Ranking The Top 10 Giants Of All-Time: Position-by-Position

# 1 – Center Field –  Willie Mays

Career: .302 AVG / 660 HR / 1903 RBI / 338 SB

Accolades:

1979 Hall Of Fame inductee.
2-Time National League Most Valuable Player.
Twelve-Time Gold Glover.
Nineteen-Time All-Star.
1951 Rookie Of The Year.
1954 World Series Champion.
4th most career home runs (660).
11th in career RBI (1903).
12th most career hits (3283).

Student.  Mentor.  Patriot.

Few can even come close to both the type of player and type of person this amazing man is.  Not only is he the greatest Giant of all time, but depending on who you ask, Willie Mays is widely considered to be the best all around player to ever play the game.  Spending all but his final two seasons with the Giants, the “Say Hey Kid” was an invaluable asset to his club while in New York, and San Francisco, leading his team to one World Series title (in 1954) while he wore the orange and black.

An eternal student of the game, he had a dynamic attitude and work ethic towards the game of baseball, which more than translated to the field.  He ate, drank, and slept baseball, and is to this day still heavily involved with the franchise.

Saying he’s a five-tool player does not even begin to describe how good he was.  Many position players are either good in the field or good with a bat.  Mays was good at both.  His defense was as good as his offense, and his flashy plays in the outfield never failed to impress the crowds or leave them wanting more.

He didn’t play in the 1953 season, due to his military service. But what did he do upon returning to the Polo Grounds in time for the 1954 season?  Nothing but capture his first of two Most Valuable Player awards on his way to leading his team to their first World Series Title since 1933.

To add to his impressive stats, he boasts six hundred sixty career home runs, which is 4th most all time.  There are only twenty eight players with 3,000 hits or more in their career, and Willie Mays, of course, is one of them; he leads the Giants franchise with 3,283 of them.

The man is, by all accounts, a legend, and is undoubtedly the best center-fielder to play the field for the Giants.