Hank Aaron
Mickey Mantle
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Hank Aaron leads 2 of 2 categories. Our all-time ranking places Hank Aaron at #4 and Mickey Mantle at #11.
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The case for Hank Aaron
Aaron is the sport's monument to sustained excellence. He never hit 50 home runs in a season, yet finished with 755 — breaking Ruth's record on April 8, 1974, while receiving nearly a million pieces of mail, much of it death threats — and he remains the all-time leader in RBI (2,297) and total bases (6,856, a full 722 ahead of second place). He hit .305 for a quarter century, collected 3,771 hits, made a record 25 All-Star selections, and posted 15 seasons of 30-plus homers. Remove all 755 home runs from his record and he would still have more than 3,000 hits. Aaron's 143.1 WAR understates the difficulty of his context: he began in the Negro Leagues with the Indianapolis Clowns in 1952 and produced his greatest seasons through the pitching-dominant 1960s in Milwaukee and Atlanta, far from the media capitals that minted legends.
The case for Mickey Mantle
The greatest peak of the 1950s and the best switch-hitter ever. Mantle won the 1956 Triple Crown (.353, 52 home runs, 130 RBI), took three MVPs and finished second three more times, and posted a career .977 OPS with 536 home runs despite playing his entire career on a right knee shredded in the 1951 World Series — famously, teams could hear the training-room tape being unwrapped. His speed before the injuries was mythic (3.1 seconds home to first bunting left-handed), and his power produced the term 'tape-measure shot' after a 1953 blast in Washington was measured at 565 feet. He played in 12 World Series in his first 14 seasons, winning seven, and his 18 World Series home runs remain the record. His 110.2 WAR in 18 seasons, on ruined legs, leaves the sport's greatest what-if: a healthy Mantle plausibly challenges Mays for the number two spot on this list.