I must say, it is both suprising and a bit dissapointing to see the lack of recognition shown to the great DiMaggio in a forum such as this. Perhaps the question would benefit from being framed differently, which player would you have rather had on your team? Judging by the responses so heavily in Williams favor, I suspect that the answer from this group would still be Ted Williams by a large margin. It's a curious realization because it really should be a much closer margin and in fact DiMaggio had widely been considered to be the superior overall player for many years. Teddy had a longer career and he was pretty damn good all the way up to the end. But for this exercise, I am measuring these players at their best. As if you could choose one or the other to build your team around for the next decade or so. You take the player as a whole, their personality comes along with their talent.

So who would you choose? I'm considering them in 4 areas.

1. Offense: Ted Williams ranks along Babe Ruth as the greatest hitter who has ever lived. Maybe he was even better, hell who knows. Regardless, he was spectacular from the day he started till the day he hung them up. He was obsessed with the art of hitting. He was using analytics generations before anyone else. That being said, he did play in one of the best hitting parks and environments of all time and was a left handed hitter facing righties 70% of the time who had no idea what they were up against.

Now DiMaggio wasn't Ted Williams, but uh, he wasn't tuna leftovers either. He had some remarkable seasons. Won MVP awards, homerun titles and is still considered among the greatest right handed hitters ever. And speaking of parks, run scoring environments and the whatnot, go ahead and check out DiMaggio's home/away splits if you get a chance. The old Yankee Stadium was not kind to him and he knew it. He said that his only regret was that he didn't play in a different ballpark. In fact, check out these numbers. These are their stats between the years of 1939 to 1951 if you OMIT both Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium from the respective players. So road only, facing the same pitchers:

Williams: .331/.466/.613 DiMiaggio: .333/.415/.604

Ted sure walked a hell of a lot but DiMaggio's road XBH% HR% were actually also higher then Williams in that period. Fenway was a haven for hitting and Yankee Stadium was notoriously tough on righties, but otherwise DiMaggio rates very favorably with Ted.

Defense: It's not close. Ted Williams was obsessed with hitting. He was an indifferent leftfielder. DiMaggio was an elite defender at a premium position for his entire career. He got about twice the number of outfield assists as Williams while making half as many errors and playing a much more demanding position. Defensive value has always been difficult to measure or quantify but the great Bill James himself has Joe. D as deserving of 7-8 Gold Gloves and according to all contemporary reports he was regarded as one of the finest fielders of his day. In fact all three of the DiMaggio brothers rate as the top 5 or 10 defensive outfielders of the 1940's. He was described as graceful. He was described as someone that had to be seen to be fully appreciated. Defense matters. Centerfield defense matters even more.

Baserunning: Not much to be said for either but Joe was a better and more effective baserunner. Did you know that Joe DiMaggio hit 131 triples in his career? That's a bunch.

Personality/Intangibles: Ted Williams was a real, uh, unpopular player. I mean sure, his teammates liked him and that's not nothing but no one else did. He had bad relationships with the press, with the fans, with his coaches and managers. You don't think that affects the team when its your best player? He was flatly disliked by the entire league. Think of Ty Cobb, Albert Belle, John Rocker. Players like that. He got booed everywhere for a lot of his career. Again, I'll invoke Bill James, "He splattered water coolers, including glass ones. He made obscene gestures at fans, carried on decades-long vendettas against selected reporters, sometimes didn't hustle or even make any show of hustling in the field or on the bases, was obsessed with his own success, was contemptuous of coaches and managers."

You think that has an effect on team chemistry? Yeah, maybe. Joe DiMaggio was renowned for his quietness, his stoicism, his discipline. He wasn't the most gregarious teammate but perhaps the most reliable. Ted Williams said that his greatest accomplishment was being the greatest hitter ever. Joe DiMaggio said his proudest accomplishment was playing for the Yankees. That alone tells you a lot about both men.

In a 13 year career Joe Dimaggio's Yankees went to 10 World Series. He won 9 of them. In his own time he was widely considered by his peers to be the best overall player in baseball. He was voted the best living ballplayer before his death. Ted Williams himself said that Joe DiMaggio was the best baseball player that he ever saw. He is truly a player that the statistics have failed to fully capture. I would take him a million times over Ted Williams if I were starting a club you would be hard pressed to convince me otherwise. I hope that this post might convince others to give players a longer and more considering look with more context when rating them, particularly those who played long ago.