Williams hit .406 in his third season, which was about 50 points higher than his first two seasons, and about 40 points higher than he ever hit again.
Without being sacreligious, maybe it was a bit of a fluke?
I agree - it was a fluke year. He approached it again only once (as someone pointed out, in '57). He was as good in 57 as he was the year he hit .406. Most would say "how can a man who hits .388 be as good as when he hit .406". It's all when you adjust for the league's average production. When you look at how productive the average player was in 57 versus 41, you'll see that Ted was as good relative to the average ballplayer in 41 as he was in 57.
And it's not sacriligeous (sp?) to say it was a fluke year. He had two of them in his career. Now, his average years were ridiculously good for any player, ever.
How good was his '57 season? Well, he never came close to it (except in '41) and to put it into context, no one else did until Bonds came along. Bonds crushed Williams' best ever season an amazing 4 times in a row. Ridiculous. But we can all say "steroids".
So how many guys went over a 200 OPS+ between the year when Wiliams did it in 57, and the steroid era? It happened a grand total of 5 times. Once by Mantle, once by McCovey, once by Brett (the year he almost hit .400) and then twice by Bonds in the early 90s before the juice took hold. So yes, Williams' year was a fluke. Even amongst contemporaries in his era, the only guys who ever produced an OPS+ over 200 in a season were Ruth, Gherig, Foxx, Cobb and Hornsby.
Cobb did it only once. Hornsby did it 4 times. Ruth did it a ridiculous amount of times (LOL)...
So in a long-winded way, you're right to point out that Williams fluked out in 41, and in 57. Total flukes and anomalous years in even his great career. The only guys who didn't fluke out by crushing it with an OPS+ over 200...well, there's three guys. Ruth, Bonds, and Hornsby. Those men did it often enough to have one think they were truly that great...even greater than Williams.
Another interesting thing I point out above...no man had ever hit 200 OPS+ more than once after Williams did it. Only 3 guys had ever done it even once. Bonds did it twice before (some would argue) he ever touched the juice. That's why I think Bonds deserves to be in the HOF. His juice numbers were crazy, but he was HOF bound before he ever found the stuff. He was a once-in-a-generation hitter before his first needle - easily qualifying for HOF. The needle helped him become the second best ever.
Baseball writers are prissy bitches.
