What if Red Sox star Ted Williams didn’t miss time for military service?

Red Sox star Ted Williams missed five seasons for military service.

Ted Williams is responsible for several of the greatest individual seasons in Boston Red Sox history. While he ranks among the elite in most offensive categories from the numbers he piled up over 19 seasons with the franchise, his legacy would have been even more impressive if he hadn’t missed nearly five years of his prime to serve in the military.

The United States joined World War II in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941. Williams was initially drafted with a 1A status but received a deferment because he was the sole supporter of his mother. The Splendid Splinter was harshly criticized by the fans and media for what they perceived as a lack of patriotism. Williams brushed off the heckling to capture the Triple Crown in 1942 and finish as the runner-up for the MVP award.

After the 1942 season, Williams joined the Navy reserve and was called to active duty in November of that year. He would miss the next three seasons while training to be a fighter pilot.

While he never saw combat during WWII, the experience prepared him for his stint as a Marine pilot during the Korean War. Williams missed the majority of the 1952-53 seasons while serving his country in Korea, where he became a war hero.

That’s nearly five years of his career between the ages of 24 and 34 that Williams was away from the Red Sox. His resume is unmatched by any position player in franchise history but how could the perception of his career be improved if he hadn’t missed those seasons during his prime?

Projecting career numbers for Red Sox star Ted Williams

Williams was the runner-up for the AL MVP award in consecutive seasons prior to his hiatus during WWII. He was clearly the best player in baseball at the time and was robbed of the hardware by players from the pennant-winning Yankees.

Teddy Ballgame didn’t miss a beat when he returned in 1946, capturing his first MVP award while leading the Red Sox to the pennant. Health permitting, there’s no reason to believe that Williams wouldn’t have produced at a similar level during those three seasons that he missed during the war.

Williams averaged approximately 182 hits, 37 home runs, 127 RBI, 139 runs scored, and 149 walks in the three seasons he played between 1941 and 1946. Based on those averages, Williams conceivably could have added 546 hits, 111 home runs, 381 RBI, 417 runs scored, and 447 walks during those three years that he missed during WWII.

Projecting the two years during the Korean War is a bit trickier.  An injury during the 1950 All-Star game limited him to only 89 games that season. He bounced back with a great 1951 season, leading the league in one-base percentage and slugging, but his production was down slightly from his peak years from the previous decade. Was that due to lingering effects from the injury or was it related to being on the wrong side of 30?

We can’t assume that Williams would have averaged the type of production we projected during his lost years in the 1940s. We also can’t use the same before-and-after strategy to calculate averages for the years he missed while serving in Korea. He was still battling arm soreness in 1951 and broke his collar bone in the spring of 1954, limiting him to 117 games in his first full season after the war.

There isn’t much we can take away from his limited time from 1952-53, aside from that he hit over .400 in that 43-game sample to prove he was still an elite hitter. He probably would have been healthier than he was in the previous two years but was also gradually getting older so those factors somewhat cancel each other out.

If we completely wipe away his production from those two partial seasons and replace it with a very conservative estimate using his 1951 production, we can add another 338 hits, 60 home runs, 252 RBI, 218 runs scored, and 288 walks.

All-time rankings with updated totals for Red Sox star Ted Williams

What would these projections do to his career numbers? Assume that his actual totals from his partial 1952-53 seasons are replaced by our full-season projection.

Actual career: 2654 hits, 521 home runs, 1839 RBI, 1798 runs scored, 2021 walks
Updated career: 3497 hits, 678 home runs, 2435 RBI, 2414 runs scored, 2735 walks

Here’s how those updated totals would rank in MLB history.

Hits: 6th (leader – Pete Rose, 4256)
Home runs: 5th (leader – Barry Bonds, 762)
RBI: 1st (actual leader – Hank Aaron, 2297)
Runs: 1st (actual leader – Rickey Henderson, 2295)
Walks: 1st (actual leader – Barry Bonds, 2558)

The updated totals give Williams a comfortable enough cushion in RBI, runs and walks that even the most conservative estimates of production from his five lost seasons would make him the all-time leader in those categories.

Williams wouldn’t have come anywhere near the all-time hits record set by Rose, who played 24 seasons and walked at a much lower rate. He realistically would have passed Derek Jeter (2465) for sixth with a shot at catching Tris Speaker (3514) to crack the top-five.

We may never see anyone top Bonds’ steroid-inflated home run total but Williams was an elite power hitter. He’s tied for 20th on the all-time list despite his military service costing him significant time. An extra five seasons would be enough to vault him into the top-five and he might have had a chance to reach 700 home runs, which has only been done by three major league hitters (Bonds, Aaron, Ruth).

Keep in mind that these projections are fairly conservative. We can’t rule out the possibility of a career-year boosting his production even further, especially if he was playing against watered-down competition in years while stars from other teams were away at war.