layer to a recruiting rivalry rekindling between USC and Oregon in the 2026 cycle.
Tuesday’s commitment comes less than two months after coach Lincoln Riley and the Trojans flipped four-star Oregon quarterback pledge Jonas Williams, ESPN’s No. 2 dual-threat quarterback in 2026. USC is expected to continue targeting several Ducks commits this spring, including four-star offensive tackle Kodi Greene, another top prospect out of Mater Dei.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports12 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway