Why wasn't a bigger deal made of Bonds joining the 500-500 Club? [Archive]

Chief Rum

06-27-2003, 10:53 PM

dacman: I'm thinking you're either looking at Guerrero or Soriano, although maybe ARod, too.

Vlad will probably end up hitting 500 HRs, since he's over 200 right now, going strong and just 27 years old. His stolen base totals aren't so hot for his career (low 100s), but he has really turned it on and averaged nearly 40 each of the past two seasons. The only problem here is that stealing bases is best done while young, as speed is one of the first skills to go with age. I think Vlad might have started getting steals a little too late to get to 500 steals.

The only thing holding Soriano back right now is that he hasn't been doing it long enough for us to claim that he will definitely keep it up. The odds look good though. He has power in spades, and he steals a bunch, and he's just 25.

ARod has the HRs easy, of course, and he's already up at 165 or so steals. The problem is that ARod has largely abandsoned the stealing eh did as a Mariner (when he put up some 30+ seasons). He's just 28 (or will be in a month), so I don't think age is the issue yet--I just don't think he considers it a priority anymore. Or he just doesn't get to first a lot (bastard keeps moving right on to the next bases...:) ).

As for the lack of attention on Bonds' achievement, there are two things that come to mind. First, as big an achievement as it is, a big too-doo was made about 400-400. I think many writers feel it's over and done with. I mean, think about it--every base Bonds steals is new territory for a 500 (or even 400) HR hitter. Should we make a big deal about all of them? I think the media probably feels Bonds has gotten enough exposure for this particular achievement, and aren't interested in dwelling on it too much.

Second, of course, is that you reap what you sow. Say what you want about Bonds being a top player in baseball history (he most certainly is, as Troy said), but not a lot of guys want to play up a jerk, especially one who has made it a notable career note to be particularly jerky to the media. Not to mention that Barry has gotten plenty of media exposure over the past three years. It's quite possible the media is tired of "Bonds this, Bonds that". Or maybe it's the readership (since that determines what media writes about, for the most part). Maybe the general public is sick of Bonds (it wouldn't surprise me).

Someone brought up Ted Williams was thought of as a jerk. My understanding that much of the time, Ted Williams WAS a jerk, no thought of about it. And he got shafted by the media, too. Which doesn't take away from his pedigree as a ballplayer, but there are consequences to being a bit of a bitch at times.

Chief Rum

dacman

06-27-2003, 11:41 PM

Basestealers will always steal bases even if there's lots of power in the lineup (see the Atlanta Braves for example (i.e. Sheff, Furcal)). Even the best HR hitters only hit one every 15 or so plate appearances so you can't just stand around hoping for a HR every time you get on-base. Yes, good power will effect SB's overall, but that's usually because the average runners just don't (run), IMHO. In the past, they did to an extent.

And yes, it was Alfonso Soriano.

mckerney

06-27-2003, 11:48 PM

Plain and simple, he's an asshole. More importantly, he's an asshole towards those who cover the game. Piss off the media, they're not gonna hype up your accomplishments all that much.

Havok

06-28-2003, 12:00 AM

yeah.... what Mckerney said.

If it was Cal Ripkin that did it (500/500) it'd be the biggest thing to happen in baseball since Hank Arron won the all time home run title.

Thats because Cal Ripkin is everything you want in a baseball player, Barry Bonds is everything you don't wont. He's a dickhead and i'll be glad when he retires.

P.S. i respect his baseball abilty, just not him.

daedalus

06-28-2003, 12:38 AM

It is good to demand preferential treatment? To stay in a separate hotel than your teammates? To make a fuss and make the manager's life harder when the team needed you to be moved to a different position for the good of the team? Sounds a lot less like what I want from a ballplayer.

I can't say that Bonds has been a perfect citizen. In fact, he's been a jerk to a lot of people and I agree that it is the reason he's not getting as much publicity as he ought to. That and the aformentioned fact that it's been so much "Bonds this, Bonds that" the last few years.

Havok

06-28-2003, 12:52 AM

MrBug708

06-28-2003, 01:12 AM

Because it's Barry Bond's, because it came on a play where Gagne wasn't watching because he is not used to having runners on base.

I'm a Dodger fan, so what?

daedalus

06-28-2003, 01:37 AM

Originally posted by Havok
your not refering to Cal are ya??? Cause if you are, your way way off base.
Yes, I was. I was off-base?

EagleFan

06-28-2003, 02:38 AM

There are several reasons.

1) Bonds is seen as a jerk.
2) Been there, done that with the 400/400. Plus the 500th homerun and everything else he has done. As was stated earlier, when he reached 400/400 as the only member he stopped breaking anyone's records in that respect.
3) The stolen base is unfortunately not as big a part of the game now. It's all about the glamour stats.
4) Bonds isn't a Yankee. With all the attention he has received, I can't imagine how much worse it would be if he were a Yankee. People that can't stand hearing about him now would be jumping off builings listening to all the press he would be getting. "This just in, Bonds has taken his 100th dump in the team's restroom..."

Havok

06-28-2003, 03:00 AM

you obviously don't follow Orioles baseball very well to make statements about Cal like that. He is like a god in Maryland. The whole different hotel thing was like a one time problem and it was blown way out of proportion. I don't remember the whole story but it wasn't a big deal.

It wasn't a big deal when he was asked to move to third base either. But when you've played SS for 16 years (won 3 or 4 golden gloves) on the same team its not easy to just step aside. But he did.......

To say Cal was not the ideal baseball player is like saying Brett Favre isn't the ideal football player. He was the heart and soul of that team for 20 years and he was the only reason people still went to the games a few years ago.(now noone goes to the games).

Why do you think in Cal's last season every single stadium he went to he got a standing ovation for 5-10 mins?? He used to be the only guy who would sign autographs until everyone that wanted one got one after the game. Sometimes it would take him 2 hours but he still did. He's involved in so many charity's in maryland its almost scary.

Sorry to take it so personal, but growing up in maryland/D.C. and being a home team fan my whole life. There are 3 players that i feel this way about.

Darrell Green, Dale Hunter and of course, Cal Ripkin. :)

cthomer5000

06-28-2003, 06:52 AM

So we should go crazy just because his stolen bases hit a round number?

I'm so sick of this bullshit in sports. Unless you are breaking a record, what is the big deal?

oykib

06-28-2003, 08:01 AM

So we should go crazy just because his stolen bases hit a round number?
I'm so sick of this bullshit in sports. Unless you are breaking a record, what is the big deal?

It is a record in the sense that it is something that has never been done before.

As for the round number thing: Round numbers make it easy to get our minds around an accomplishment. It's ridiculous when the sports media go crazy about some hodgepodge stat like the first guy to have five years in a row where he hit .307, with 28 homers, 12 steals, 5 tripples, and 37 doubles. What the hell does that mean?

500 steals = great basestealer ( great speed/ smart baserunner/ etc. ) This stat goes to how smart and athletic he is.

500 homers = power hitter ( slugger/ dramatic Ruthian hero ) this tells you that he's not just the thinking man's hero. He's the Hercules of the masses.

These things make perfect sense to me.

you obviously don't follow Orioles baseball very well to make statements about Cal like that. He is like a god in Maryland. The whole different hotel thing was like a one time problem and it was blown way out of proportion. I don't remember the whole story but it wasn't a big deal.
It wasn't a big deal when he was asked to move to third base either. But when you've played SS for 16 years (won 3 or 4 golden gloves) on the same team its not easy to just step aside. But he did.......
To say Cal was not the ideal baseball player is like saying Brett Favre isn't the ideal football player. He was the heart and soul of that team for 20 years and he was the only reason people still went to the games a few years ago.(now noone goes to the games).
Why do you think in Cal's last season every single stadium he went to he got a standing ovation for 5-10 mins?? He used to be the only guy who would sign autographs until everyone that wanted one got one after the game. Sometimes it would take him 2 hours but he still did. He's involved in so many charity's in maryland its almost scary.
Sorry to take it so personal, but growing up in maryland/D.C. and being a home team fan my whole life. There are 3 players that i feel this way about.
Darrell Green, Dale Hunter and of course, Cal Ripkin.

No we don't all hail from Maryland. What you posted just illustrates the point that daedalus was making. At least half of how we view a player has to do with how the guys in the media decide to portray him.

Cal Ripken got standing ovations in stadiums around America because everyone thinks he is a hero. I am not saying that he's not. I am not saying that he is. I don't know.

But I do know some stories that I've heard about him that would've gotten a player like Bonds crucified. There's a story that he got his GM fired because he held a grudge because said GM didn't hold the team plane for him when he was late. Maybe that story is not true. But it never got enough play for us to know the validity of it.

I judge athletes on how they play. If Ripken got 10 minutes per stadium. Well... they better stay standing from the national anthem until the end of Bonds's last at bat when he is retiring.

By the way, Bonds is indubitably a top five player. With his last few seasons he is, at the very least the equal of Ted Williams. I would say that his speed and defense put him him past Williams. But even if it's a draw, Williams is a top five player. So Bonds has to be also.

Alan T

06-28-2003, 08:33 AM

I actually have much more amazement of his overall Home run total than a mark such as 500/500.

I feel stolen bases have long been an overrated stat, and there have been many cases in history of players "padding SB totals". It is somewhat hard to "pad a HR total". Also I am guessing that you would see more 30/30 guys, more 40/40 guys in a season, and likewise overall in careers more guys with higher stolen base numbers if stolen bases were considered as big of a deal back in few generations ago.

Congrats to Bonds on reaching 500/500, but I dont know that I would consider this one of his 5 best achievments...

MizzouRah

06-28-2003, 08:42 AM

I don't like him much, but I consider him quite possibly the best hitter I've ever seen. The guy can flat out hit the baseball, it's too bad everyone walks him or he'd have more records to break.

Todd

Easy Mac

06-28-2003, 08:48 AM

SB are overrated? So if he hadn't have stolen that base, San Francisco stiil would have won on that single, correct? What an idiot.

I tell you why nothing more was said. Roger Clemens has always been an ass, but sportswriters orgasmed as he neared 300. Thats not even a record, 20 other people had done it before. I don't think I have to spell out the reasons why that got more pub than Bonds.

Alan T

06-28-2003, 09:40 AM

Originally posted by Easy Mac
SB are overrated? So if he hadn't have stolen that base, San Francisco stiil would have won on that single, correct? What an idiot.

Nice. Calling people names to try to prove a point :)

Who says that they wouldn't have won without that stolen base. You are taking one single event to justify all stolen bases. That is not very practical.

I also said that Barry Bonds had many other events that I felt were much more significant than this. I can't say how people would think this is bigger than his going over 600 HR, or 73 HR in a season. I even would argue that his incredible OBP and OPS that he had in his best season ever was a much bigger deal to me.

Barry Bonds is an amazing player. Probably the best I have seen as well in my lifetime (I only caught the tail in of Aaron, Mays, etc). But please do not compare this to his other amazing, incredible accomplishments.

rexallllsc

06-28-2003, 10:41 AM

1. Because he's an a-hole. He's hates by his teammates, and the fans of every other California team like no other player I've ever seen. Clemens comes off as a prick as well, but has never gotten caught for beating his wife, so who knows...

2. He's on the West Coast.

3. It happened at roughly 10:45pm PST in the 11th inning of a game.

As a Dodger fan, I truly hate Barry...but I do think he's probably the greatest player I've seen play the game...

tucker342

06-28-2003, 11:52 AM

The thing is no one has or ever will come close to joining the 500-500 club, hell no one is even in the 400-400 club. Someone will break his homerun record, probably within the next 10 years... that's why this record is such a big deal in my opinion, cause no one will ever come even close to breaking this record

Travis

06-28-2003, 12:59 PM

Um Barry and defense in the same sentence? I think not. Move him to the AL and he'd be a DH on most of the teams immediately. A great batter yes, base stealer, not bad, but not as good as he used to be of course (then again, these days, who is), but in the field, he may just pull a Jose Canseco yet.

oykib

06-28-2003, 01:14 PM

Originally posted by Travis
Um Barry and defense in the same sentence? I think not. Move him to the AL and he'd be a DH on most of the teams immediately. A great batter yes, base stealer, not bad, but not as good as he used to be of course (then again, these days, who is), but in the field, he may just pull a Jose Canseco yet.

He's not that bad now. He's about league average. But, of course, he's -- what-- 38?

He was a legitamate gold glove left fielder for a number of years and well above average for years more.

ISiddiqui

06-28-2003, 01:28 PM

Someone brought up Ted Williams was thought of as a jerk.

Glad to see I'm not on your ignore list anymore ;).

--

Alan, we may just have to agree to disagree here, but I think NOTHING Bonds has done comes close to 500-500. That is his crowning achievement, IMO... The only thing that can bump that off the top spot is if he plays long enough to break Aaron's HR record.

Not only does he have power, but he puts himself into scoring position by stealing bases. It's absolutely incredible! Of course, add to that, that he walks a ton and hits for good batting average (leading to eye popping OBP numbers), and the fact that he was an above average fielder for most of his career. Then again, I don't think you are doubting he's an amazing player... and undoubtably the best of his era.

As for top 10, I agree if he retires today he'll be top 10. I didn't say top 5, because RIGHT NOW, my top 5 are:

1. Babe Ruth
2. Honus Wagner
3. Walter Johnson
4. Willie Mays
5. Lefty Grove/Ty Cobb

Bonds comes in right after that (yes, I have him better than Williams).

Alan T

06-28-2003, 01:37 PM

I agree, Bonds is an amazing player. Bonds is the player everyone thought Griffey Jr would become. There are a few that think A-rod or Vlad might at some point become this kind of player, but in my lifetime I can not think of any other player I have seen that has been as good.

Perhaps I am just biased because of how I look at stolen bases. Maybe I watched too much earl Weaver when I was younger... With Bonds, I see a player who has stolen about 78% of attempted bases over his career. I would argue that out of those 500 Stolen bases, it means that Bonds has helped his team more than hurt his team only about 2-4% of the time. (or about 15 stolen bases).

So yes he has stolen alot of bases, but he also has gotten caught alot (140 times). I find his base stealing much lower on the list of my reasons for him being a great player.

clintl

06-28-2003, 02:58 PM

Originally posted by Travis
Um Barry and defense in the same sentence? I think not. Move him to the AL and he'd be a DH on most of the teams immediately. A great batter yes, base stealer, not bad, but not as good as he used to be of course (then again, these days, who is), but in the field, he may just pull a Jose Canseco yet.

He has declined noticeably on defense in the recent years, but in his prime, he may have been the greatest defensive left fielder in MLB history. Certainly, no LF of recent memory was his equal.

Havok

06-28-2003, 07:44 PM

1. Babe Ruth
2. Honus Wagner
3. Walter Johnson
4. Willie Mays
5. Lefty Grove/Ty Cobb

it just blows my mind how little bit of love Ted Williams gets. I'd take Ted over everyone on that list expect The Babe, and if Ted played for as many seasons as the Babe played we might all have him number one on our lists.

I respect Bonds and all....... but he can't hold Williams jock. I'd have bonds in the top 10 though. These guys hitting 50-70 homeruns now is a joke. The strike zone is so freaking small now, guys are using so many proformance enhancer's and the ball is wond so tight that i could rip the ball out of fenway.

oykib

06-28-2003, 07:47 PM

I made this point back on the old board. But I think a lot of the old time ballplayers are overrated. The further back you go, the more players (especially the truly dominating ones are overrated).

There is also the second point that pitchers are not as valuable as position players.

Basically, the first point is that you can't help but discount the accomplishments of the players before World War two because they didn't face the best competition. I am not only talking about just the obvious point that there were no black or latin players (other than a few light-skinned Cubans) either.

There wasn't an organized system to funnel the best players to the majors. Even among white ballplayers. There were teams that would let the stars that were found go, or go easily, that would be considered minor league teams today. The further back that you go from WW2 the worse the teams were.

Most of how we rate the pre WW2 greats is based on-- not totals-- but dominance. That is, we say Honus Wagner is a top three player because if you take his RC total it eqauls four players from his starting lineup or Babe Ruth hit more homers than any team in the league (including his own if you take him out).

But the average player was so far below the average player now that it makes these perfomances look more impressive than they really are. There were borderline guys in the league that would be nowhere near the majors in modern times that were in the league. Bill James, in his New Historical Baseball abstract, mentions that, as late as the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, there were cases of guys buying tickets to Major League games as spectators and getting into the game before it was over.

