I think with Mantle in particular, his RBI/game is substantially repressed because his walk rate was so abnormally high.  You only get to drive a guy in with a walk when the bases are loaded, which frankly doesn't happen all that often.  Especially in the late '50s and '60s, and especially with the guys he batted behind.  In addition to the differences in opportunity, which have already been mentioned, this is a pretty substantial consideration.  Another easily-overlooked factor is that team OBP doesn't just impact runners on base when a player comes to bat.  It impacts total chances.  DiMaggio had 4.42 PA/game during his career; in spite of personally getting on base much more effectively, Mantle averaged only 4.13 PA/game.  So by normalizing to games, rather than PA, you're basically giving guys who played on better teams more chances.  If you take both these factors into account (PA/game and RBI opportunities surrendered to walks), you find a much more similar RBI output: Mantle drove in 0.186 runs/AB, and DiMaggio drove in .225.  Still a substantial advantage to DiMaggio, but it's shrinking.

I don't think you ever make Mantle look as good at driving in runs as DiMaggio, no matter what you normalize.  He struck out several times as frequently, and in general had far fewer productive outs.  He was always going big, with what could be considered a more selfish offensive approach.  But many statisticians would also call it a more productive approach, and it's hard to argue that striking out less, walking less, and hitting fewer home runs would have been better with the lineup that surrounded Mantle for much of his career; he was often backed by 1 or 2 big sluggers, raising the value of his walks, but he almost never had impressive OBP in front of him.  I would say it's unambiguously clear that DiMaggio's approach was better suited to accumulating RBI.  However, he offered a lot fewer opportunities to the guys behind him.  In spite of playing on unequivocally weaker offensive teams, Mantle outstripped DiMaggio in runs/PA .207 to .181.  So there's that...

Offensively, I'd still take a Mantle over a DiMaggio on my team any day.

Just looked up 1948, selected because it was DiMaggio's 2nd-best RBI season.  I'll look at more seasons later.  DiMaggio batted 4th virtually the entire season.  With the exception of Berra, who had 100 PA batting 3rd, and Rizzuto, who had almost 150 at leadoff, the rest of the guys who hit 1-3 in front of DiMaggio throughout the season had .360 or better OBPs.  I'm fairly certain Mantle never once in his career had anything close to that luxury, which feeds into a different offensive approach.

I'll also say this.  On a different team, I suspect Mantle could have hit more like DiMaggio if his manager wanted him to do so.  On a lesser team, I'm not convinced DiMaggio could have hit like Mantle.

Italyprof - you briefly said DiMaggio was a rotten person. Why is it you say this?

there are many stories about Joe D, one where he punched Billy crystal in the stomach because he didn't refer to him as the greatest yankee ever,

However saw Phil rizzoto on Yankeeorgraphy and he said that Joe d was a good teammate, so.....

mlent, 

I grew up a Yankees' fan in northern New Jersey in the 1960s and 70s. Joe Dimaggio was beyond Mickey Mantle, someone that my brother had seen play (Mickey was JUST before my time), whereas Dimaggio was something hallowed, something sacred. 

Every year at old timers' day all the Yankees greats were trotted out then at the very end, the announcer would say "The Greatest Living Player - Joe Dimaggio" meaning Babe Ruth and maybe Gehrig were dead but no one was in Joe's league that was still alive. 

We, young Yankees fans, never questioned this. There was a guy named Willie Mays who STILL PLAYING let alone alive, and another named Henry Aaron also quite active at the time, and a hitter named Ted Williams and another named Stan Musial both retired but quite healthy for many years to come, and one can even throw in a certain Mr. Berra, Yogi, who now owns the minor league team and baseball museum down the street from my mother's house in NJ, any of whom could at least have made a case for themselves. And I am not even mentioning pitchers like Koufax, Gibson, Seaver etc. etc. 

Later I learned that Dimaggio refused to come to Yankees' old-timers games unless that phrase was used to describe him. 

Add on that I am Italian-American, so Dimaggio was also a saint in that community. 

