Willie Mays
Stan Musial
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Dead even across the measured categories. Our all-time ranking places Willie Mays at #2 and Stan Musial at #10.
Head-to-head FAQ
Who leads more shared metrics?
How do the published ranks compare?
Are these live stats?
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.
The case for Stan Musial
Musial's symmetry is the stuff of legend: 3,630 career hits, exactly 1,815 at home and 1,815 on the road. The consistency behind the coincidence is the case for him — a .331 average across 22 seasons, 475 home runs, 6,134 total bases (second all-time behind only Aaron), three MVPs, seven batting titles, and 24 All-Star Games, all for the St. Louis Cardinals, with a missed 1945 season to Navy service. In 1948 he came one rained-out home run short of the Triple Crown, hitting .376 with 39 homers and 131 RBI while leading the league in eight major categories. He struck out only 696 times in nearly 11,000 career plate appearances — fewer than many modern hitters accumulate in five seasons. He was never suspended, never ejected, and never controversial, which is partly why history underrates him. The numbers do not.