There are a bunch of other factors. But they take too long to get into. I'm not saying that these players weren't great. Only a moron would make that argument. But they are not as great as the numbers seem to suggest.

As for pitchers not being as valuable as position players, that's what basebal executives believe. Just look at the salaries of top players. Top pitchers are paid very well. But have any pitchers cracked the $16m a year mark (AAV)? A number of position players have.

I think that Bonds is the best player since the WW2 era began. I'm going back a few years to include the full careers of Dimaggio and Williams. I think that he has clearly passed Aaron and Mantle. I think that he's probably passed Mays.

oykib

06-28-2003, 07:58 PM

Originally posted by Havok
it just blows my mind how little bit of love Ted Williams gets. I'd take Ted over everyone on that list expect The Babe, and if Ted played for as many seasons as the Babe played we might all have him number one on our lists.

I respect Bonds and all....... but he can't hold Williams jock. I'd have bonds in the top 10 though. These guys hitting 50-70 homeruns now is a joke. The strike zone is so freaking small now, guys are using so many proformance enhancer's and the ball is wond so tight that i could rip the ball out of fenway.

I agree that the Homerun numbers are inflated as compared to certain other eras. But the decade of the 30s up until WW2 started was just as big hitting an era as the current one is. They just did it with ridiculous batting averages to go along with amazing power numbers, and the fact that there were very many fewer strikeouts.

As for Bonds not holding Williams's jock. Have you looked at the numbers? They are about equal as offensive players over the length of their careers. But Williams didn't run and wasn't a great defensive player.

Also, most traditional evaluators don't take into account that Williams played in a great hitters' park while Bonds has spent most of his career in the worst pitchers' parks.

Anrhydeddu

06-28-2003, 08:27 PM

As an attempt at normalizing new timers vs old times, pitchers vs batters, AL vs NL, Bill James' Win Shares has this Top 10 ranking - normalized to WS/162-game season:

1. Babe Ruth 44.33
2. Ted Williams 39.43
3. Ty Cobb 38.76
4. Mickey Mantle 38.12
5. Honus Wagner 38.00
6. Tris Speaker 36.76
7. Lou Gehrig 36.60
8. Roger Hornsby 36.00
9. Joe Dimaggio 35.92
10. Barry Bonds 35.47

(Win Shares totals shows a different list with Mays, Aaron, Cy Young in the top 10, but that is more weighted to longevity.)

Just for Leftfielders - per 162 games:

1. Ted Williams 39.43
2. Barry Bonds 35.47
3. Stan Musial 32.33

Note that this was a few years ago (up to 2000). I would not be surprised to see Bonds move up the list.

oykib

06-28-2003, 08:35 PM

Buc-

I think that after Bonds's 73 homer season his Win Shares number was calculated as, something like, the second highest of all time. So I'd guess that his average would have to have gone up a few points.

Havok

06-28-2003, 08:48 PM

As for Bonds not holding Williams's jock. Have you looked at the numbers?

you also have to remember Teddy missed 3 full seasons fighting a war!! And he was in his prime at that time. So if you wanna go by stats add 100 homers to his already 521, 550 hits to his already 2654 hits, and 350 rbi's to his already 1,839 rbi's.

Plus the man also basically missed the entire 1952 and 53 seasons from injuries and he hardly ever finished an entire season due to injuries.

P.S. Thanx for the list Anrhydeddu, i saw something simalir to this on the OOTP forums one time. Kinda brings into prosepctive how great those older guys really were.

Havok

06-28-2003, 08:50 PM

73 home runs in a season..... god how i weep for the future of baseball :(

They should just let them use metal bats.

clintl

06-28-2003, 08:59 PM

The era of big HR totals may already be on the wane. The season is about half over, and nobody has more than 26 this year. It's very possible that the MLB leader will end up back in a more normal range (mid-to-high 40s) this year.

Anrhydeddu

06-28-2003, 09:02 PM

Another way of looking at this list is to divide into eras:

Pre-Ruth:

1. Cobb
2. Wagner
3. Speaker
4. Hornsby

Ruth:

1. Ruth
2. Gehrig

WW2:

1. Williams
2. Dimaggio

Boom:

1. Mantle
(2. Mays)
(3. Aaron)

Modern:

1. Bonds

Havok

06-28-2003, 09:04 PM

Ted Williams 162 game avg.-----------Barry Bonds 162 game AVG.

AB - 545----------------------------------AB - 554
R - 127------------------------------------R - 122
H - 188------------------------------------H - 164
2B - 37------------------------------------2B - 34
3B - 5 -------------------------------------3B - 5
HR - 37 -----------------------------------HR - 41
RBI - 130 ---------------------------------RBI - 110
SB - 2 --------------------------------------SB - 33
BB - 143 -----------------------------------BB - 128
SO - 50 ------------------------------------SO - 88
BA - .344 ----------------------------------BA - .295
OBP - .482 --------------------------------OBP - .428
SLG - .634 ---------------------------------SLG - .595

Barry Bonds better then Ted Williams???? i think not :)

Havok

06-28-2003, 09:07 PM

Originally posted by clintl
The era of big HR totals may already be on the wane. The season is about half over, and nobody has more than 26 this year. It's very possible that the MLB leader will end up back in a more normal range (mid-to-high 40s) this year.

I hope your right, i might actually start watching again if they make the Strike zone normal again and test these guys for steroids multiple times a year.

oykib

06-28-2003, 09:11 PM

you also have to remember Teddy missed 3 full seasons fighting a war!! And he was in his prime at that time. So if you wanna go by stats add 100 homers to his already 521, 550 hits to his already 2654 hits, and 350 rbi's to his already 1,839 rbi's.
Plus the man also basically missed the entire 1952 and 53 seasons from injuries and he hardly ever finished an entire season due to injuries.

The war years I give Williams credit for. The injuries I don't. Part of being a great athlete is staying in games. Or do you think J.D. Drew is an elite player because his rate stats are in the top ten in the league every year even though he only plays a hundred games?

73 home runs in a season..... god how i weep for the future of baseball
They should just let them use metal bats.

This is the kind of illogical statement that keeps us from getting to real solutions for the real problems with baseball. Everyone is not hitting seventy homers. It's been done twice by historic figures. We're not talking about a couple of schmoes in Bonds and Mcgwire.

The real problem with baseball is that it's lost excitement from the lack of running plays. There are not enough plays that take advantage of athleticism-- either in the field or on the bases.

Yes, there are too many home runs these days. But that's only a slight problem. And it's not the guys at the top that are the problem. It's the guys at the bottom. The problem is that every team has three or four guys that hit 25 homers, not that three guys in the past decade have cleared sixty.

What they need to focus on are ways to keep the average type hitters from having the impact that they do. You've got to turn ten of Bret Boone's homers into doubles. Get these guys, baserunners and fielders, running and making close plays. There is too much standing and walking around in baseball today, and that's only partly because of homers.

oykib

06-28-2003, 09:17 PM

Originally posted by Havok
Ted Williams 162 game avg.-----------Barry Bonds 162 game AVG.

AB - 545----------------------------------AB - 554
R - 127------------------------------------R - 122
H - 188------------------------------------H - 164
2B - 37------------------------------------2B - 34
3B - 5 -------------------------------------3B - 5
HR - 37 -----------------------------------HR - 41
RBI - 130 ---------------------------------RBI - 110
SB - 2 --------------------------------------SB - 33
BB - 143 -----------------------------------BB - 128
SO - 50 ------------------------------------SO - 88
BA - .344 ----------------------------------BA - .295
OBP - .482 --------------------------------OBP - .428
SLG - .634 ---------------------------------SLG - .595

Barry Bonds better then Ted Williams???? i think not :)

Raw totals don't take park or era effects into account.

Would you rather spend your career in Fenway or Candlestick? And Pac Bell is even worse than Candlestick was.

Also, despite the hype, the eras that Bonds and Williams played in are about equal in terms of offensive production.

By the way, players also have to play defense.

I think that Bonds and Williams are about equal. But I'd give Bonds the edge because of Durability, longevity, and, mainly, because he did it against better competition.

oykib

06-28-2003, 09:28 PM

Mad Dola--
(I just love baseball arguments)

James used a number of different criteria when evaluating players. Rating players by just their production per 162 games comes up with a major flaw.

With that system, you get mantle rating significantly higher than Mays. Mantle's peak value was higher. But Mays was clearly more valuable for his career. When you do rating/162 games, you skip over the fact that some players give you 150+ games of production every year, and some don't.

A more accurate system would have just multiplied the raw totals by 1.05 on a weighted scale for players that spent their careers in 154 game seasons. It wasn't a problem for James because he used something like six different factors in his ratings to correct for the flaws of each particular one.

Havok

06-28-2003, 09:31 PM

well me and the 80% of all sports writers and baseball fanatics will have to disagree with you :)

And to say he played against better competion is a joke. Espically when every third pitcher in the majors as a ERA of 4.50 and everyone in there mother hits 40 home runs a year.

Anrhydeddu

06-28-2003, 09:54 PM

A more accurate system would have just multiplied the raw totals by 1.05 on a weighted scale for players that spent their careers in 154 game seasons. It wasn't a problem for James because he used something like six different factors in his ratings to correct for the flaws of each particular one.

I agree, I just turned to a WS list that did not have the totals from the New Historical Baseball book as oppose to any updated lists in the WS book.

oykib

06-28-2003, 10:19 PM

Well, I don't worry about what these other guys think. When Babe Ruth was playing and even after he retired it was thought that he was well behind Cobb and also behind a number of pitchers and a few of the 'lesser' Cobbs.

There is a consensus that pitching is not as good as it used to be. But there is really no evidence that it's true. ERAs are higher sure. But it's a hitters era. ERAs were high in Ted Williams day, too. It's a zero sum game. If hitters are successful, then pitchers are gonna be unseccessful.

clintl

06-28-2003, 11:42 PM

Originally posted by Havok
And to say he played against better competion is a joke. Espically when every third pitcher in the majors as a ERA of 4.50 and everyone in there mother hits 40 home runs a year.

The idea that offense is unusually high in this era is largely a myth. Since 1993, the runs scored per game is pretty much in line (and in comparison to the 1930s AL, significantly less than) the typical run production from 1921-1962. In 1963, offense dropped off quite a bit in both leagues, and stayed low through 1992. So, really, I think that a big part of this rush to demean the achievements of modern hitters ignores the fact that we kind of got used to the stats typical of an era of unusually low offensive production, and baseball has only recently returned to its historical norms.

By the way, this also means that Williams played his entire career in an era that, offensively, was comparable to the final 2/3 of Bonds' career. Besides the tougher parks Bonds has played in, he also played the first 1/3 of his career in a pitcher's era.

EagleFan

06-29-2003, 02:18 PM

Tougher parks Bonds has played in? These built for homerun parks are tougher how?

clintl

06-29-2003, 03:05 PM

Pac Bell is a pitcher's park, and it's especially tough to hit a ball out to RF (Bonds' pull field) at Pac Bell. Besides the wall angling out at a pretty good clip, the ball doesn't carry well to RF. Considering he plays half his games there, I'd say it's pretty clear that Bonds is playing in a tougher park than Williams played in at Fenway. And a lot of the parks in Williams' day weren't that big, either (Yankee Stadium, for example, was less than 300' down the RF line, and something like 345' to right center before its mid '70s refurbishing). Tiger Stadium was another old park noted for cheap HRs.

Sharpieman

06-29-2003, 03:52 PM

SBs arent a HUGE deal in baseball. So its understandable that people didnt pay much attention. I dont think the Barry-hater factor really is a factor. I mean, who cares if hes an A-hole? Baseball players are just that baseball players, they arent actors who need to be nice to everyone. All Bonds cares about is being respected for what he does.

Alan T

06-29-2003, 06:26 PM

Originally posted by clintl
Pac Bell is a pitcher's park, and it's especially tough to hit a ball out to RF (Bonds' pull field) at Pac Bell. Besides the wall angling out at a pretty good clip, the ball doesn't carry well to RF. Considering he plays half his games there, I'd say it's pretty clear that Bonds is playing in a tougher park than Williams played in at Fenway. And a lot of the parks in Williams' day weren't that big, either (Yankee Stadium, for example, was less than 300' down the RF line, and something like 345' to right center before its mid '70s refurbishing). Tiger Stadium was another old park noted for cheap HRs.

You can look at the park factors for the parks that Bonds played at vs the ones WIlliams did. Three Rivers (when Bonds was with the pirates), in its highest years were comparable to Fenway in its most pitcher friendly years when Ted was there. Otherwise, almost every year the park was more of a hitter's park for Ted than for Bonds in their careers. As for the other point, there are clearly many more hitters parks today than there were at the time, as well as Bonds played through a few more expansion seasons than Williams did. I personally rate Williams as a better all time hitter than Bonds, but have no problem at all with anyone flipping the two around. Its an interesting discussion.

Anyhows, its clear that Bonds played half of his games in a much more pitcher friendly environment than Williams did.

ISiddiqui

06-29-2003, 06:38 PM

it just blows my mind how little bit of love Ted Williams gets.

Being in the Top 10 isn't 'love'? Come on... but what you are saying is that Ted Williams absolutely MUST be behind Ruth. BULL! Honus Wagner is just a smidge behind Ruth, and Ted Williams can't hold Wagner's jock! Walter Johnson was absolutely dominating and played on some very bad teams. He definetly equal or better than Williams. Mays and Williams are tied to me. Mays definetly played in a more pitcher friendly era and put up eye popping stats.

Anyhows, its clear that Bonds played half of his games in a much more pitcher friendly environment than Williams did.

Yep. People seem to forget how high scoring the 30s and 40s were, and how the 80s and early 90s were low scoring comparatively. Add to that Candlestick and Pac Bell being undoubtably pitcher's parks, and Bonds' achievements are well within Williams' jock, if not above.

Chief Rum

06-29-2003, 06:40 PM

Wasn't Williams a lefty hitter?

I thought Fenway wasn't nearly as friendly to lefthanded hitters as it was to righthanded hitters.

CR

ISiddiqui

06-29-2003, 06:46 PM

Btw, if we are bringing up Bill James... From his New Historical Baseball Abstract... Top 100 Greatest Players of All Time:

1. Babe Ruth
2. Honus Wagner
3. Willie Mays
4. Oscar Charleston (Negro League)
5. Ty Cobb
6. Mickey Mantle
7. Ted Williams
8. Walter Johnson
9. Josh Gibson (Negro League)
10. Stan Musial

I'm not sure that you can use Bill James as proof that Williams should be in the Top 5, when James has him ranked 7th :D.

oykib

06-29-2003, 10:15 PM

Good point, ISiddiqui. But most of us don't know Oscar Charleston from a hole in the wall. I'll accept that he's number four because I can accept that he was the preWW2 Willie Mays. But I wasn't thinking about him in my rankings.

Basically you take him and Wagner out of the top five and Williams is there. Wagner doesn't have gaudy stats. But his stats are gaudy compared to the average player in his era. The average major leaguer in his era wasn't exactly what we'd consider a major league ballplayer. Half of them were ruffians and didn't really take playing ball seriously as a professional career (for instance Wagner was one of the few who did any kind of personal training).

I discount Wagner more than James does. James doesn't really discount as much for the non-integrated era as I do. He basically puts the Negro League ballplayers and the guys who were stuck in the minors where he thinks they should rank. But I think that for Josh Gibson or Babe Ruth the problem is not just that someone might overlook them because they didn't play against Satchel Paige or Walter Johnson, the problem is that they really do have inflated stats because of it.

If we assume that there were only going to be sixteen teams, as there were until the sixties, then we have to assume that there would be twice as many star hitters and pitchers in the league and very many more players that would be considered above average as compared to the mean talent level of the league.

Babe Ruth and Josh Gibson couldn't get any better. But Babe Ruth wouldn't have led the league in homers nine times (or whatever) if Gibson was playing for the Tigers. Gibson wouldn't have batted .432 (or whatever) if he had to face Paige and Walter Johnson and the Senator's third starter who was really the #2 for the Homestead Grays or the #1 for the Black Yankees.

Of course all these guys weren't exactly contemporaries. But you get my point, I'm sure. The gap between the average player and the super elite would be closed a little. That would make the greats from that era, both black and white, slightly less impressive.

