How we know Babe Ruth wouldn't be as good today (Shane Bieber news is the hint)

[Cedrique]

Also, with an oven mitt and giant oversized bases, the Babe would have easily stolen 50 bases a season.

 

[Pure Steel]

Impossible to predict. Stupid thread is stupid.

Comparing players from different eras is a pointless task……

 

[broncosmitty]

100% obvious fact, rebut if you have a counterargument

Yeah, if there had been no Babe Ruth in 1914, because he was part of a government project, which utilized orphans and poor inner city kids, the time traveling Babe Ruth of 2014 would have a different career path.

Shane Beibers ligaments aside.

I’d rather think of young Georgie Boy comin up in the 80’s. With the Mets.

Ruth plus cocaine would be 75-80 homers.

 

[navamind]

Comparing players from different eras is a pointless task……

the only thing you can compare is how dominant they were versus their peers, IMO. That's where park and league adjusted stats (ERA+, wRC+, OPS+) come in handy

 

[Cedrique]

The saddest part of this whole exercise is if you time-traveled Lou Gehrig to the present era he'd still be fucked.

 

[Wazmankg]

The issue with these arguments is every time you get the assumption that legends don't benefit from the modern advantages. Drunk obese Ruth smoking in the dugout is not as dominant. Ruth with modern understanding of nutrition and training methods I am confident still dominates.

Right. We have to detail the ground rules if we're to compare. Obviously if we plucked a 1927 Ruth and put him in a 2024 lineup he wouldn't be nearly as good. But there's no reason to think that a Babe Ruth born in the late 1990s with the natural talents he possessed wouldn't be at least Otani level good.

 

[Cedrique]

Damn, first Bieber and now Strider. All the stuff they do to preserve these pitchers and it seems like we still get just as many injuries.

 

[Battlelyon]

At this rate, the AL Central is gonna get so bad the Royals could win it.

Ok, I lied.

How about those Indians, fuck anyone that calls them the Guardians.

 

[msgkings322]

How about those Indians, fuck anyone that calls them the Guardians.

They're the Guardians

Come n' get it, big boy

Seriously though they missed a chance to call themselves the Spiders (again...they used to be that way back when)...Spider Man is hot now and spiders are cool. Guardians is lame.

 

[PolarVortex]

I'm not saying Babe Ruth wouldn't be a good player. I suspect with his build and batting eye he'd be a Prince Fielder with better batting average type today. One reason is of course the much lesser level of talent he competed against...no black people of course but really no Latins or Asians or any other foreigners. Today the guys who can play from all over the world compete in MLB, not just white American guys who mostly had to work side jobs in the winter.

The more important reason is the evolution of pitching. In Ruth's day pitchers threw a lot more innings, and with far fewer types of pitches. A good pitcher would have a fastball and a curve and maybe one other pitch. The Bieber TJ surgery news shows this, Today guys get that surgery almost as a matter of course, because they throw 4-6 types of pitches each putting strain on their arms and leading to surgery. In Ruth's day throwing 95 mph was a big deal, now half of the pitchers can do that and many throw 100. There's sliders and change ups and slurves and sweepers and 2 seamers and 4 seamers and so on. Not to mention seeing fresh relievers every game vs the norm in his day when guys basically pitched 7-9 innings every game.

Ruth would be a good player, multiple all star, maybe HOF level. But not the sport-dominating legend he was.

You could say the same thing about Josh Gibson or Sudaharu Oh.
Comparing a player who was born 130 years ago and isolated to a specific cultural group, to today's game will not work unless you factor in the knowledge he grows up with about baseball in his youth, in the 21st century, rather than the knowledge he grew up with in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A Babe Ruth of today would know about the split, the slider, the change-up, and the 100 mph four-seam, and he would have faced pitchers from every cultural diversity on the planet, before he ever turned pro. The evolution of a pitching staff and the strategy of its usage might be the one thing that impedes him but I don't think the modern diversity of the talent pool would, especially considering that talent is now spread out over 30 teams rather than 16.

 

[PolarVortex]

You could say the same thing about Josh Gibson or Sudaharu Oh.
Comparing a player who was born 130 years ago and isolated to a specific cultural group, to today's game will not work unless you factor in the knowledge he grows up with about baseball in his youth, in the 21st century, rather than the knowledge he grew up with in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A Babe Ruth of today would know about the split, the slider, the change-up, and the 100 mph four-seam, and he would have faced pitchers from every cultural diversity on the planet, before he ever turned pro. The evolution of a pitching staff and the strategy of its usage might be the one thing that impedes him but I don't think the modern diversity of the talent pool would, especially considering that talent is now spread out over 30 teams rather than 16.

Following up on my post above, you'd want to check out Ruth's splits, both against left-handed pitching, and in 7th-9th innings. A Ruth of today would face a lefty reliever in his 3rd and 4th at-bats in most games.