But a few weeks ago when my mother was in the hospital we went to visit and her brother, my uncle was there with a few of my cousins. I brought some struffoli - a Christmas dessert of fried dough balls covered in honey and colored sugar for those of you not Italian-American - that my mother had always made for us at Xmas when we were kids. And we started talking. My mom and her brother grew up in the North Ward of Newark, which was overwhelmingly Italian-American in the 1930s and 40s and my uncle regailed us with tales of the old neighborhood - and the local mafia. A certain "Jimmy the Boot" was the boss and no one got a job without his say so. Anyway every once in a while the mafiosi big shots would get together at a place called Victoria Castle, an elegant restaurant visible from my mom's family's window. She wanted to look at the well-dressed ladies getting out of these limousines but my grandma, quite sensibly, would tell her "no, those are dangerous men, don't look at them !"

My uncle told us that as kids he and the other boys would gather around and the mafiosi would walk Sinatra and Joe Dimaggio in behind a row of thugs protecting these two from being talked to. "You couldn't talk to Joe or they would beat you up". 

Anyway, below is the link to a very good summary of a good book at Joe Dimaggio recounting all the reasons that - hard as it would have been for anyone at the time who did not know the two personally to believe - Ted Williams was by far the better human being than Joe Dimaggio. He wanted to sue Paul Simon for that line "Where have you gone Joe Dimaggio, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you" in "Mrs. Robinson", essentially calling Joe D. a national hero of the kind we needed again in the 1960s, but Dimaggio assumed as always that someone was insulting him. Take away the racism of Ty Cobb and add some personal restraint in public and you have Joe Dimaggio - who beat Marilyn Monroe. When they married, HE was the most famous person in the world and he was damned if his wife was going to be the most famous person in the world instead. 

See more below:


http://theopnation.com/2013/07/29/joe-dimaggio-shouldnt-be-anyones-hero/

Posted by cwillis802 on 2/23/2015 7:44:00 PM (view original):
Italyprof - you briefly said DiMaggio was a rotten person. Why is it you say this?

This reminded me of the great story Pfattkatt wrote about Dimaggio:

"i suppose that having grown up when, and where, i did, colors my opinion, but i don't care what anyone says. The 56 game hitting streak is one incredible, very impressive feat. There used to be a movie theatre in Brooklyn, Loew's Kings,a true palace of a place. It was built for the era when movies were EVENTS, and no opportunity for opulence was overlooked in its' construction and decor. By the '60's, movies were still big, but not as, and they had live shows in the Kings at times. Lenny Bruce did a comedy act there, and i was about 11, i was sent in to sell newspapers. that was an enormous opportunity for me, because the paper cost 7cents, almost everyone gave me a dime, and didn't ask for change, and going in there to sell, it was a mortal lock that i'd get a few dollar-keep-the-change customers. DiMaggio was there, and he bought a paper, carefully counted out 7 pennies, and wouldn't sign an autograph. Several people standing around there saw the exchange, and the disappointment must have registered on my face, because my next several customers each gave me a dollar, no change, and one gave me a five. Someone then went over to Mr. D, said something to him, and walked over to me, handed me a dollar, gave me DiMagg's autograph on a napkin. My mother must have gotten wind of my windfall, because she was waiting outside when i went out, to take the money from me. As a footnote, i was always VERY P/O'd that she took my money, when i got out of the army, she handed me a bank book. She had deposited everything she took, and the balance was $6,537.44. It took the now 21 y/o me about six seconds to blow it. She should have held it another 25 years or so, until i grew up.

i don't want to be in the movie, but Marilyn would love Pogo."

http://whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=392722&page=2

How great to hear our old, late friend pfattkatt ! Thanks for posting this Skunk206 !

Dimaggio:
1) hit for a very high average
2) didn't walk a lot
3) hit for power
4) played in a high scoring era on a high scoring team
5) Had a short career (by HoF standards) but stayed healthy in seasons he played.
It really is no wonder he ranked where he is in RBI/ season