Willie Mays suffers from this. When you look at his career, you see a player that was the best in the NL for the greater part of fifteen years. But the gap is not terribly huge between him and Stan Musial in the early part. And throughout his career you have a guy in the other league who many thought was better than him (Mickey Mantle). Neither of these guys would show up in legitamate comparisons if the leagues had still been segregated. He'd have been compared to his black contemporaries (Aaron and Robinson). That would give the illusion that he had all the competiton that he could handle. People would talk about his battles with Bob Gibson. But they would gloss over the fact that he'd never faced Koufax, Spahn, or Drysdale.

Havok

06-29-2003, 10:18 PM

BULL! Honus Wagner is just a smidge behind Ruth, and Ted Williams can't hold Wagner's jock!

Both parts of that quote are funny. Its hard to argue with someone who actually believes either one of those two things are true.

Saying that Honus Wagner was just a little bit behind Babe Ruth is blasphamy. I don't care how "great" you think he is, he played in a completely different era, Baseball was barley baseball back then. Its impossible to compare him with a guy who hit 600 more home runs then he did, batted .015 higher then he did, got walked over 1,000 more times then he did, scored over 400 more runs then he did and drove in 500 more RBI's then he did.

some people, i swear.....

ISiddiqui

06-29-2003, 10:25 PM

Saying that Honus Wagner was just a little bit behind Babe Ruth is blasphamy. I don't care how "great" you think he is, he played in a completely different era, Baseball was barley baseball back then. Its impossible to compare him with a guy who hit 600 more home runs then he did, batted .015 higher then he did, got walked over 1,000 more times then he did, scored over 400 more runs then he did and drove in 500 more RBI's then he did.

:rolleyes: Some people! I mean really could you have ignored era differences MORE? To say the 20s and 30s were the same as the 1890s and 10s is being utterly blind!

This is what happens when people simply focus on raw numbers and don't look beyond them. Honus played in an era were runs were hard to find. There is a reason it is called the 'Dead Ball Era'. People just didn't hit as good back then. Sure you had a few stars like Cobb who could hit over .380, but they were considered amazing.

There was NO ONE that was as dominating over the rest of the league as Honus Wagner was in the dead ball era. I'd argue that even Ruth wasn't as dominating. Win Shares may not be the best argument, but the greatest Win Share single season of all time is Wagner's.

I swear!

Havok

06-29-2003, 10:44 PM

your right... Wagner is the greatest. You and you alone can keep thinking that.

At least when i was arguing with oykib about Bonds and Williams it was a good argument. This is just laughable.

oykib

06-29-2003, 10:46 PM

Actually, I think the main problem with Wagner is that the average Major League player in his day was nowhere near what we'd call a major leaguer today. It's like the numbers that Daryl Strawberry put up when he was with the Saint Paul Saints. He was obviously a player who was still able to do damage-- even at the major league level. But the numbers were against what's essentially a AA team. So the numbers had to be discounted. Ruth suffers from that some. But Wagner suffers from it a lot.

I don't question that Wagner was the greatest player on the planet when he was playing. He was vastly superior to everyone in every category when he played. But we're not talking about the same 'everyone' that we talk about in Ruth's day. And, of course, it's nowhere near the same everyone that we talk about for Willie Mays.

Alan T

06-30-2003, 06:53 AM

Originally posted by Chief Rum
Wasn't Williams a lefty hitter?

I thought Fenway wasn't nearly as friendly to lefthanded hitters as it was to righthanded hitters.

CR

That was traditionally thought to be the case. The constant comparison was that everyone wondered what would have happened if you took Williams and put him on the Yankees and Dimaggio and put him on the Red Sox, everyone assumed they would have been even better.

One interesting note though if I remember it right on the top of my head, I believe last time this was looked at, Williams had better stats at Fenway over his career than he did at Yankee Stadium (in a significant sample size.) I would assume he learned to adapt his playing style to Fenway park.

Alan T

06-30-2003, 07:00 AM

Originally posted by oykib
Actually, I think the main problem with Wagner is that the average Major League player in his day was nowhere near what we'd call a major leaguer today. It's like the numbers that Daryl Strawberry put up when he was with the Saint Paul Saints. He was obviously a player who was still able to do damage-- even at the major league level. But the numbers were against what's essentially a AA team. So the numbers had to be discounted. Ruth suffers from that some. But Wagner suffers from it a lot.

I don't question that Wagner was the greatest player on the planet when he was playing. He was vastly superior to everyone in every category when he played. But we're not talking about the same 'everyone' that we talk about in Ruth's day. And, of course, it's nowhere near the same everyone that we talk about for Willie Mays.

The danger with using this line of thinking though is by far most baseball players today are superior to the ones of X generations ago. You still have the super talents of the various eras, and perhaps the one thing that today's players arent as good at is their eye and plate disclipline, but for the most part, the players today are stronger, faster, better conditioned. Arguably though they are not as smart on average as the players from yesteryear (smart in a baseball sense. not book smart.)

What I would consider greatness is how much better than the rest of the people in the same environment. Babe Ruth was great because he had more HR than all the other -teams- .. That would be like Barry Bonds hitting 300 HR in a season. it just is unimaginable, and until Ruth it had never happened. Frank Home Run Baker had the record before him with 12 HR!

Hognus Wagner is considered great because of how much more dominant he was than others at his position (Shortstop), and at the plate.

Willie Mays is considered great because of how great he was at the plate, and the defense he brought into the field. Today you have people still saying someone caught the ball Willie Mays style.

Ted Williams is considered great because he could possibly be considered the best pure hitter ever in baseball. I don't know if anyone had done it before him, but the first time I remember of there being a shift was the Williams shift teams would put on Ted Williams when he batted. He still hit it past them.

If you took Barry Bonds of today and put him back in the 1920's era.. I would have to guess that he would kill Babe Ruth's marks. that they would be completely destroyed.... Do I consider Barry Bonds greater than Babe Ruth? No... because each player did it with what they had to work with, and Ruth simply was dominating (even to a level beyond what Bonds has done in the past few seasons).

oykib

06-30-2003, 11:44 AM

Actually there is no two season stretch in modern (post-1900) baseball history that are as dominant as Barry Bonds's last two seasons.

But the thrust of my argument is that I think that we rate Ruth and Wagner as high as we do because we see them as much farther above the mean than more modern players. I don't think that it's valid to view them that way.

The guys they played agianst were not Major league ballplayers, as we know them today (or even the 1950 variety). Half the players should not have been on major league rosters. If we were to imaginee that half of the ballplayers in the all-white, mostly eastern and lucky to get out of the minors major leaguers were to be replaced by their more deserving black, latin, and unlucky western on minor league counterparts we'd have much different stat books.

This is not something that we think. This is something that we know. We can argue whether or not Josh Gibson would have ever beaten Ruth out for a homerun title, or how many he would have if he did. But we know he'd have been a forty homer a year guy, at least.

I went through this argument earlier in the thread. The record book dominance of Ruth or, even worse, Wagner cannot be used to rank them as the greatest ever in the way that it is. That can no more be used to justify that case than I can say that I'm the greatest fighting game player ever because I've never lost to my girlfriend at Dead or Alive.

This isn't a the black ballplayers got the shaft argument (although they did) either. You can't say that Josh Gibson was the greatest power hitter ever just bacause he hit a 500 foot homerun any time he felt like putting on a show. He was only facing half the best talent, too.

Alan T

06-30-2003, 12:04 PM

I guess I am missing what you are going for then.. I already said that I thought Bonds had more talent and ability than any of the list of all time greats... I will take it a step further and say I fully believe that if you took 25 of today's top players and put them as they are now back in 1920, they would be the best 25 players that season as well.

It sounds to me though that you are wanting to throw out anything that happened in the past simply because the players were not as talented and not all the best players were there in the league.

I just can not view greatness in this light myself.. Maybe its just what I consider great, but while there are plenty of players now who are probably as talented, powerful, fast, smart as Ruth was.. I can not feel that a Rafael Palmeiro is greater than a Babe Ruth, even though he played against tougher opposition and put up great numbers for a long time, and yes probably is a more athletic ballplayer..

I guess the same argument can and will be used against Bonds in another 50 years when you have all the best players from all over the world competing in the MLB instead of just a trickle of players from Japan each season or other countries. However I will still stand by the fact that the amazing run of seasons Bonds has had in the last few years have been still as dominating when measured in their own merits.

Thats all we can do with the ballplayers of yesteryear. we can not transport them in time to play against today's players. We can only measure them in the environment they played in. So that is how I look at greatness.. who stood out big time above the rest of their opponents.. It was Ruth, Mays, Williams, DiMaggio, Aaron, and even in recent years, Mcgwire, Sosa, Bonds, etc.. Sure people argue that today's players have more opportunities to better their bodies than the older players did, so you can't compare Mcgwire's home run totals to older players that didnt have things like andro, or such effective work out strategies... What we can do is measure today's players against other today's players and find out who the greats are..

Topics like this are fun because you have very little but subjective thoughts when measuring players of different eras against each other.

oykib

06-30-2003, 12:31 PM

My argument isn't that we should discount the accomplishments of the guys who played before WW2 because they were lesser athletes. I couldn't care less about that. What bothers me is that the Major Leagues were not the pinnacle of the sport that htey are today, or even that the were in 1950.

If you take the Majors today, we'd have to guess that somewhere between 80-90% of the world's best play in them. In the sixties, I'd guess anywhere from 70-80%. But before WW2 we know that it was less than 50%. In Babe Ruth's era it moght have been thirty percent. In Honus Wagner's time it might have been half that.

I think that had those players from the past been born in our era, they'd be great today. But the argument that The Babe or Wagner are the greatest because of the dominance their leagues is greater than any of the more contemporary players' dominance of their respective leagues is full of holes.

I think that the early greats would be great players, on par with the all time greats of today if they played today. But Tthe argument that they are all time greats because of the margins of their dominance logically leads to the conclusion that these guys'd hit 300 homers now or accomplish other absurdities.

It's up to you to determine how much of those stat lines have to be discounted. As for me, I think that they have to be discounted enough that I'd push Wagner out of the top five and if Barry does this for two more years and passes Ruth that I'll probably rate him as the number one.

Alan T

06-30-2003, 12:36 PM

Fair enough :) Its an opinion thing that each has to draw their lines at. :) Bonds is an interesting case to me because he is the opposite of alot of former greats. Many had huge early careers and withered as time went on. Bonds for alot of his career, was not the best in his era, but was one of the best players. Not heads and tail over everyone else. Bonds has simply gotten more and more dominating as time has gone on though.

oykib

06-30-2003, 12:48 PM

Originally posted by Alan T
Fair enough :) Its an opinion thing that each has to draw their lines at. :) Bonds is an interesting case to me because he is the opposite of alot of former greats. Many had huge early careers and withered as time went on. Bonds for alot of his career, was not the best in his era, but was one of the best players. Not heads and tail over everyone else. Bonds has simply gotten more and more dominating as time has gone on though.

That's my point right there. That is what eventually moved me to this point of view. Actually, Bonds has been the best player over the course of his career. There were other players (Griffey) that got more attention. But if you look back at his career, no one has really been close.

What you have with Ruth is him being the true MVP of the league for about 60% (or more) of his career. Mays was really the MVP for about ten years. Bonds has been the MVP for maybe six or seven years. But he's spent his career in the top ten (probably the top five for his entire prime). He's just had more all-time greats to contend with.

ISiddiqui

06-30-2003, 04:11 PM

What I would consider greatness is how much better than the rest of the people in the same environment.

That's exactly what I base it on. I'm not sold on the argument that the talent base was worse then, so accomplishments should be minimized. Frankly I think that leads to silly results where Albert Belle is now considered a better player than Johnny Mize... because Belle had more talent around him. All that argument leads to is that the best players from the here and now are the best players ever... and that will change as every generation will bring in newer players.

It's like saying that Emmitt Smith was the greatest running back of all time because he did it against the most talented players. Of course the most talented players are always the newest, so the 'greatest' under this argument keeps getting shifted to the present.

I don't think you can consider players outside of the era they played in and how they fared in those eras. Perhaps the talent of the athletes wasn't as good, but that in no way, IMO, diminishes their accomplishments, because you forget that these players, such as Ruth and Wagner, also didn't benefit from what comes with greater talent (such as weight training and better coaching, etc).

Alan T

06-30-2003, 05:51 PM

ISiddiqui

06-30-2003, 06:00 PM

Bah! And then that day I'll beat you by one game for the NL West crown and the Wild Card will go to someone else too ;).

Admit it, you've always liked me... ;).

Alan T

06-30-2003, 07:15 PM

This is your year.. I can feel it :)

oykib

06-30-2003, 07:28 PM

Originally posted by ISiddiqui
That's exactly what I base it on. I'm not sold on the argument that the talent base was worse then, so accomplishments should be minimized. Frankly I think that leads to silly results where Albert Belle is now considered a better player than Johnny Mize... because Belle had more talent around him. All that argument leads to is that the best players from the here and now are the best players ever... and that will change as every generation will bring in newer players.

It's like saying that Emmitt Smith was the greatest running back of all time because he did it against the most talented players. Of course the most talented players are always the newest, so the 'greatest' under this argument keeps getting shifted to the present.

I don't think you can consider players outside of the era they played in and how they fared in those eras. Perhaps the talent of the athletes wasn't as good, but that in no way, IMO, diminishes their accomplishments, because you forget that these players, such as Ruth and Wagner, also didn't benefit from what comes with greater talent (such as weight training and better coaching, etc).

You are still missing the point. I don't care that Babe Ruth was not as strong or fast as the players of today. I care no more about that in my evaluation than I care about it for Jim Thorpe or Jesse Owens.

It's the level of competition that he faced that bothers me.

Let me put it to you this way: Do you consider Sadaharu Oh to be the greatest power hitter of all time? His numbers indicate that he was. Of course, you don't. He didn't do it against the same level of competition that Hank Aaron did it against. But ther were probably as many world class baseball players in Japan as there were in the Major Leagues in Wagner's day. If that's the case then we should accept Oh's records to have the same level of legitamacy.

What I'm getting at is not that Ruth and, especially, Wagner were not as great as commonly thought because they couldn't have done what they did against the best players of this era. I'm saying that they is not as great as you think because each couldn't have done what they did against the best players of their own era.

The reason that we think that Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, and Ty Cobb are so great is because they all score so highly on the Black Ink test (black ink being the bold text on a player's stat line when he leads the lead and grey ink when he is in the top five or ten). They couldn't have possibly outscored players from other eras be so much if they'd had to contend with all the Negro League greats and 'stuck' minor leaguers that we know about, and the latins that we don't.

If you throw those players into the league when Ruth was playing, for example, and he wouldn't have led in so many statistical categories. If you replace half the pithcers in the league with the better ones that were barred from playing (including doubling the superstars), then his raw numbers would come down toward the median, somewhat, also.

If he had played against as much of the best players of his era as Mickey Mantle did, then his stat line might look like Mickey Mantle's. Probably, it would look better than Mantle's. But maybe it would only look as much better than Mantle's as Ted Williams's does.

To sum up, I'm not lowering my evaluation of the old-time (really old-time) ballplayers because the players were lesser athletes in absolute terms. I'm discounting the stats because they did what they did against less of the best players from their own eras than the post-ww2 players did.

Alan T

06-30-2003, 07:55 PM

That takes you back to what I said earlier.. that entirely discounts everything that those players ever did. You are basing this on an opinion of what they would or would not have done if other selected players had also played then. It is just an opinion... When you get into a discussion of that type, each person has their own opinion, and who is to say one person's is better than another's? What I am saying is those players could only play against those who they played against. They put up the incredible numbers, and its worth greatness. What it sounds like you want to do is start MLB records at about the 1960s and discount anything from before, which does not seem that fair.

As for your comparison of Oh in Japan.. I actually do think he had to have been a great hitter. Sure I have read all type of stuff on why he had an easier opportunity to hit homers, etc... But anyone who hits 800+ HR in a highly competitive environment such as Oh played in had to have some extraordinary talent. Do I consider him one of the greatest ever? No.. of course I don't consider Aaron as one of the greatest ever. (And I grew up in Atlanta with Aaron one of my first heros.. followed later by Murphy.) . I fully understand that Aaron got his record on longevity more than anything. Was he great? Sure.. not one of the greatest in my mind.

