Mickey Mantle
Shohei Ohtani
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Mickey Mantle leads 2 of 2 categories. Our all-time ranking places Mickey Mantle at #11 and Shohei Ohtani at #12.
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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.
The case for Shohei Ohtani
The only player on this list still adding to his case, and the only one doing something Ruth abandoned in 1919: genuine two-way play at an MVP level. Through 2025 Ohtani has four MVP awards — every one unanimous — in five seasons, a feat matched by no one; 280 career home runs alongside 38-plus wins and 650-plus strikeouts as a pitcher; and the first 50-50 season in history in 2024, finishing 54 homers and 59 steals and clinching the milestone with a 6-for-6, three-homer game. His 2023 WBC ending — striking out Mike Trout, his Angels teammate, to seal Japan's title — and his 2025 postseason game against Milwaukee, ten strikeouts as the starting pitcher and three home runs as the leadoff hitter in the same night, are already mythology. His 700-million-dollar Dodgers contract reset sports economics. Ranked twelfth on accumulated value; no active player is more likely to climb.