[gusmahler]

Thought I might as well post my findings about Gehrig. I looked at 7 players who I thought might be considered the best hitters ever: Ruth, Bonds, Williams, Cobb, Gehrig, Mantle, and Wagner. I looked at hitting win shares and RC/27. I calculated both the best 5 year stretch of seasons as well as the 3 best seasons of each player, to determine peak value.

Using RC/27:
Best 5 year period (averaged):
Bonds 16.66
Ruth 15.95
Williams 13.74 (counting 42 and 46 as being "consecutive")
Gehrig 12.19
Mantle 11.01
Cobb 10.92
Wagner 8.65

Best three seasons (averaged):
Bonds 18.82
Ruth 17.74
Williams 15.78
Gehrig 13.89
Mantle 13.09
Cobb 11.82
Wagner 9.47

So Gehrig is quite clearly 4th.

Using win shares
Best 5 year period:
Bonds 43.54 (approximately, don't have exact figures for 2002)
Ruth 42.15
Williams 40.82
Wagner 38.93
Cobb 38.52
Mantle 38.42
Gehrig 36.27

Best 3 seasons
Bonds 50.54
Ruth 48.02
Mantle 44.27
Williams 42.57
Wagner 41.35
Cobb 41.07
Gehrig 39.88

So I found it interesting that Gehrig and Wagner basically switched places using those two stats (and Wagner would be moved much farther down in RC/27) if I included others such as Speaker, Mays, DiMaggio, and who knows who else).