ISiddiqui

06-30-2003, 08:02 PM

It's the level of competition that he faced that bothers me.

Let me put it to you this way: Do you consider Sadaharu Oh to be the greatest power hitter of all time? His numbers indicate that he was. Of course, you don't. He didn't do it against the same level of competition that Hank Aaron did it against. But ther were probably as many world class baseball players in Japan as there were in the Major Leagues in Wagner's day. If that's the case then we should accept Oh's records to have the same level of legitamacy.

You are still missing the point :D. To see what Oh's numbers would look like in the US, you have to compare both leagues, see the average numbers and park effects and plug numbers in. No one has done this yet, but I bet that Oh would have been a 30-40 HR guy in the states.

You also miss that there were many less teams in the era of Wagner and Ruth. Wagner's days had eight teams in the National League! Sixteen in total! Secondly, back then baseball was the only sport. Today, you have football, basketball, etc. Today's athletes pick different fields to concentrate on. Back in Wagner and Ruth's eras the athletes played baseball! It was the only sport in town basically (like soccer in present day England). If you take 90% the white athletes today, focus them on baseball and put them in 16 teams, you'd have just as tough a league as you do in 2003 real life.

Furthermore, the Negro Leagues were a small outfit (and wasn't very well organized). Personally I think too much is made of the total quality of play of the Negro Leagues based on just a few amazing players. I mean, if you evaluated major league baseball only looking at Walter Johnson, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Lou Gehrig, you'd get a slanted view at the league as well. Even if you spread out Negro League talent among the majors, I say it doesn't make too much of a dent in the stat sheet at all. You'd add a few more stars to the mix, but the general level of play wouldn't leap up.

Secondly, baseball hadn't even really spread to Latin America at the time. How do you figure you'd get naturally good baseball players simply because of their ethnicity? Maybe they would have sucked.

To say that their stats aren't as good because they don't face the different groups of players that today's greats do is missing the obvious differences in baseball and the US from back then and present day.

If you follow soccer, the equivalent argument is that Pele wasn't as good as we all think because you didn't have as many different nationalities playing in professional football and the World Cup. Or American football, Red Grange wasn't that good because he never played against blacks. Or Jim Brown wasn't that good because football is more popular now, so more athletes are choosing that sport over baseball.

I don't accept that argument.

oykib

06-30-2003, 08:15 PM

I don't think that it's an opinion that the league leaderboards would have been impacted by more great players playing in Wagner's or Ruth's eras. We know that this is the case. At every point in baseball history where we've integrated the best ballplayers from the ranks of the previously excluded the leaderboard was impacted. Right now, Babe Ruth has an unapproachably high number on the Black Ink test. He'd probably still have had the highest score agianst full competition. But his score could not possibly been as high as it is now.

Having other great players in his league woul;d mean that he was edged out of the top spot in some years and out of the top ten in others. How much so is a matter of opinion. John McGraw thought that Oscar Charleston was the best player that he ever saw. McGraw was considered the greatest baseball mind of his time.

I can't go as far as McGraw. I never saw Charleston play and I don't have his stats. But it does indicate that there were players at Ruth's level that didn't get a chance to play. Maybe Charleston was the counterpart to Ruth in the way that Mantle was to Mays or Dimaggio was to Williams or Griffey/Sosa/McGwire are/were to Bonds.

As to your point aboout Oh and Aaron. Not many people consider Aaron to be top five. Mays and Mantle were clearly better in his era. But Oh's numbers are ridiculous. They are totally dominating. Oh dominated his leagues in a way that Ted Williams could only dream of. He was perenieally a triple crown threat. By the numbers, Oh was much greater that Aaron.

The reason Oh is not as great is not because he put up longevity-inflated numbers. His numbers are amazing. The problem is that only maybe ten percent of the league, at the most, was made up of world-class players in his day. But that gets back to the point about Wagner, for whom that same could be said.

ISiddiqui

06-30-2003, 08:21 PM

At every point in baseball history where we've integrated the best ballplayers from the ranks of the previously excluded the leaderboard was impacted.

By then the leagues in question where fully developed. I doubt that when Wagner and Ruth came up the talent was as great in the Negro leagues as it would be when Robinson entered the Dodgers. Oscar Charleston would have been great, but I don't think you'd see a deluge of great black ballplayers that would become a majority on every team because they were more talented. I don't think the level of talent was that great in those leagues back then.

oykib

06-30-2003, 08:41 PM

Originally posted by ISiddiqui
By then the leagues in question where fully developed. I doubt that when Wagner and Ruth came up the talent was as great in the Negro leagues as it would be when Robinson entered the Dodgers. Oscar Charleston would have been great, but I don't think you'd see a deluge of great black ballplayers that would become a majority on every team because they were more talented. I don't think the level of talent was that great in those leagues back then.

I don't think that it's an absurd assumption that if you included all the top ballplayers from the Negro Leagues and Latin America along with the white guys that were playing great ball west of the Mississippi that you'd wind up replacing half of the ballplayers in the AL and NL.

By the way, the Negro Leagues were much better at that point in history than the majors were at finding talent and funneling it to the big leagues. By the forties the majors had caught on. But if we're talking 1925, there was prbably as much black talent in the Negro Leagues as there was white talent in the majors. This is borne out by the competetiveness of the Negro League players against the Major League players in exhibition games.

Remember, this is not like a Japan tour where the best players don't all go, and the players make so much money that it's just for fun. The All-star matches were important to the participants who'd have to go back to being short order cooks or substitue teachers otherwise.

ISiddiqui

06-30-2003, 08:54 PM

I don't think that it's an absurd assumption that if you included all the top ballplayers from the Negro Leagues and Latin America along with the white guys that were playing great ball west of the Mississippi that you'd wind up replacing half of the ballplayers in the AL and NL.

First, we can cut out Latin American players because baseball hadn't caught on and no one was playing it. As for the Negro Leagues:

This is borne out by the competetiveness of the Negro League players against the Major League players in exhibition games

Can you show me that the rest of the players in the Negro leagues were as close in talent to their all stars as the MLB players were? Everything I've read seems to indicate that they weren't. What you had were 2 or 3 teams full of great players and the rest were below average talent wise. The all-stars could play, but most of the players in those leagues weren't that great.

ISiddiqui

06-30-2003, 09:08 PM

I believe one of the other problems with your argument is that 30 years from now someone will say that Bonds should be valued less because he didn't play against all the great Asian talent that has taken the league by storm. After all, as soon as another group enters the league in full force, that argument could be made. I don't see how you could make the argument that Latins and blacks not playing make pre-Robinson accomplishments of less worth, but a lack of Asian participation in the majors doesn't devalue the value of those who played in the 80s and 90s.

oykib

06-30-2003, 09:42 PM

There aren't enough Japanese ballplayers above the replacement level to make too much of an impact. But in thirty years if someone puts up numbers equal to Bonds's in a more integrated envorinment, then I'd have to rate said person higher.

by ISiddiquiFirst, we can cut out Latin American players because baseball hadn't caught on and no one was playing it.

They were playing it in Cuba and Mexico.

As for the Negro Leagues:Can you show me that the rest of the players in the Negro leagues were as close in talent to their all stars as the MLB players were? Everything I've read seems to indicate that they weren't. What you had were 2 or 3 teams full of great players and the rest were below average talent wise. The all-stars could play, but most of the players in those leagues weren't that great.

The number of great players was the same as in the majors. They did tend to funnel to the best teams. But those teams would have six or seven all-stars each. The overall number of all-stars, then, league-wise was the same. They just didn't distribute quite as well as in the majors. Although the majors didn't distribute well as the index of competetive balance went up every decade of the twentieth century and was laughable for the first few decades.

It gets down to this. You guys say that Ruth is better than Mays, Williams, or Bonds because to match what he did in his era they'd have to hit 300 homeruns. That's the same as saying that you think that Ruth if he were born in this era (with modern physical training, nutrition, and medecine) would hit 300 homeruns.

Obviously, that would be an absurd assetion. Perhaps you think that he'd hit ninety homeruns. Maybe he would. I don't think so. But by saying that he'd hit ninety rather than 300 you are already tacitly accepting my argument, just not to the extent that I do. While I think it's reasonable to quibble with me over the total impact. You yourselves already do it in your owbn evaluations to a certain extent.

You just can't bring yourselves to openly admit that ruth's era was significantly inferior to the era that followed just two decades behind. Ruth's dominance was brought about by three factors:

1) His admitted greatness
2) an overall weakmness in the level of competition.
3) The happenstance of getting an advantage over his competition by playing the game in a different way than everyone else and the fact that 'baseball men' didn't catch on for about a decade.

Alan T

07-01-2003, 06:11 AM

Actually I said the opposite of what you are assuming I would say. I dont think Ruth would hit 300 HR or even 90 HR today. Like I said many times before, the players of today are simply better. We have no idea what type of exercise plan or nutrition plan Ruth would be on. From all information we have, he could very easily have ended up like Steve Howe or Darryl Strawberry even in today's time. That is entirely not the point.

I measure greatness in accomplishing what they do in their environment. Like I said many times, any time you take player A from the 21st century and put him in the 1890s, its easy to guess who would be better.

I could easily throw out the argument against Bonds who very clearly improved himself as his career went on due to a supposedly tremendous work out plan that he started on. That type of thing was never available back in Ruth's day. So would that mean Bonds would have ended up his entire career as the thinner non-bulked up Barry Bonds that we saw with the Pirates? I would say even as that player, he still would have been great in the 1920s, because he had some tremendous talent. I doubt we would see anything close to what we see from barry Bonds today though.

That type of argument is rather meaningless though, because the idea of taking Ruth and plopping him into the 1990s, or taking Bonds and plopping him in the 1920s is more fantastic than it is meaningful. It then once again leaves us with the one thing to measure the players by.. How did they perform in their environment compared to the rest of the league.

So once again I stand by my point that sure Bonds is the better player.. perhaps the best player who ever played (we will have to see how some like Alex Rodriguez and others end up). But best does not equal greatest, and Bonds has a long way to go to be as great as many of the others in baseball history that took baseball on their shoulders and elevated it to a next level such as Ruth, Mays..

Alan T

07-01-2003, 06:21 AM

Ok, here is another pertinant example that I am sure will get you and possibly others upset :)

Bonds in my opinion is the best player in baseball the past 5-10 years. No thats not my radical opinion, since I am guessing not many would argue with that short of some A-rod fans.

Even with Bonds being the best baseball player in the past 5-10 years, I do not feel he is the greatest baseball player in the past 5-10 years. I would say Sosa (even though the corked bat does alot to diminish that), Mcgwire and Ripken were all greater.

I can not think of a single stat that Bonds has not since passed Mcgwire on by now. I can't remember Ripken ever being the hitter that Bonds is. But all three (Mcgwire, Sosa and Ripken) took the game and lifted it on their shoulder to help take it to the next level.

Many have said that Ripken helped save baseball in the post-strike era.. I don't really buy that to the degree that baseball was doomed without him, but he very clearly became a reason why alot of people started watching baseball again. Mcgwire and Sosa made the modern home run chase something incredible, and once again rejuvinated the interest in baseball.

Is all of that directly due to the Media's liking Mcgwire or Sosa better than Bonds? probably alot is due to that. I also fully believe that Bonds is going to be someone that just like Ted Williams is much more appreciated after his career is over than while playing it. Ted Williams was not the most pleasant guy to newspaper writers, he came off cold to many, and often was snubbed due to that (examples of his various MVP deservant seasons that he was passed up for others). Bonds today in many ways is today's Ted Williams, who has come off to the media as an unpleasant self serving guy.

Once Bonds retires, and is out of the media spotlight, we will only be left with his performance.. and just like Ted Williams, it will stand out as one of the best there ever was in baseball.

So in one post, I tried to take the entire thing full circle.. :)

cuervo72

07-01-2003, 07:47 AM

Originally posted by Alan T
Actually I said the opposite of what you are assuming I would say. I dont think Ruth would hit 300 HR or even 90 HR today. Like I said many times before, the players of today are simply better. We have no idea what type of exercise plan or nutrition plan Ruth would be on. From all information we have, he could very easily have ended up like Steve Howe or Darryl Strawberry even in today's time. That is entirely not the point.

I measure greatness in accomplishing what they do in their environment. Like I said many times, any time you take player A from the 21st century and put him in the 1890s, its easy to guess who would be better.

I don't really know if you can deflate Ruth's homeruns to that extent, unless if you prove that 1. the ball was much livelier than it is today, 2. the parks were much smaller then than they are now or 3. that the quality of pitching was much much worse then than it is now. Ruth was NOT well conditioned, yet he still put the ball over the fence - the relative ability of other hitters should have no effect on that.

I'd say out of 1, 2 or 3, 3 would be the most likely case, as I don't think the ball was livelier then (if anything I'd assume the opposite), and parks today are becoming smaller and smaller. So in regards to 3....ok, the levels of talent have been discussed here, he didn't have to face blacks, latinos, etc. What of the pitchers he did face? I'd say there haven't been any marvelous developments that can make pitchers throw the ball any faster, and there are many accounts that pitchers could bring smoke in that era. There may be a greater array of pitches that Ruth would have to face now, as a few have been "invented" since then (of course, spitters were still legal :) ). And how pitching staffs are utilized, with the level of specialization there is may make things tougher. I don't know if weight training and modern conditioning helps the quality of pitching or not - I mean, look at some of the pitchers out there, they aren't all stud athletes, that's for sure.

Would those factors reduce Ruth's HR totals from 714, to 300 or even 90??

Alan T

07-01-2003, 07:55 AM

That was 300 a season or 90 a season. not over a lifetime :)

oykib

07-01-2003, 08:01 AM

Would those factors reduce Ruth's HR totals from 714, to 300 or even 90??

Actually I meant single season totals. Many people say that Ruth would have hit ninety homers today. Maybe he would. But to match the his dominance of his own era he'd have to hit three hundred in a single season.

That fact means that there must be something to Ruth's dominance other than his talent.

If you want to say that Ruth was the most valuable palyer of all-time, I am going to agree with you. His number in their context were unapproachable. But we are giving him an unearned benefit if we say he was better than other greats because no one in his era thought walks were valuable and no one else was trying to hit home runs.

tucker342

07-01-2003, 08:03 AM

I think he would have hit about the same amount of homeruns... now if he would have taken better care of himself, than he would probably still have the record...

ISiddiqui

07-01-2003, 08:53 AM

There aren't enough Japanese ballplayers above the replacement level to make too much of an impact. But in thirty years if someone puts up numbers equal to Bonds's in a more integrated envorinment, then I'd have to rate said person higher.

So you are constantly setting yourself up for all the newest players the greatest. That's foolish.

Simply because there will be an influx of Japanese baseball players in the next few decades doesn't mean that Barry Zito is a greater pitcher than Walter Johnson.

You guys say that Ruth is better than Mays, Williams, or Bonds because to match what he did in his era they'd have to hit 300 homeruns. That's the same as saying that you think that Ruth if he were born in this era (with modern physical training, nutrition, and medecine) would hit 300 homeruns.

Do you believe that Shaquille O'Neal is a greater player than Wilt Chamberlain, because to match what he did back then Wilt would have to score 100 points per game, etc?

Ruth probably wouldn't hit 300 HRs a season today, but that means little. He dominated because he did something new. It'd be like some guy today hitting for average and running a lot... kinda like an Ichiro that hits .400 with no power. A lot of his domination was doing something that no was else was taught to do, and doing that thing well.

But we are giving him an unearned benefit if we say he was better than other greats because no one in his era thought walks were valuable and no one else was trying to hit home runs.

Why is it unearned? Intelligence makes someone a lesser player?

You just can't bring yourselves to openly admit that ruth's era was significantly inferior to the era that followed just two decades behind.

If it was than the stats would bear that out right? For Japanese players, pitchers were brought in first for a while. For blacks it was opposite, hitters were brought in first... pitchers didn't come for a while (except Satchel Page). If the quality was that much better, you'd expect batting averages and hitting to skyrocket in the late 50s and early 60s. It was then when black hitters came roaring into the league and were facing mostly white pitchers (who would have been in the league in Ruth's time). But this didn't happen.

oykib

07-01-2003, 10:06 AM

Ruth put up those gaudy margins because of happenstance. Players in the majors weren't sluggers. Within ten years the leagues were full of sluggers. You rate Ruth like you do because in 1920 and 1921 he was playing a game by himself. But those numbers aren't nearly as gaudy if you compare them to the best seasons by other guys within the decade.

