Babe Ruth or Ted Williams (or Ty Cobb)

Today on a sports forum, I came across a person who posed the question- who was the greatest hitter of all time? At first I thought the answer was unanimous, with Babe Ruth receiving the accolades. Well, it turns out Williams AND Cobb were better, because they were "pure" hitters.

First off, what the hell is a "pure" hitter? I can see the argument for those guys being more "well rounded", but "pure"? They also kept blabbering about how Cobb and Williams were better average hitters. That is nice, but average does not differentiate between a bloop or a blast. A chopper can be a hit, but a rocket could be caught.

So I went on to compare their offensive stats-
Ruth: .342/.474/.690/1.164/207+ with 12.6 RC/G, 714 HR, 5793 TB, .363 EqA

Williams: .344/.482/.634/1.116/191+ with 12 RC/G, 521 HR, 4884 TB, .359 EqA

Williams' line is nothing to scoff at as he is baseballs second best hitter, but I think anyone in their right mind would take Ruth. Williams does lead in OBP, but by only .08, whereas Ruth has a somewhat hefty lead in SLG, OPS, OPS+, HR, and TB. Ted did miss time due to war, but lets not forget Ruth also missed some years of hitting everyday, when he was a Boston pitcher.

The main argument against Ruth was his era. The live ball featured dominant offense because of the shortened strike zone. But to say Williams or Cobb was greater based on just that is ridiculous. Yes, Cobb played during the dead ball era when league SLG and OBP was .365 and .341. When Ruth played the league SLG and OBP was .400 and .353. Yet he slugged .290 points better than average and got on base .121 better than average. In comparison, Cobb only got on base .092 points better than average and slugged .147 better than average.

For those that really want to argue dead ball era, in 1919 when Ruth was still pitching, he managed over 400 AB's. He put up a 219 OPS+ season at age 24, where he hit 29 home runs. That same year, Cobb had a 166 OPS+ season with 1 HR- that after arguably two of his best years in 1917 and 1918. Oh, and the league ERA was better in 1919, then it was in 1911, when Cobb was 24.

So yeah, Ruth was the greatest hitter of all time.