Theoretical Question: How Good Would Mantle Have Been (1 Viewer)

[Encyclopedia Brown]

I have been reading David Halberstam's baseball writings, and Mantle's name keeps cropping up.

For 15 years the Mick would play an afternoon game, dress, go back to the hotel, take a nap.....wake up, and then drink until 8 AM; sleep for a couple of hours, report to the ballpark at noon.

No exaggeration. 15 years, rinse, repeat.

The off-season was a blur. Spring training was meant only to shed the 25 lbs. from a winter of boozing.

What if he had had the drive of Bill Russell/Pete Rose/Larry Bird/Michael Jordan?

800 HR's?

.350 BA

 

[David Yudkin]

I said the same thing recently about Manny Ramirez (well, except for the drinking).

 

[NY/NJMFDIVER]

A few things with Mickey, a man known to me only by tall tales, news reels and statbooks. Would have loved to seen him play.

You have to factor in the knee injury. I believe he is the fastest man ever clocked going to first out of the lefthanded batters box. He tore his knee up when he was young, and even with modern orthro he might have been ok. He was still fast, but obviously lost 2 steps with a 1954 Knee reconstruction.

Also, by all account, his dominant power side was righty. Being that teams used to throw the bum of the month from the minors to throw at Yankee stadium, Mick took a lot of ABs with a 457 left center. He also enjoyed a 296 RF porch then, but I was just in Monument park and its honestly insane how far away that is from home plate.

A motivated, and healthy Mick, in Yankee Stadium hits 800 homers I believe. A healthy one also beats out a lot of IF bleeders and makes a run at Cobb.

Hell, as a drunk,his contemporaries have often said if he simply played in Detroit he would have hit 800 homers.

 

[The Kansas Comet]

A few things with Mickey, a man known to me only by tall tales, news reels and statbooks. Would have loved to seen him play.

You have to factor in the knee injury. I believe he is the fastest man ever clocked going to first out of the lefthanded batters box. He tore his knee up when he was young, and even with modern orthro he might have been ok. He was still fast, but obviously lost 2 steps with a 1954 Knee reconstruction.

Also, by all account, his dominant power side was righty. Being that teams used to throw the bum of the month from the minors to throw at Yankee stadium, Mick took a lot of ABs with a 457 left center. He also enjoyed a 296 RF porch then, but I was just in Monument park and its honestly insane how far away that is from home plate.

A motivated, and healthy Mick, in Yankee Stadium hits 800 homers I believe. A healthy one also beats out a lot of IF bleeders and makes a run at Cobb.

Hell, as a drunk,his contemporaries have often said if he simply played in Detroit he would have hit 800 homers.

That's the thing I think about most when I consider "What if?" about Mantle. If he didn't tear up his knee, he might have been the greatest all-around player ever.

 

[Finless]

The guy was no Ted Williams. Let's just get that out of the way.

 

[the moops]

I said the same thing recently about Manny Ramirez (well, except for the drinking).

Manny shows up early to the park to take extra batting. His off-season workouts are some of the most intense in all of baseball. He watches hundreds of hours of videotape of his at-bats.

 

[Doctor Detroit]

Yeah it's all about the knee. Babe Ruth drank, partied and didn't give a #### sometimes too. Just talking tools Mantle is probably the standard if you are talking "5 tool player" and he was just so good at everything he did.

His body just didn't cooperate though and saying he would have hit 800 HRs in another city (why Detroit?) is a stretch, it really is. If he would have played somewhere else that team he played on would have probably been very good and there would have been pressure. Playing in the Bronx is the most pressure I won't argue that but I think some people make it out to be much more than I think it really is. When Mantle was playing baseball was the #1 sport in America (meaning there was pressure everywhere) and the media influence was a fraction of what it is now (pressure was much more localized). Playing in New York now is exponentially tougher but playing in New York today is still not the difference between a few hundred home runs because you choke in the spotlight. Just ask A-Rod, he's as good as an example to taht argument as you could possibly ask for.

But for me having studied a lot of older players, Mantle was as talented a player as there ever was.

 

[Eephus]

If "ifs" and "buts" were candy and nuts, wouldn't it be a Merry Christmas?

Mantle accomplished just about everything a ballplayer could. A lot of things already mentioned in the thread (his partying, his injuries, New York) helped to build his legend. Take that away and maybe he'd have been a greater hitter but his life wouldn't have had the symbolic significance it had for two generations of Americans. I'll grant you that if he gave a damn, he probably would have been a happier person and a better husband and father.

 

[NY/NJMFDIVER]

Yeah it's all about the knee. Babe Ruth drank, partied and didn't give a #### sometimes too. Just talking tools Mantle is probably the standard if you are talking "5 tool player" and he was just so good at everything he did. His body just didn't cooperate though and saying he would have hit 800 HRs in another city (why Detroit?) is a stretch, it really is. If he would have played somewhere else that team he played on would have probably been very good and there would have been pressure. Playing in the Bronx is the most pressure I won't argue that but I think some people make it out to be much more than I think it really is. When Mantle was playing baseball was the #1 sport in America (meaning there was pressure everywhere) and the media influence was a fraction of what it is now (pressure was much more localized). Playing in New York now is exponentially tougher but playing in New York today is still not the difference between a few hundred home runs because you choke in the spotlight. Just ask A-Rod, he's as good as an example to taht argument as you could possibly ask for. But for me having studied a lot of older players, Mantle was as talented a player as there ever was.

Yankee Stadium Left Center: 457ftTiger Stadium: 365 ftYankee Stadium Center: 460Tiger Stadium: 440 ftYankee Stadium Right Center: 407 ftTiger Stadium: 370 ft.Yankee stadium obviously much shorter down the lines, but thats a LOT of real estate for Mantle to have reached. You can say Tiger, you can say Wrigley.

 

[Doctor Detroit]

Yeah it's all about the knee. Babe Ruth drank, partied and didn't give a #### sometimes too. Just talking tools Mantle is probably the standard if you are talking "5 tool player" and he was just so good at everything he did. His body just didn't cooperate though and saying he would have hit 800 HRs in another city (why Detroit?) is a stretch, it really is. If he would have played somewhere else that team he played on would have probably been very good and there would have been pressure. Playing in the Bronx is the most pressure I won't argue that but I think some people make it out to be much more than I think it really is. When Mantle was playing baseball was the #1 sport in America (meaning there was pressure everywhere) and the media influence was a fraction of what it is now (pressure was much more localized). Playing in New York now is exponentially tougher but playing in New York today is still not the difference between a few hundred home runs because you choke in the spotlight. Just ask A-Rod, he's as good as an example to taht argument as you could possibly ask for. But for me having studied a lot of older players, Mantle was as talented a player as there ever was.

Yankee Stadium Left Center: 457ftTiger Stadium: 365 ftYankee Stadium Center: 460Tiger Stadium: 440 ftYankee Stadium Right Center: 407 ftTiger Stadium: 370 ft.Yankee stadium obviously much shorter down the lines, but thats a LOT of real estate for Mantle to have reached. You can say Tiger, you can say Wrigley.

Historical park factors have Tiger Stadium at 1.04 and Yankee Stadium at .95 so Tiger stadium is slightly an above average hitters park, and Yankee Stadium slightly below. There is no way you can convince me that would have made a difference of the kind you are suggesting, it may have meant 50 to 75 hrs or so over a career but I think that is a high estimate. Fenway, Sportsman Park in St Louis, and Wrigley had better hitter park factors than Tiger Stadium for the time Mantle played, in that order.