Ruth's seasons are still better than everybody's. So it's obvious that he was the greatest of his era. I'm saying it's invalid to say the he was the greatest because he outhomered every team in the league or that he doubled the home run record.

Let's put it this way, what if only one quarterback had decided to use the forward pass for the first few years after it became legal and only after his continued success did it become SOP for the NFL? Would that make said QB the greatest in the history of the league?

Babe Ruth's raw stat totals are enough to make his claim for being the best. The level of his dominance as a reason is a flawed argument unless you think that the main part of greatness is being at the right place at the right time.

When you look at Ruth, you see the greatest player of his era. But you also see other guys in his era coming as close to him as modern players come to Barry Bonds or did to Ted Williams and Willie Mays. The only difference is that these guys take about six years to show up because of the friction involved in the philosophical change (new managers, owners, aportswriters, and fan opinions).

oykib

07-01-2003, 10:20 AM

If it was than the stats would bear that out right? For Japanese players, pitchers were brought in first for a while. For blacks it was opposite, hitters were brought in first... pitchers didn't come for a while (except Satchel Page). If the quality was that much better, you'd expect batting averages and hitting to skyrocket in the late 50s and early 60s. It was then when black hitters came roaring into the league and were facing mostly white pitchers (who would have been in the league in Ruth's time). But this didn't happen.
BTW, they didn't open the floodgates when the color line broke. The AL teams didn't let in many black ballplayers at all. Even in the NL they weren't interested in the older veteran ballplayers. They basically went after the kids and the guys who had just entered their primes.

They almost didn't touch pitchers, not because they weren't good, but because of a bias against using black pitchers who weren't thought to be as smart. It was no different than pro football turning every black quarterback into a RB, WR, or DB.

Do you believe that Shaquille O'Neal is a greater player than Wilt Chamberlain, because to match what he did back then Wilt would have to score 100 points per game, etc?
Ruth probably wouldn't hit 300 HRs a season today, but that means little. He dominated because he did something new. It'd be like some guy today hitting for average and running a lot... kinda like an Ichiro that hits .400 with no power. A lot of his domination was doing something that no was else was taught to do, and doing that thing well.

You are misreading my quote. When you say that Ruth is better than modern ballplayers, even though the modern guys have numbers in the same range, because Ruth was much further from the pack when he did it, you are making a value judgement. You are saying that is a measure of greatness. But the reason Ruth was so much further above the pack than modern guys is happenstance.

Ruth was a great hitter and he had great batting averages. But AVG was the stat of the day. He wasn't far and away the best at that. Cobb had power. But trying to slam homeruns was not considered to be a useful thing to your team. They didn't believe that it led to wins. It took about five years for them to realize that it did. By the time they did, Cobb's career was over. He was the next greatest player of Ruth's era. He could have slammed thirty homers or whatever a year. He had phenomenal slugging averages. He just didn't realize that he should be sacrificing some of his AVG to do so.

ISiddiqui

07-01-2003, 12:37 PM

Ruth put up those gaudy margins because of happenstance. Players in the majors weren't sluggers. Within ten years the leagues were full of sluggers. You rate Ruth like you do because in 1920 and 1921 he was playing a game by himself. But those numbers aren't nearly as gaudy if you compare them to the best seasons by other guys within the decade.

So you are penalizing Ruth for intelligence. He was probably taught over and over again to hit line drives or on the ground. Or maybe because he came up as a pitcher the lesson wasn't driven into his head as much. But he shrugged off that advice and hit for the fences.

We tend to value those that buck the trend and do something new and useful and lead the sport into another era. Ruth was one of those players.

They almost didn't touch pitchers, not because they weren't good, but because of a bias against using black pitchers who weren't thought to be as smart. It was no different than pro football turning every black quarterback into a RB, WR, or DB.

You mean like the bias against using Japanese hitters before Ichiro, because they were considered not good enough?

oykib

07-01-2003, 08:12 PM

So you are penalizing Ruth for intelligence. He was probably taught over and over again to hit line drives or on the ground. Or maybe because he came up as a pitcher the lesson wasn't driven into his head as much. But he shrugged off that advice and hit for the fences.
We tend to value those that buck the trend and do something new and useful and lead the sport into another era. Ruth was one of those players.

I'm not penalizing anyone. We usually compare specific seasons to rate how a guy compares to his peers. So we say Ruth was this much better than his competition in 1921. But he was playing a different game than they were. But it's more accurate to compare his 1921 season to Gehrigs 1927 season than to compare it to anything anyone did in '21.

Ruth's season is still superior. It's still, actually, clearly and significantly better. But it's less of a gap than it is from Bonds's 2001 season to Sosa's 2001.

Obviously, Ruth had a certain absolute value to his team in 1921. We can't argue that he was, by far, the most valuable player in the league. But when rating his dominance we should look at the best performances of his era, rather than the best performances of the particular season. Comparing him to the other guys after the leagues figured out that slugging was valuable gives a better read on how dominant he really was.

That is not penalizing Ruth. In analysis, we are supposed to correct for any biases that we see. The fact that Ruth was doing something that no one else in the majors was doing when he started gives the mistaken impression that he accomplished some things that no one was capable of even approaching. We know that isn't true because of the number of all-time sluggers that showed up within five years. Ruth was still the best. But we have to bridge the bias gap that the data points of 1920 and 1921 represent.

Incidentally, the same must be done for the years prior to, say, 1950. We already do it for the war years because we accept that some players were not draft eligible. But some of these guys were legitamate major leaguers and a few were HOFs. But some of the numbers they put up were greater than their actual ability because the level of competition was lower.

I don't know why people always accept that we should significantly adjust for the war years, but not for the pre-integration years at all.

ISiddiqui

07-01-2003, 08:26 PM

oykib, we aren't just looking at 1921 and saying he was dominant just because of that. You have Lou Gehrig, consensus #1 1B ever, and Babe Ruth beat him every year. Ruth was consistantly the best player in the league. Even more than Bonds has been. THAT is why we say he is dominating. Because for so many years he was the best. Not because of one year here and another year there.

oykib

07-01-2003, 08:32 PM

Ruth did it for more years. But Bonds's last two seasons have the greatest gap of any consecutive two season strestch over his competitition since Ruth over guys from his era.

I rate Bonds (2001-2002) is the best player to ever pick up a bat. But Ruth had more seasons in that range than anybody else. I still lower the impact of those seasons because of the level of competition. Right now Ruth is my #1. But Bonds is getting pretty close, and Mays and Williams come a lot closer to Ruth for me than is commonly accepted.

MrBug708

07-01-2003, 08:56 PM

Ruth probably wouldn't hit 300 HRs a season today, but that means little. He dominated because he did something new. It'd be like some guy today hitting for average and running a lot... kinda like an Ichiro that hits .400 with no power. A lot of his domination was doing something that no was else was taught to do, and doing that thing well.

How do you come up with this? Curious is all?

ISiddiqui

07-01-2003, 09:32 PM

oykib, two seasons does not a career make. You need more than that to convince me.

MrBug, just common sense.

MrBug708

07-01-2003, 09:55 PM

Common sense?

I don't follow. Are you saying the pitching he faced was a lot easier then say, that of the Padres, a team Bond's gets to face 20 times a year? What about playing in Coors field another 10 times or so a year. HE also get's to play interleague and the talent is a lot more thin nowadays

Like I said, I don't follow

oykib

07-01-2003, 10:17 PM

Originally posted by MrBug708
Common sense?

I don't follow. Are you saying the pitching he faced was a lot easier then say, that of the Padres, a team Bond's gets to face 20 times a year? What about playing in Coors field another 10 times or so a year. HE also get's to play interleague and the talent is a lot more thin nowadays

Like I said, I don't follow

There's no evidence that the talent has decreased. Yet, there's all the evidence in the world that it has increased. But people persist with this absurd notion.

There are more citizens per roster spot these days than in the past. Nutrition, Physical Training, and medecine are all better. Al the athletes in every other sport are better than in the past (Why should baseball be different?). And now anyone with the ability can become a major leaguer (it's a viable career option financially, as well as there being no more color or nationality lines).

I've never heard ANY evidence of this so called watered-down effect.

Alan T

07-02-2003, 07:33 AM

Originally posted by oykib

That is not penalizing Ruth. In analysis, we are supposed to correct for any biases that we see. The fact that Ruth was doing something that no one else in the majors was doing when he started gives the mistaken impression that he accomplished some things that no one was capable of even approaching. We know that isn't true because of the number of all-time sluggers that showed up within five years. Ruth was still the best. But we have to bridge the bias gap that the data points of 1920 and 1921 represent.

So does this mean that we have to wait till 2010 to see if Bonds actually is this great? Since Bonds has been doing something no one else has done up till now (making him a great player), we need to wait for another 6 years to measure it against others who learn from that and are able to do the same thing?

I think you made my point in your post for me. What Ruth did was great since he was so dominant, he changed the game. The fact that he brought in a new era that was significantly (and I can not overstate the word significantly enough here) different in gameplay and overall strategy, shows what an impact he placed on the game.

Like I said before, I have a strong feeling that Bonds will be just like Ted Williams, far more appreciated after he has finished playing and has retired for a few years than he was during his play.

oykib

07-02-2003, 08:31 AM

Originally posted by Alan T
So does this mean that we have to wait till 2010 to see if Bonds actually is this great? Since Bonds has been doing something no one else has done up till now (making him a great player), we need to wait for another 6 years to measure it against others who learn from that and are able to do the same thing?

I think you made my point in your post for me. What Ruth did was great since he was so dominant, he changed the game. The fact that he brought in a new era that was significantly (and I can not overstate the word significantly enough here) different in gameplay and overall strategy, shows what an impact he placed on the game.

Like I said before, I have a strong feeling that Bonds will be just like Ted Williams, far more appreciated after he has finished playing and has retired for a few years than he was during his play.

I think that it is SOP to wait a few years before determining where someone places an the all-time list.
We know that Bonds is top ten. But I'm not going to definitely say anything until a few years after he retires.

Basically, I'll wait until his HOF ceremony before making any evaluations that are set in stone.

As for Ruth changing the game, I don't give him much extra credit for that. The accomplishments should speak for themselves. His accomplishments are impressive without all these bonuses people toss in when they feel someone is challenging his standing.

1. Ruth is so great because he... and he was also the best left-handed pitcher of his day before he became an outfielder

Irrelevant-- the best position players are more valuable than the best pitchers. That's why Ruth was switched. The only change is that I'll concede that he'd have been somewhat more valuable in his first few years if he'd have had the benefit of starting out as a right fielder.

2. In the year 192X, Ruth hit more homers than any team in the league

This is another impressive-sounding stat that doesn't mean anything-- I've already gone into this quite a bit. But this stat only means something if he was the only player capable of hitting homeruns. The fact that many other players put up historic slugging seasons within a few years tells us that he was ahead of the curve but not as far above his competition as this stat seems to indicate.

3. Ruth saved baseball or Ruth revolutionized the game.

The first is a misconception. The second is true-- I give him a slight bonus because he was the first historic slugger. But greatness is something that should be able to translate to all eras. Historical quirks should not enter into our discussions that much. Somebody would have eventually been that first slugger. It didn't take a particular internal quality of Ruth's (He was a pitcher and a malcontent so no one tried to correct the sandlot uppercut in his swing).

ISiddiqui

07-02-2003, 08:42 AM

I don't follow. Are you saying the pitching he faced was a lot easier then say, that of the Padres, a team Bond's gets to face 20 times a year? What about playing in Coors field another 10 times or so a year. HE also get's to play interleague and the talent is a lot more thin nowadays

No, I'm not saying any of that. I'm saying that he did something that people didn't do. People hit for average and ran the bases, Ruth hit for power. It'd be like, in this age of power, for someone hitting .400ish and stealing 100 bases. It just isn't done today.

Ruth was the first person to hit for the fences. He changed the game by showing that it WAS a viable strategy to go for Homeruns. Before that they thought it was a bad idea.

Alan T

07-02-2003, 08:44 AM

Originally posted by oykib
I think that it is SOP to wait a few years before determining where someone places an the all-time list.
We know that Bonds is top ten. But I'm not going to definitely say anything until a few years after he retires.

Basically, I'll wait until his HOF ceremony before making any evaluations that are set in stone.

As for Ruth changing the game, I don't give him much extra credit for that. The accomplishments should speak for themselves. His accomplishments are impressive without all these bonuses people toss in when they feel someone is challenging his standing.

1. Ruth is so great because he... and he was also the best left-handed pitcher of his day before he became an outfielder

Irrelevant-- the best position players are more valuable than the best pitchers. That's why Ruth was switched. The only change is that I'll concede that he'd have been somewhat more valuable in his first few years if he'd have had the benefit of starting out as a right fielder.

2. In the year 192X, Ruth hit more homers than any team in the league

This is another impressive-sounding stat that doesn't mean anything-- I've already gone into this quite a bit. But this stat only means something if he was the only player capable of hitting homeruns. The fact that many other players put up historic slugging seasons within a few years tells us that he was ahead of the curve but not as far above his competition as this stat seems to indicate.

3. Ruth saved baseball or Ruth revolutionized the game.

The first is a misconception. The second is true-- I give him a slight bonus because he was the first historic slugger. But greatness is something that should be able to translate to all eras. Historical quirks should not enter into our discussions that much. Somebody would have eventually been that first slugger. It didn't take a particular internal quality of Ruth's (He was a pitcher and a malcontent so no one tried to correct the sandlot uppercut in his swing).

I haven't used most of t hose arguments.. so not sure if they are replies to others in this thread. I also don't put much weight into Ruth being a pitcher. Sure he looked like he could have had a real nice career as a stud Lefty pitcher. He would not have been Cy Young or Matthewason though, and would not even be talked about the way he is today as a pitcher. In his hayday as a hitter, he had stopped pitching for the most part. So it is an intriguing tidbit, but irrelevant, I agree.

2. I think that it is a relevant stat because it gives you a proportion of his dominance. We can say well Bonds hit alot of home runs or Ruth hit alot of home runs.. but that does not tell you much. Only when you compare it to others of the timeperiod does it give you insight to how much more of a slugger he was. That would be like saying Cecil Fielder was a greater hitter than Mike Schmidt even though the period Mike Schmidt hit in was one of the more offensively deflated periods of baseball.

3. I never really thought of Ruth as having saved baseball. I give more credit to Cal Ripken than to Ruth for that perhaps. Maybe thats just because I don't have enough of an insight to exactly how bad the gambling was tearing apart baseball.. Not sure there.. I do give him alot of credit for revolutionizing parts of baseball. I think any time someone does something so different that it leads to imitation that directly points to future success it is a very worthy note. And to Bonds credit, I have a feeling we will be able to point to certain things he does or has done that others will start to do as well. For example, look at how Gary Sheffield has performed this year after spending some time with Bonds to change his work out regiment. It seems to have done a nice job. Granted both Bonds and Sheffield were nice players before, allstars before.. but both are arguably among the best hitters in baseball right now.

oykib

07-02-2003, 09:30 AM

2. I think that it is a relevant stat because it gives you a proportion of his dominance. We can say well Bonds hit alot of home runs or Ruth hit alot of home runs.. but that does not tell you much. Only when you compare it to others of the timeperiod does it give you insight to how much more of a slugger he was. That would be like saying Cecil Fielder was a greater hitter than Mike Schmidt even though the period Mike Schmidt hit in was one of the more offensively deflated periods of baseball.

It's valid to compare him to his era. It's invalid to compare him to a particular year. If we compare Ruth to Jimmy Foxx, Lou Gehrig, or Rogers Hornsby we get a much better idea about his level of dominance. But most people dodn't do that. They compare 1921 Ruth to 1921 everyone else. You get a skewed idea of his ability doing that (for the reasons I've listed in this thread). The way most people talk, the idea seems to be that Ruth had more power than any team in his day. That, of course, is patently absurd.

What he did have was more power than any other player of his day. But, as I said before, the margin of Ruth's greatness is really not better than the margin of Bonds' or Ted Williams best seasons. Ruth did it for significantly longer than either of those to players, though. that's why I still rate him number one.

