Willie Mays Was a Better Baseball Player Than Mickey Mantle.

<"Durability doesn't have much to do with this. We're talking about baseball skill, durability or lack thereof is another skill or lifestyle choice."> No -- it has a lot to do with it -- as I said, the more one plays, the more chances they get to contribute; the more one contributes, the more valuable they are; the more valuable a player is, the better he has been. So clearly, durability is highly relevant. To give an example -- player A hits .315/.415/.515 (batting average/on-base percentage/.slugging percentage), but only has 1000 career plate appearances; player B hits .290/.390/.490, but has 3000 career plate appearances. Clearly player B contributed more to his teams, and was therefore, a better player. <"But the resolution isn't who was more valuable, the question is who was a better baseball player."> The more valuable player is the better player -- an instance cannot be found otherwise. To be more valuable means you've contributed more; if you've contributed more, then you've been better. My opponent is clearly reaching at semantics. <"May's career fielding percentage was .981 while Mantle's was .982:"> Fielding percentage is incredibly flawed; it doesn't take a player's range into account whatsoever. Essentially, you could bolt a players feet to the ground, making it so that he couldn't move his feet, and he could end up having an extremely high fielding percentage -- but a very rangey player could have a lower fielding percentage, because he gets to an inordinately high amount of batted balls. <"Mantle being on the team was a large reason why his team won seven world series titles."> Of course. And so were the other members of his team, which is my point -- World Series titles are way too team dependent to be carrying any merit in a debate regarding who's better between two individual players. <"Mickey Mantle performed much better in the post season."> Small statistical sample sizes distort those numbers -- given an adequate sample, we'd have no reason to think Mays wouldn't progress to the mean. Regardless, considering how postseason stats depend on getting to the postseason, which depends greatly on one's team, postseason statistics are typically of little value, though they do carry a small bit. <"Including an amazing year in 1960 when he hit .400 with three home runs, 11 r.b.i. and a slugging percentage of .800"> Let's not forget the years Mantle hit .120 /.241/.160 and .133 /.188 /.333. <"Mantle clearly performed much better in the playoffs against the toughest competition."> Actually, for seven out of Mantle's 12 playoff appearances, he was very, very mediocre, and often terrible -- I can provide the statistics if anyone wants me to; they're on baseball-reference.com, and are easy to find. Mantle simply got more chances to succeed because he played on teams that were better than the teams Mays played on; Mantle's supporting cast were often much better than Mays'...not that Mays' were bad; Mantle's teammates were often fantastic. Giving Mantle so much credit for something that depended so highly on his team's accomplishments seems very nonsensical to me. <"Now while Mays was a better defender Mantle was a better offensive player. His career OBP is .421 and his career slugging percentage is .557 Compare this to Mays OPB .384 however, they do have identical .557 slugging percentage."> These are simply raw, out of context statistics. Wilkin Ramirez currently of the Detroit Tigers has an OPS of 1.667. Just going by raw stats, he'd be superior to even Babe Ruth, who's far and away the best ever. But when you add a little context, you realize that's an insane comparison. Ramirez has one hit in three PA. It just so happened to be a homerun. Context added...not that impressive anymore. With Mays and Mantle, I've already put these stats into context (remember: SLG% and OBP are the components of OPS+), and they show that Mays had more good to excellent seasons than Mantle did, which means that for their careers, Mays contributed more -- in essence, the stats my opponent's using are playing into my hands. I think we also have to remember that, when we look at the raw, out of context stats, Willie Mays had a steady declining period, which messes with his raw statistics. Mantle never really played long enough to have such a decline. <"Though when you compensate for the ballparks Mantle's OPS (on base plus slugging percentages) far outpaces Mays."> Ah, OPS+ is exactly that -- OPS normalized to take into account park and league contexts. And as I clearly showed, Mays had more years with a 120 or greater and 150 or greater OPS+ with 500+ PA than Mantle did. So my opponent is again playing into my hands; I've already used normalized versions of this stat, which show that Mays contributed more offense over their careers. We have to remember EqA, too, which also takes into account ballparks. Mays had more years with a .300+ and .330+ EqA with 500+ PA than Mantle. That leads us to *very* reasonably conclude that Mays did, indeed, contribute more than Mantle with the bat. Mays bests Mantle in offense, defense, and durability (which actually ties into why he's better offensively, as well.) The resolution is affirmed. Willie Mays was the better baseball player.