Babe Ruth
Willie Mays
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Babe Ruth leads 2 of 2 categories. Our all-time ranking places Babe Ruth at #1 and Willie Mays at #2.
Head-to-head FAQ
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The case for Babe Ruth
The gap between Ruth and his contemporaries remains the largest any team-sport athlete has opened. His 182.6 career WAR leads all players, and the shape of it is absurd: before becoming a full-time hitter he went 94-46 as a pitcher with a 2.28 ERA, led the AL with a 1.75 ERA in 1916, and threw nearly 30 consecutive scoreless World Series innings. Then he invented modern offense. His 54 home runs in 1920 exceeded the total of every other American League team; his 60 in 1927 out-homered each AL rival again. His career .342 average, .474 on-base percentage, and 1.164 OPS — still the all-time record — came with a slugging percentage (.690) no qualified career has matched. He faced a segregated talent pool, which the debate must acknowledge, but dominance relative to environment is the fairest cross-era test, and by that test Ruth has no peer.
The case for Willie Mays
The most complete player the sport has produced. Mays hit 660 home runs with a .301 average, stole 338 bases, scored more than 2,000 runs, and won 12 consecutive Gold Gloves in center field — the sport's most demanding everyday position — while playing in 24 All-Star Games. His 156.2 WAR is the highest of any player who debuted after integration, and it survives every adjustment: park effects (Candlestick's winds suppressed his power for years), era, and the nearly two full seasons he lost to Army service in 1952-53, which plausibly cost him the home run record. The Catch off Vic Wertz in the 1954 World Series — a sprinting, over-the-shoulder grab 420-plus feet from home, followed by an impossible spin throw — is the sport's defining defensive image. If the GOAT question asks who could do everything on a baseball field at the highest level, the answer is Mays.