But if Bonds can finish this season on the pace he's been setting and give another one next year, I'll almost definitely have to rate him as the #1 of all-time.

ISiddiqui

07-02-2003, 09:44 AM

It's valid to compare him to his era. It's invalid to compare him to a particular year.

But you don't. You've consistantly talked about Bonds' last two years. Why are you comparing a particular year rather than his career? Bonds is a Top 10 player based on his career, but you seem to say he should be Top 3 simply based on his last two years.

But if Bonds can finish this season on the pace he's been setting and give another one next year, I'll almost definitely have to rate him as the #1 of all-time

So if Bonds has 4 Ruthian seasons in his career, then he's better than Ruth? :p

Alan T

07-02-2003, 10:01 AM

Originally posted by oykib

It's valid to compare him to his era. It's invalid to compare him to a particular year. If we compare Ruth to Jimmy Foxx, Lou Gehrig, or Rogers Hornsby we get a much better idea about his level of dominance. But most people dodn't do that. They compare 1921 Ruth to 1921 everyone else. You get a skewed idea of his ability doing that (for the reasons I've listed in this thread). The way most people talk, the idea seems to be that Ruth had more power than any team in his day. That, of course, is patently absurd.

What he did have was more power than any other player of his day. But, as I said before, the margin of Ruth's greatness is really not better than the margin of Bonds' or Ted Williams best seasons. Ruth did it for significantly longer than either of those to players, though. that's why I still rate him number one.

But if Bonds can finish this season on the pace he's been setting and give another one next year, I'll almost definitely have to rate him as the #1 of all-time. [/B]

You keep saying you can't just judge Ruth on his 1921 season, yet you keep only looking at Bonds 2001 and 2002 seasons. So to help the audience, here is some rough statistics over the course of a 7 year span for Ruth and some comparisons to Bonds..

These comparisons if anything only help show how great Ruth was, and also perhaps how underrated Hornsby and Gehrig were/are.

Using OPS (Not quite as good as a modified OPS, but thats a little too time intensive for me to put together over these years. So using OPS as an attempt to show player's performance):

Ruth led his league in OPS between 1918 and 1931 every single year except for an injury shortened 1925 season. He led all of baseball 9 of those times.

Bonds has led his league in OPS 7 times (1990 - 1993, 1995, 2001 and 2002). It was only 4 of those years that Bonds led all of baseball in OPS.

Bonds in his last two years has had OPS over roughly 200 points higher than the others in his age.. Ruth had a year where he was more than 300 points higher, a year where he was almost 300 points higher (1926), and if you compare Ruth's 1921 OPS to anyone anywhere between 1921 and 1929, They still come up over 100 points short.

I guess I am going to probably just drop the conversation since I have a feeling that I am not going to be able to convince you, and I just can't possibly see how you can at this point say Bonds is close to being compared to Ruth for greatness. Bonds has done it for 2 years, where Ruth did it for 13+.

Alan T

07-02-2003, 10:01 AM

Originally posted by ISiddiqui
But you don't. You've consistantly talked about Bonds' last two years. Why are you comparing a particular year rather than his career? Bonds is a Top 10 player based on his career, but you seem to say he should be Top 3 simply based on his last two years.

So if Bonds has 4 Ruthian seasons in his career, then he's better than Ruth? :p

Ok yeah.. what Isiddiqui wrote in alot less words and faster...

ISiddiqui

07-02-2003, 10:18 AM

Yeah, but you had the stats... so we made a team effort ;).

oykib

07-02-2003, 10:50 AM

I said that you can't compare Ruth's 1920 and 1921 seasons to what other people were doing in 1920 and 21. I never said that they couldn't be compared to what other players were doing on 1925 or 2002. I only said that people use the fact that he had better power numbers than half the league to imply that he was more powerful than whole teams combined. That is the false argument that I was talking about.

Bonds last three and a half seasons don't make him bettr than Ruth. The fact that he was on a pace to be in the Mickey Mantle area of the all-time list before makes him seem to be headed in the neighborhood of Ruth. If you add four of Ruth's best seasons to the career of any top twenty player you are going to get him up into the top five or so. Right now he's had two seasons that are are good as (actually better than) any two seasons of Ruth's. His current season and the 2000 season were Ruthian as well ( if not quite at Ruth's level).

I think that Bonds's Ruthian seasons count for more than Ruth's Ruthian season because of the level of competition. You're free to disagree with me about that, or about how much more they should count even if you do agree with me. I think that there is plenty of evidence that the level of competition was lower. There is no eveidence that Ruth's level of competition was higher.

Like I said, Bonds has probably not gotten there, yet. He probably won't get there without another season of his current pace and then a regular MVP-candidate season or so.

EagleFan

07-02-2003, 05:38 PM

Ruth's power numbers:
1921: 59 HR's - more than 8 teams, 35 ahead of 2nd
1922: 35 HR's - more than 1 team
1923: 41 HR's - more than 2 teams
1924: 46 HR's - more than 8 teams, 19 ahead of 2nd
1925: 25 HR's - injured that season
1926: 47 HR's - more than 9 teams, 26 ahead of 2nd
1927: 60 HR's - more than 12 teams, 13 ahead of 2nd
1928: 54 HR's - moer than 7 teams, 23 ahead of 2nd
1929: 46 HR's - more than 4 teams, 3 ahead of 2nd
1930: 49 HR's - more than 1 team
1931: 46 HR's - more than 6 teams
1932: 41 HR's - more than 2 teams
1933: 34 HR's

It wasn't until 1950 that every team in the league had more than 60 homeruns for the first time. The arguement that he wasn't so much better, just no-one wanted to do it that way doesn;t hold a bit of water. Yeah, ther ewere some players that could, but not many. If there were than it wouldn't have taken 23 years for every team in the league to be able to top his 60 homerun total in a season.

Unless everyone involved with baseball back then was so stupid that it took them 23 years to figure out that the homerun helped teams win. Such as the Yankees who boasted the only multiple homerun threats in the entire majors and see what they got for that.

Were the other 15 teams just so blind to the fact that the Yankees dominated while putting up huge homeruns nubmers at the time? Were all the other players that stupid? "Hmm, Ruth is hitting a ton of homeruns and the Yankees are winning everything. I could hit homeruns like that, but I would rather just keep hitting singles and watch the Yankees win the championships."

oykib

07-02-2003, 08:24 PM

EagleFan, you neglect to point out that in this same period of time a number of players put up big homerun years that would have nearly identical charts. It's only for the first few that Ruth was the only one. No one did it as often. But after about 1925 there was usually someone other that Ruth every year who put up big power numbers.

ISiddiqui

07-02-2003, 08:31 PM

Oykib, did you not read Eaglefan's post? Someone else did put up power numbers, but it wasn't that many people. It wasn't like suddenly everyone was jacking HRs right after Ruth's lessons sunk in. If they had, as you were insinuating, then every team would hit at least 60 HRs.

oykib

07-03-2003, 07:47 AM

Originally posted by ISiddiqui
Oykib, did you not read Eaglefan's post? Someone else did put up power numbers, but it wasn't that many people. It wasn't like suddenly everyone was jacking HRs right after Ruth's lessons sunk in. If they had, as you were insinuating, then every team would hit at least 60 HRs.

No they wouldn't. The other sluggers slowly sprinkled through both leagues. They didn't realize right away that slugging led to winning. So it took the better part of the decade for every team to try and get one.

So you had a few teams that had sluggers in the late 20s and then a few more in the early thirties. But the established major leaguers weren't changing. Most of the new sluggers were new players entirely. It took them a few years to hit their stride.

I still say that you give Ruth too much credit for being the only one. He wasn't the only one in his era. He was just ahead of the curve by half a decade. Let the numbers speak for themselves.

Because of his particular circumstances, Ruth has a bias in his numbers that none of the other all-time great s has except for Hornsby ( although its less of a factor for Hornsby because he wasn't the player Ruth was.

Just rest on the fact that Ruth's string of seasons in the 20s were so good that no one has even come close to them except for Williams and Bonds. Williams and Bonds seasons are more impressive because of the competition level. But neither of them has nearly as many of them. Tack on two more to Barry Bonds, though, and we have to start talking about him being number one rather than Ruth.

Alan T

07-03-2003, 08:14 AM

Not sure what else I can show now that I have used factual stats, reason and common sense to show why Bonds after two great seasons is not the greatest player in history :) I guess thats the fun thing.. you will always run into those who think a Barry Bonds or a Hank Aaron or a Reggie Jackson or whoever is the best ever. Everyone is entitled to their opinions. :)

I don't see it the way you do obviously oykib, but thats fine :)

oykib

07-03-2003, 08:37 AM

Originally posted by Alan T
Not sure what else I can show now that I have used factual stats, reason and common sense to show why Bonds after two great seasons is not the greatest player in history :) I guess thats the fun thing.. you will always run into those who think a Barry Bonds or a Hank Aaron or a Reggie Jackson or whoever is the best ever. Everyone is entitled to their opinions. :)

I don't see it the way you do obviously oykib, but thats fine :)

I don't know what you guys are reading ( although it's obviously not my posts ).

Originally, I said that Bonds was a top five player already. Then I said that the gap between the other Top Players (namely Willie Mays and Ted Williams) and Ruth are not as big as most people think. I then illustrated my point.

I never said that Bonds is already better than Ruth. I said that his last two seasons are the best two consecutive seasons that any player has put up since they started playing a brand of baseball that we'd recognize (post-1900).

My point was that if he can tack on a another two or so seasons at his current level I'll seriously have to consider making him the number one rather than Ruth. I've repeated many times that I think that Ruth desrves the number one spot on the list now.

KWhit

07-03-2003, 08:42 AM

Originally posted by oykib
I said that you can't compare Ruth's 1920 and 1921 seasons to what other people were doing in 1920 and 21. I never said that they couldn't be compared to what other players were doing on 1925 or 2002.

Are you really saying that it is valid to compare Ruth's numbers from 1921 to numbers from 2002? Oh that's just a difference of 81 years!! And yet you claim that it's not valid to compare his 1921 numbers to other players' numbers from THE SAME YEAR! Huh?

Because it was just Ruth's great idea to try to hit homeruns. Your contention is that if other players would have just thought slugging was a good idea, everyone would be hitting 60 HRs.

Umm... I don't get it.

KWhit

07-03-2003, 08:50 AM

Originally posted by oykib
I don't know what you guys are reading ( although it's obviously not my posts ).

Originally, I said that Bonds was a top five player already. Then I said that the gap between the other Top Players (namely Willie Mays and Ted Williams) and Ruth are not as big as most people think. I then illustrated my point.

I never said that Bonds is already better than Ruth. I said that his last two seasons are the best two consecutive seasons that any player has put up since they started playing a brand of baseball that we'd recognize (post-1900).

My point was that if he can tack on a another two or so seasons at his current level I'll seriously have to consider making him the number one rather than Ruth. I've repeated many times that I think that Ruth desrves the number one spot on the list now.

I see what you're saying, but you're not giving enough weight to the fact that Ruth TOTALLY changed the game. Your assertation that "If Ruth wasn't the first slugger, somebody else would've been" does him a disservice.

oykib

07-03-2003, 09:08 AM

Originally posted by KWhit
Are you really saying that it is valid to compare Ruth's numbers from 1921 to numbers from 2002? Oh that's just a difference of 81 years!! And yet you claim that it's not valid to compare his 1921 numbers to other players' numbers from THE SAME YEAR! Huh?

Because it was just Ruth's great idea to try to hit homeruns. Your contention is that if other players would have just thought slugging was a good idea, everyone would be hitting 60 HRs.

Umm... I don't get it.

No, I said that it would be more accurate to compare Ruth's 1921 season with Gerhig's 1927 than to compare it to anything anyone else was doing in '21. We are still comparing him to players from his era if we compare his best season to Jimmie Foxx or Gehrig's best seasons. Ruth still comes out on top. HE comes out on top by a wide margin. But that margin is much more realistic.

If we compare Ruth to the league in 1921, at least as far as his power numbers, we have to come to the conclusion that if he played today he'd hit 243 homeruns in single season. That's absurd. We have to correct for that. Maybe he'd hit ninety homers. I don't know. But we all know that he wouldn't hit in the mid 200s.

In 1932, at the age of 24, Jimmie Foxx had a stat line of .364/.469/.749. He hit 58 home runs and drove in 169 runs. Foxx also scored 151 runs himself. That's an all-time season.

Ruth had three seasons better than that. Those three seasons were significantly and noticeably better. Ruth also had a number of seasons that were as good as that. Ruth was obviously much better than Foxx. But when you compare him to Foxx who, though he was ten years younger, was contemporary, you get a much more realistic ( athough still amazing ) impression of his ability compared to the best players of his day.

I suppose it gets down to how you want to define greatness. I want it to encompass the athletes all-around ability on the playing field. I give more weight to skills that transcend the players era ( although I don't discount skills that were considered to be more valuable in previous eras ). Ruth has both of those qualities to a greater extent than anyone else we can document.

But the gap that you get for his early 1920s seasons when you compare them to the other early 20s players has a ridiculously biasing effect on his evaluation. It's not even a bias that he needs to be the best player ever. That bias is only useful if you're trying to make the argument that Ruth was from a totally different planet.

Alan T

07-03-2003, 09:27 AM

If you look at skills and athletic ability and such, you will always give an unfair bias to the modern generations. As time goes on, the players learn more and more about nutrition, physical fitness, weight training, etc. As well as learning more and more about the game of baseball, and what are more important skills to have in the game. (see how today people weight batting average far less important than they used to compared to other statistics.)

The players of today on average are better fielders, better batters and better pitchers than the players on average of yesteryear. They have the better training programs, have better equipment (in the way of bats, gloves and full body armor at the plate), and they have modern medicine helping them become overall stronger players as well as coming back from injury quicker and stronger than ever.

So anytime you look at a player's "skills or abilities" then today's players will always win. That minimizes the accomplishments from the past that have made the game great.

oykib

07-03-2003, 08:17 PM

I am not comparing his 40 times or how much he could bench to modern guys. But is is fair to say that Bonds plays against 90-some-odd percent of the best players of his day ( and they are all playing the same game ), while Ruth played against half or less of that percentage.

We know that there were a significant number of all-time players that were not playing in the Majors. The absence of those guys is another factor that makes Ruth look like a superman, rather than just the best player in history. I think that it is somewhat the same story for Cobb and Wagner.

ISiddiqui

07-03-2003, 08:23 PM

No they wouldn't. The other sluggers slowly sprinkled through both leagues. They didn't realize right away that slugging led to winning. So it took the better part of the decade for every team to try and get one.

THIRTY Years? They couldn't figure it out in a 3rd of a century?! Come on!

I am not comparing his 40 times or how much he could bench to modern guys. But is is fair to say that Bonds plays against 90-some-odd percent of the best players of his day ( and they are all playing the same game ), while Ruth played against half or less of that percentage.

I disagree. I think Ruth played against at least 60-70% of the best players of his day. You have YET to show me that a significant number of the Negro League players or Latin baseball players or Asian baseball players would be among the 'best players of his day'. Since you made the positive assertion, I want some proof of that statement. And no, pointing to the number of minorities in the 60s isn't proof. I want to see how many minorities would be good enough to be starters in the majors in the 1920s. Thinking about the talent in the Negro leagues back then and the Latin leagues, I seriously doubt the number would be above 30% of the league as it was.

You can't just say he didn't play against this group, that group, and that group so his achievements aren't as good as this other guy. Because you have no proof to indicate that those groups would have made a great impact on the game at that time. The sport wasn't that popular yet in Latin and Asian countries, and the Negro leagues were filled with hack teams like major league baseball was in the 1870s (and hardly anyone would say that those players would have made a dent in 1920s baseball), with only a few 'star' teams.

The game has to be popular for a while with a group of potential players before you have many good players coming from that group. The fact is that the US at the time wasn't that amenable to blacks or latinos playing baseball. They had to play by themselves, but the restrictions naturally led to less playing by those groups. While whites could play in the open and were encouraged to at times, blacks had to play away from whites (if they had any leisure time at all... because they had to work harder to make anything close to what a white man was earning) and thus few of them did play. The game of baseball was considered, by many, to be a white man's game. Sure you had your stars, but the average player wasn't as good as the white player at the time, and wouldn't be for a few decades yet.

Basically, the inherant racism in America retarded the development of many potential black baseball players. Only when it was more accepted did the average black player reach the quality of the average major league player.

oykib

07-03-2003, 08:59 PM

THIRTY Years? They couldn't figure it out in a 3rd of a century?! Come on!

Where do you get thirty years from? By the mid-30s there had already been a bunch of non-Ruth seasons that were historic as far as power and run production.

As to your point about the excluded players. The only one that we have even a modicum of evidence from is the Negro Leagues. From Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, in its death throes the Negro Leagues produced five all-time greats ( Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Ernie Banks). Of those five players, four were on the All-Century team. Those were five up-and-comers in the Negro Leagues. None of those players were stars. Unless you think that the Negro Leagues magically started minting All-Time greats, there had to be a comparable amount of stars in the Negro Leagues ( comparing to the majors ).

We also know that the AL and NL teams were not interested in established veteran Negro Leaguers. They only chased the young talent. By the accounts of the baseball people who say him play, Oscar Charleston had to have been Willie Mays ( at least ). Don't you think that the Willie Mays of his day would have had some impact on the leaderboard of his league?

We are not even mentioning the guys who played out west or Mexico or Cuba.

ISiddiqui

07-03-2003, 09:08 PM

Where do you get thirty years from?

It wasn't until 1950 that every team in the league had more than 60 homeruns for the first time.

Those were five up-and-comers in the Negro Leagues. None of those players were stars.

How can they be up-and-comers and stars at the same time? There aren't many of those around. If the Negro Leagues HAD stuck around, I'd bet you that all five would have been huge stars in that league.

Unless you think that the Negro Leagues magically started minting All-Time greats, there had to be a comparable amount of stars in the Negro Leagues

Bull! Like I said, they all would have been stars in the Negro Leagues. Also, by that time (the 1950s), black baseball had been an accepted sport for at least a couple generations. This results in better coaching and more opportunities for the '50s kids, and that potential actually gets realized. More and more black kids start playing the game and it catches on.

By the accounts of the baseball people who say him play, Oscar Charleston had to have been Willie Mays ( at least ). Don't you think that the Willie Mays of his day would have had some impact on the leaderboard of his league?

LOL, sure, but not as much as you are thinking, at all! Had to have been Willie Mays at least... hehe. He'd be going into a league with much better up and down talent and betting coaching. Why would he have to be Willie Mays, at least? He would have been good, Hank Aaron good, but I'm not sure he would have been Willie Mays good.

oykib

07-03-2003, 09:49 PM

How can they be up-and-comers and stars at the same time? There aren't many of those around. If the Negro Leagues HAD stuck around, I'd bet you that all five would have been huge stars in that league.

They were talented young players. But they were not established stars. There were established stars in the league, though. Those stars would have had the same impact on the majors as they did in the Negro Leagues.

Bull! Like I said, they all would have been stars in the Negro Leagues. Also, by that time (the 1950s), black baseball had been an accepted sport for at least a couple generations. This results in better coaching and more opportunities for the '50s kids, and that potential actually gets realized. More and more black kids start playing the game and it catches on.

Baseball was pretty much always just as popular to blacks in America as whites. In the 1800s there were even a few black major leaguers. To imply that there it took until the 50s for black baseball to develop is absurd.

LOL, sure, but not as much as you are thinking, at all! Had to have been Willie Mays at least... hehe. He'd be going into a league with much better up and down talent and betting coaching. Why would he have to be Willie Mays, at least? He would have been good, Hank Aaron good, but I'm not sure he would have been Willie Mays good.

First of all, why do you assume that the coaching in the Negro Leagues was not as good as in the white majors. It's been documented that the scouting was better. It seems to me that indicates that the brain trusts in the Negro leagues were at least as effective as the ones in the majors.

Second, I'm not the one who compares Charleston to Willie Mays. I don't know him from Adam. John Mcgraw said he was the greatest player that Mcgraw'd ever seen. Plenty of the Negro league experts rate him as the best player that the leagues ever produced. Those same leagues produced Mays. So it's not a strestch to say Charleston=Mays.

It wasn't until 1950 that every team in the league had more than 60 homeruns for the first time.

That's not really an important stat. The problem with the early 20s stats is that no one but Ruth was doing it. Once you get a few sluggers in the league Ruth's numbers are reasonable. He is still above the pack, but not really more so than Williams or Bonds are in their best seasons.

ISiddiqui

07-03-2003, 10:25 PM

They were talented young players. But they were not established stars. There were established stars in the league, though. Those stars would have had the same impact on the majors as they did in the Negro Leagues.

Like who? Who are all these stars that no one has heard about? Charleston and Gibson had been out of the league for years!

Baseball was pretty much always just as popular to blacks in America as whites. In the 1800s there were even a few black major leaguers. To imply that there it took until the 50s for black baseball to develop is absurd.

Black Major Leagues? Really? Seeing as how the Negro Leagues weren't a 'major league', I'd be interested in seeing which leagues these were.

And yes, I'm implying that it took until the 50s for black baseball to really mature. Seeing as the Negro Leagues season was only 40-60 games long and then the teams played up to 150 semi-professional games, a majority of the time they didn't even play the best players of their own race! How is a league going to mature that way? Obviously the National League in the late 1800s didn't really mature. It wasn't until the turn of the century, when you could have refered to the Major Leagues as somewhat mature. So yeah, I think in an unorganized Negro League, with teams folding like crazy, and wacky schedules, and mostly playing against inferior talent leads to a retardation of the maturation of skill. You learn and hone your talent by playing the best.

First of all, why do you assume that the coaching in the Negro Leagues was not as good as in the white majors. It's been documented that the scouting was better.

You do realize that coaching and scouting are two different things right? Recognizing raw talent isn't as difficult as coaching it to become good. Why do you think many coaches are former players? Because they know the game better than those outside the game. Why was the coaching not as good? Because most of the coaches did not have good experience in playing the game. There were less oppertunities for blacks to play professional baseball, where they would have learned the game the best way. There were hardly any professional leagues for blacks until the 1910s. Therefore it would take at least a generation for good coaches to develop (just like in the 1800s and for good portions of the '00s , white major league coaches were horrible).

John Mcgraw said he was the greatest player that Mcgraw'd ever seen. Plenty of the Negro league experts rate him as the best player that the leagues ever produced. Those same leagues produced Mays. So it's not a strestch to say Charleston=Mays.

Firstly, I think they are wrong in saying Charleston is the best player the Negro Leagues ever produced. Measuring the stats from a disorganized league is extremely difficult, and since many people said he was good back then, of course more people will continue to say it in the future.

And I know McGraw said that, but I don't think John McGraw is the be all, end all of player evaluation. He made a number of dodgy moves with the Giants.

Furthermore, Charleston would be going into a league that had better overall talent than his own. I think his numbers would have been lower. He wouldn't have been as good as Mays.

That's not really an important stat.

Of cours it is! It totally blows your proposition that after Ruth hit his HRs, everyone saw it and changed to do it the same way. There were a few power hitters, but it wasn't like everyone became a slugger overnight because they suddenly realized it was good to do so.

The problem with the early 20s stats is that no one but Ruth was doing it.

It took THIRTY years for every team to have 60 HRs in a season. That's 7.5 HRs (60/8) per hitting position in the lineup. If teams saw now that slugging was the way to go, why did it take so long for the last team to get an average of 7.5 HRs per player on their team? Were they just not seeing it?

oykib

07-04-2003, 08:35 AM

First of all, there were black major leaguers in the white major leagues. You can look up Moses Fleetwood Walker if you want to read about the last one and the institution of the color line.

The Negro league season actually had many more games than the AL and NL schedule. The Negro Leagues were seriously into barnstorming. That's how they devoloped their much more effective scouting season. They had to play everywhere to make money because they didn't have 'legitimacy' and had to generate revenue how they could. Wherever they went they'd pick up the best players and the players would move up the chain to the premier teams based on ability.

THey were doing this as early as the late 1900s. So they had a 'farm system' set up about fifty years before the majors did.

To imply that they weren't developing talent is absurd. There were plenty of guys. The fact that you don't know any names just means that you are ignorant. If you wanted to do a little research then you'd find out about some of them. I'm not much of a student about that either. But I know enough to know that there was nothing wrong with the talent.

Of you are going to make the statement that the best players in the Negro Leagues would not have had an impact until the 50s because they didn't know how to play baseball well enough until then, there is no point continuing the discussion.

In the first place, it's a ludicrous contention that the stars of the Negro Leagues either were not talented or skilled enough to mak an impact, but that in a seven year stretch as the leagues were dying they produced five all-time greats.

Also, how do you account for the fact that it is documented that they played just as well as the white all-stars that they played in the All-Star games that they played between them. Most of those accounts have them playing even with them.

Earlier in the thread you also made the statement that the stars of the league like Gibson and Paige were good, but that the average player was not as good as the average major leaguer. Where do you get this info from?

It very much seems that you want to denigrate the abilities of these players. Just because we don't have a 154 game per season stat line that's endorsed by Elias doesn't mean there is no evidence of their ability. We have plenty of evidence. The track record of Negro Leaguers in the majors once the color line was broken is outstanding. We have documentaion of how they did in All-Star games against major leaguers. We have accounts of knowledgeable baseball men that attest to their ability. It seems to me that you are justifying your conclusion that the Negro League players weren't as good by the conclusion itself.

You say coaching wasn't as good: show me an article that says Jackie Robinson couldn't turn a double play before Branch Rickey got a hold of him.

You say that the average player wasn't as good, even though we know that the best players in the Negro Leagues were as good as the best players in the Majors): Show me a quote, a single quote, from a knowledgeable person from that time period who made that assessment.

Honestly your position in this is asinine.

Of cours it is! It totally blows your proposition that after Ruth hit his HRs, everyone saw it and changed to do it the same way. There were a few power hitters, but it wasn't like everyone became a slugger overnight because they suddenly realized it was good to do so.

You didn't explain how you defeated my argument. I said that Ruth was playing a different game than everyone else. He was. If you look at the early twenties you have only one other great that was trying to hit homers, Rogers Hornsby. Hornsby hit his prime as Ruth hit his. He's the only all-time slugger with basically the same age range as Ruth. But Hornsby was in the NL and was more of an average hitter than he was a slugger.

I said that if you compare Ruth's early twenties seasons to what other sluggers', who came along five years later, seasons from the late 20s and early thirties, that they are still great. But the margin of that greatness is more in line with what the other top ten players or so have been able to accomplish in their best seasons.

This is reasonable if you want to read the numbers for what they mean rather than engage in hero worship. Ruth still owns four to six of the best ten offensive seasons of all time if you do that. His raw numbers from the '20 and '21 seasons don't change. We just compare him to people from his era who were playing the same game as him. His '21 season is better than Jimmie Foxx's '32 season. But it's only as much better than Barry Bonds's 2002 season is to Mark McGwire's 1998 season.

I don't see how that's an absurd stretch. We do compare Bonds to McGwire. We do compare Mantle's best seasons to Mays's best. Those seasons aren't always in the same year. We usually couple that with comparing the player's accomplishments to the league-season context. But that is useless with Ruth. Rather, we should compare it to the average for the seasons later in his career. You're still taking his accomplishments at his best. But you are using a league context that would give them perspective.

It took THIRTY years for every team to have 60 HRs in a season. That's 7.5 HRs (60/8) per hitting position in the lineup. If teams saw now that slugging was the way to go, why did it take so long for the last team to get an average of 7.5 HRs per player on their team? Were they just not seeing it?

Ruth's early seasons are without proper context not because some team was below his home run total. They are without proper context because every team was below.

To put it more simply, Jimmie Foxx hit 58 homers in '32. He led the league and had an all-time season doing it. No one would suggest that he was a demigod, though. This is because there were others hitting homers that season. He still had the best season of anyone, by a fair amount, in '32. I'd guess that the stat you used for Ruth's 60 would work just aswell for Foxx's 58. But his league context was normal and so no one would suggest that he did something only Hercules should be able to accomplish.

ISiddiqui

07-04-2003, 12:04 PM

Jesus, could you have failed reading more in grammer school?

There were plenty of guys. The fact that you don't know any names just means that you are ignorant. If you wanted to do a little research then you'd find out about some of them.

I know about plenty of Negro League players. I have done the research, this is why I'm making these assertions :p.

They had to play everywhere to make money because they didn't have 'legitimacy' and had to generate revenue how they could. Wherever they went they'd pick up the best players and the players would move up the chain to the premier teams based on ability.

So you had a few elite teams which horded all the talent, while the rest languished? Isn't this exactly what I've been saying? The stars were just as good as major league stars, but the average player wasn't as good as his counterpart? Why? Because the average player played on worse semi-pro teams whose stars were raided. They ended up playing mostly against worse competition. The elite teams would come in for one series but most of the time they played against other teams which did not have talent.

Why do you think I say that the Negro Leagues were not good at developing talent. They took the stars, they didn't develop them really. While the average player languished.

It took decades (until the 30s and 40s) for the Negro Leagues to get more organized and allow the average player to join with the big boys and play the best teams for a majority of the season. Before that it was like the Globetrotters.

So they had a 'farm system' set up about fifty years before the majors did.

To imply it was the same as the Major's farm league is disengenous at best. It was a very crude system. They owned one, maybe two, teams, and they didn't have complete control over it. It was more like a 'we have first dibs' type of system.

Of you are going to make the statement that the best players in the Negro Leagues would not have had an impact until the 50s because they didn't know how to play baseball well enough until then, there is no point continuing the discussion.

There's the whole reading thing again. I know a pretty good grammer school close to here, I'm sure they'd let you in :p.

You say coaching wasn't as good: show me an article that says Jackie Robinson couldn't turn a double play before Branch Rickey got a hold of him.

Wasn't Robinson playing in the hmm... late 40s and 50s? That reading thing again.

Earlier in the thread you also made the statement that the stars of the league like Gibson and Paige were good, but that the average player was not as good as the average major leaguer. Where do you get this info from?

I just told you. HOWEVER, you made the positive assertion that the average player was just as good as the average MLB player. Therefore you need to show me proof of that. You've said that the stars were as good as MLB stars. That isn't contended. However, you cannot trickle down that 'proof'. First the leagues were vastly different. The Majors were well organized and complete, resulting in the average player playing against the stars day in and day out. The Negro Leagues were horribly organized and incomplete, the average player usually played against the average player and only played the stars a few times a year (like a minor league team playing its parent 2 series a year).

You say that the average player wasn't as good, even though we know that the best players in the Negro Leagues were as good as the best players in the Majors

So average players = best players?

Show me a quote, a single quote, from a knowledgeable person from that time period who made that assessment.

Why would any MLB manager have seen an average Negro league team? All they played against are All-Star teams, which were just as good as MLB's All-Star teams... that has no bearing on the average player, however.

I said that Ruth was playing a different game than everyone else.

And you STILL fault him for it! Jeez, the guy changes the entire game, and you diminish that. Throwing it away, saying 'no one else was doing it'. Well, duh! They did it because of Ruth!

Rather, we should compare it to the average for the seasons later in his career.

That reading thing is gonna be the death of you. Eaglefan didn't compare Ruth to just his '21 season. If you look... you can see '21 all the way to the 30s. We have compared it to the average for the seasons later in his career, and he still comes out way on top!

Jimmie Foxx hit 58 homers in '32. He led the league and had an all-time season doing it. No one would suggest that he was a demigod, though.

No one is suggesting Ruth is a demigod. All we are suggesting is that he was the greatest player of all time, and Bonds isn't that close yet.

There is no need for you to exaggerate your opponents' position because you cannot argue with what they really said.

Btw, FYI, I consider Jimmie Foxx the best 1B of all time... and he's in my top 10 all time as well.

oykib

07-04-2003, 07:51 PM

I don't know what the point of discussing this with you is. There is nothing in my posts about a few teams hording all the talent. The top teams tended to have the most good players just like the majors.

The system was no different from what developed in the majors. You just had the farm teams fifty yearsd earlier than the majors thought them up.

By the way, when you use the fact that Ruth hit more homers than the any team in the league as a stat to support his greatness, you are saying that it was his ability that made him able to do it. Otherwise, that's a useless stat.

There were guys in his generation that were able to do that. It's only circumstance that allowed him to dominate to that extent. Had Jimmie FOxx been two years younger, rather than ten years, we might have seen something more reasonable.

You are the one that doesn't read his opponents points. I said that Ruth was number one. But that a variety of things that are unique to his situation as well as the differences in the level of competition inflate his statistics.

Of you want to argue that the facts that Ruth played in a non-integrated league, that the majors didn't effectivesly recruit the best talent, and that the game was going through its most profound physical and philosophical changes didn't affect Ruth's numbers I have nothing more to say to you.

You repeatedly say that the Negro Leagues and its players were inferior. To make this assertion you've used no evidence. When I asked you for a quote about what you said about the average players being not as good even though the greats were you say that there is no reason for a major league mind to have ever watched an average player. That's the height of evasion. There is just no evidence of your contention. Why not just admit that it is only your own opinion.

As far as the great players go, we were not only talking about John McGraw and Oscar Charleston. There were many quotes by the players of the day about Gibson, Charleston, Cool Papa Bell and a variety of other players. But the scholars tend to say Charleston was the best. Earlier it was believed that Gibson was better (probably having more to do with the valuation of catchers as compared to outfielders in the fifties and sixties than actual ability).

The only piece of 'evidence' that you have put up in your entire string of posts is that the best players tended to be collected on superteams. How is that different than the majors. The last time I checked half of the Ruth Yankee's starting lineup wa in the Hall of Fame with Connie Mack's entire infield. It seems like it got that way becaise Ed Barrow bouught all the talent from the Red Sox and Connie Mack (like John Mcgraw) had a fairly organized system of scouting the counrty for talent that was like the Negro leagues system.

By your own argument you are saying that more competetive balance equals better talent in a league. It's easy to calculate the index of competetive balance. Competetive balance went up in every single decade of baseball's existence until the last one. Your own nonsense argument would seem to support my contention that we should rate the same feats by more modern players as more impressive than those feats by earlier players (since it was more easy to dominate in the past).

You say that the Negro league system was flawed and that the average player wasn't as good because the stars played the stars and the average players only played mediocre competition. Show me the evidence. It's you who is making a state ment that goes against the facts in hand. We know that once the color lin was broken the best young talents of the Negro Leagues were best players in the Majors. That leads to the conclusion that the talent was as good.

There is no evidence that the average players were not as good as average major leguers. Yet there is all the evidence in the world that the talent level was just as good. Whay don't you admit that you just want to see Ruth kept on his pedestal? You are making all these wild claims with no support. Every cliam I've made is backed up with evidence that either clearly states it or evidence from which we can easily infer the conclusion I'm making.

I'm open to debate. But when I challenge you to provide evidence I get:

1) Why would a major league manager ever watch an average player (i.e. ther is no evidence of your claim)

2) The leagues and competition were inferior so Oscar Charleston wouldn't have been as good as McGraw and other Hall of Fame baseball minds said he'd be( also without a shred of evidence, although we know for a fact that the best Negro League talent when allowed to play were among the best players in Major League history)

I could go on and on...

But let me leave you with this...

I didn't challenge your intelligence. I challenged the intelligence of your argument (which is what people do in a civilized debate). But...

[i]by ISiddiqui
There's the whole reading thing again. I know a pretty good grammer school close to here, I'm sure they'd let you in :).

Maybe you can ask one of the teachers to show you how to spell grammar:p.

Daimyo

07-04-2003, 09:57 PM

Ruth was pretty good, but he's no Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi. Talk about changing your sport!

ISiddiqui

07-04-2003, 10:39 PM

You repeatedly say that the Negro Leagues and its players were inferior. To make this assertion you've used no evidence.

Says the KING of no evidence. What is your evidence that the average Negro League player of the '20s was as good as the average major league player:

1) The stars of the '20s were just as good.

2) The up-and-coming stars during integration were good in the majors.

Talk about evasive. I never asked about stars, yet that's all you have to say.

Did black players gain a majority of players in the late 1950s and 1960s? No, why not? Could it be because the average player just wasn't as good as major league talent, but the stars probably were.

Your 'evidence' is as good as mine. Why was Oscar Charleston as good as Willie Mays would be? Because John McGraw said so. Therefore it MUST be true! Hogwash!

It is FACT that Negro league teams played only 30-40 games in 'league' play (which means about 4-6 teams, basically) and 150 against semi-pro teams (this fact is on the Negro Leagues webpage). It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out these semi-pro teams probably didn't have the talent of the pro teams. Semi-pro teams usually don't. Furthermore, Negro League teams only had 14 men on the team (compared to 25 in MLB). Less players in the pros!

So I ask for your evidence that Ruth played against less than 50% of the baseball talent. You say the stars of the pro teams were just as good. If the stars of Negro League Baseball were integrated that might be about 20% of MLB. What about the average black player? If most of them were in semi-pro ball, it stands to reason they weren't as good as the regular MLB ball players, who devoting all of their time during the season to baseball.

Even TODAY:

A study by Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society found last year that 17 percent of major league baseball players are black. (For a brief time last season, one team, the Philadelphia Phillies, had no black players.) By comparison, black players make up 67 percent of National Football League rosters and 80 percent of National Basketball Association teams.

http://www.utexas.edu/students/jackie/robinson/ebbets.html

17%? It probably was less in the 1960s. Even so, if we assume there was integration and the number of blacks was 17% in the 1920s, wouldn't that mean that Ruth played MUCH more than 50% of the talent out there at the time?

I didn't challenge your intelligence. I challenged the intelligence of your argument

Because calling someone else ignorant is challenging his argument? BULL!

Come back with some evidence and I MAY take you seriously. But if you keep coming back with this 'stars were just as good' BS, then don't bother.

oykib

07-05-2003, 06:58 AM

I saisd that you were ignorant of the players in the Negro Leagues. You are. I also said that I was ignorant. Are you going to tell me that you are a scholar of Negro Laegue baseball?

I didn't call to question your literacy. Cute comments like that are the refuge of people who have weak arguments.

Second, any reasonable person would admit that integration wasn't total as soon as the color line was broken. The Al stayed largely sgregated until the 60s. Even in the NL, teams were not nearly as likely to give a black player a chance. It's a logical conclusion that if a sizeable contingent of the leagues' personell was racist that even a non-bigoted front office person wouldn't want to deal with the headache of a player unless he thought the player was worth the trouble (i.e. clearly better than average).

I don't see how your assertion that the average player wasn't as good makes any sense at all. So you've got all these superstars and all these scrubs. But there's no one in-between.

As to comparing the population to the poulation of professional athletes, you just have to turn on your TV to see that some groups are vastly over-represented in certain sports. That was true for baseball up until the late 80s with African Americans. By the mid 80s blacks were over 50% of the major league players. There's been a cultural shift and a change of scouting investments that's moved that over to Latin Americans.

You are falling prey to interpreting facts though a filtered lens. What we consider semi-pro or minor leagues today were much closer to the majors back then. The PCL had a better level of competition than the Union Association (which is considered a major league). Lefty Grove was languishing on a 'minor' league team for years until the economic situation of his owner forced his sale to the A's. There are plenty of other white ballplayers that were good enough to be major leaguers that for a variety of factors did not get a chance to play. You couple that with the way the Negro league players were excluded and I'd say that he faced half or less of the best talent in the world.

If you want to believe that he faced all or nearly all of the best talent the way that players form the 50s and 60s on have, go on ahead. I think that is an unreasonable position to have when we look at the impact of western players and Negro League ballplayers.

Here's evidence for you. It's a simple group of stats. These are the stats whose all-time leaders either wouldn't have possibly been able to play or likely wouldn't have been able to play had they been born back when Ruth was.

Home Runs (black)
Runs (black)
Runs Batted In (black)
Stolen Bases (black)
Strikeouts (from far west of the Mississippi)
Walks (black)

How about single season record holders?

Home Runs (black)
Stolen Bases (black)
Strikeouts (far west of the Mississippi)
Longest Hitting Streak (far west of the Mississippi)
Slugging Percentage (black)
On-Base Percentage (black)
Walks (Black)

I'm sure there are others that I'm leaving out. But these players who were either excluded or virtually excluded in Ruth's day have a big chunk of the records that we think are important. My assertion, though, was not that these excluded players would have surpassed Ruth. My assertion is that they'd have raised the average level of play to the point that Ruth's accomplishments would look mortal (though still impressive). My claim is that a few of them might have beat Ruth out for a home run title or two, or otherwise lowered his black and grey ink numbers to the point where he'd more closely resemble the other paragons of the sport.

The only defense you have for your argument is that we don't have documented evidence were great before they were allowed into the majors. To continue to assert your point you have to say that the precursors of Barry Bonds, Rickey Henderson, and Willie Mays were not as good as they were. You have to say that Baseball in Texas and California took a quantum leap when Nolan Ryan and Joe Dimaggio started playing.

I believe that Occam's Razor says that great Negro League players did great in the Majors because the level of competition was comparable. My assertion is the one that needs no evidence, though I've found some to refute your contentions. It's the simplest explanation that is most likely.

oykib

07-05-2003, 07:02 AM

Originally posted by Daimyo
Ruth was pretty good, but he's no Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi. Talk about changing your sport!

You guys and your f%$@&*! JBL.

:D

By the way, in Japan it's called NPB-- Nippon Professional Baseball.

Daimyo

07-05-2003, 10:11 AM

I was talking about the guy who can eat 50.5 hotdogs in 12 minutes. :)

oykib

07-05-2003, 12:01 PM

Oh, sorry, Daimyo. I thought you were down with Marmel and them that play in that OOTP online league. Crazy.

ISiddiqui

07-05-2003, 01:07 PM

My assertion is that they'd have raised the average level of play to the point that Ruth's accomplishments would look mortal (though still impressive). My claim is that a few of them might have beat Ruth out for a home run title or two, or otherwise lowered his black and grey ink numbers to the point where he'd more closely resemble the other paragons of the sport.

Why would they have? After all most of Ruth's records did not fall until the power happy '90s, and EVEN THEN Ruth has amazing numbers. Are you telling me that 17% of the players would have changed the game that much? I simply don't believe it.

Bill James, who knows more than the Negro Leagues than both of us combined, has only 12 Negro League players in his Top 100 players of all time. I don't think the Negro League players would have had the impact that you think they would.

The PCL had a better level of competition than the Union Association (which is considered a major league).

Wrongly. The UA was not a major league and shouldn't be considered one.

I don't see how your assertion that the average player wasn't as good makes any sense at all. So you've got all these superstars and all these scrubs. But there's no one in-between.

Why does that make no sense? That was EXACTLY how the majors from 1876-1890 were! You had some great superstars and a bunch of scrubs. This was due to the nature of the game with so many semi-pro and minor league caliber teams and not many professional teams.

Stars have a natural talent and will be able to succeed because of that talent. Average players can't go forth only only on talent. They have to work on it and learn the game better than others. This works the best when you are playing against the best and most talented every day. You learn more and work harder to keep up.

Why do you think some phenom kids play against older competition? Even though they are a star and will be able to succeed based on talent, a lot of people think that playing him against players that are more of a challenge will cause him to work harder and think more, thereby bettering himself, by working on skills they don't really need to succeed but will help.

I believe that Occam's Razor says that great Negro League players did great in the Majors because the level of competition was comparable.

Yes, yes... the simplest explination to a complex world. Sorry, but I don't buy it.

For example, let us look at the Japanese leagues. Ichiro, Matsui, Sasaki, Nomo have all done GREAT in the majors. Is it your opinion then that the average Japanese player is as good as the average major league player? Because that is the leap you will have to make.

Going back to you saying that Ruth was only on the pedestal because he 'did it first', and within a decade there were plenty of people matching up to his feats, I decided to take a look at some numbers. You are familiar with Bill James 'Win Shares' system right? Well James uses 3 Win Shares systems to judge the worth of the player Win Shares per 162 games, Top 5 Win Share Seasons, and Top 3 Win Share Seasons. I'll compare Ruth in ALL of these numbers to his later contemporaries: Gehrig, Foxx, Hornsby and Ott.

Win Shares per 162 Games:

Ruth: 48.93 (1st all time - that's not a typo, btw)
Gehrig: 36.61
Foxx: 30.41
Hornsby: 36.00
Ott: 31.33

Top 5 Win Shares Seasons (sum):

Ruth: 233 (2nd all time to Honus Wagner)
Gehrig: 193
Fox: 173
Hornsby: 190
Ott: 177

Top 3 Win Shares Seasons:

Ruth: 55, 53, 51 (arguably the best)
Gehrig: 44, 42, 41
Foxx: 41, 40, 34
Hornsby: 47,42, 41
Ott: 38, 36, 36

So, if we put Ruth 'on a pedestal' as you think we are... perhaps it is for good reason.

oykib

07-05-2003, 11:39 PM

You keep making my points for me. If you look at the stats you have to conclude that three-quarters of the top players of all time played before 1950. In a world where the players for every other soprts have gotten better, How do you justify that assertion.

Abou Bill James's ranking of Negro League Players, he put those players in his top rankings as a bare minimum. He explicitly mentions in his book that this number was the bare minimum he could put in and still have a legitimate list. He also says that he is more disturbed by the fact that he left certain Negro League players off the list than he is by the fact that he dropped a bunch of borderline white players (mostly from the era you talk about).

It is my opinion that the Japanese league today are on par with the level of play that we usually consider to major league baseball. Actually, it's the opinion of some Baseball Prospectus guys who did a study a year and a half ago. According to them the talent in the Japanese Leagues is 92-94% as good as the talent in the Majors.

I doubt that it'd have nearly as much impact if there were full integration of all the capable NPB players as if there had been before 150 with black, latin, and western white players. Right now the majors draw from so many talent sources that the level of the average player might rise 5%. Even though the Japanese players are as good, there are only twelve teams over here and the majors have thirty teams.

Even if we assume that there are three or four players that'd replace lesser players on Major League rosters on each team, we're for the most part talking about marginal improvements.

But I'm open to the fact that in thirty years the impact might have proven to be greater from the influx of Japanese talent, or possibly Cuban talent, and we'll have to eveluate the accomplishments of later generations that seem to be equal to this one as better.

Going back to you saying that Ruth was only on the pedestal because he 'did it first', and within a decade there were plenty of people matching up to his feats, I decided to take a look at some numbers. You are familiar with Bill James 'Win Shares' system right? Well James uses 3 Win Shares systems to judge the worth of the player Win Shares per 162 games, Top 5 Win Share Seasons, and Top 3 Win Share Seasons. I'll compare Ruth in ALL of these numbers to his later contemporaries: Gehrig, Foxx, Hornsby and Ott.

I wonder if you are misquoting me on purpose. You seem to fill your posts with my direct quotes-- except the ones where you feel like misquoting me to make your argument seem stronger. I said the Ruth's numbers, and the numbers of everyone who played before WW2 were skewed. I said that they were skewed as a function of how far back you went from WW2 (so Wagner's numbers are skewed more than Ruth's).

My points, specifically, were:

Ruth looked better than the league because he was playing a different game. If you look at other players from his era that were ten years younger (i.e. Foxx, Ott, and Gehrig) and to the only player from his era who was his age who was doing it (Hornsby, who was in the other league) his numbers are still the most impressive in history. But they are approachable numbers. If we were to subtract the years Ruth had on them form the years of their seasons so that their prime seasons matched up, Ruth's dominance would look like Williams's, Bonds's, McGwire's, or Mantle's dominance. He'd be the very best among a bunch of great players rather than a superman, which is the refuge of people who want to contend that his position as the game's best ever is unassailable.

If you don't adjust for Ruth's context, he is unapproachable. To do what he did in the early twenties you'd have to hit 250-300 homers in a season now. That's impossible. If your analysis of Ruth's seasons makes it literally impossible for anyone to surpass him, then you are misreading the numbers.

There were great players from Ruth's day that he didn't play against. I suppose that you can make that argument for Mays too. But the fact is that guys from the 60s on were playing against so much of the best competition that we have a good idea of their abilities. While it's possible that someone that wasn't in the Majors might have snatched some black ink from Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, or Mickey Mantle (especially Mantle as he was in the mostly unintegrated AL), they were all already fighting it out with each other. So we can pretty clearly see that Mays had the best career, Mantle had the most talent and Aaron had the best career value.

You can't do that Ruth. I'm fairly sure that he'd have been the best. But what would the effect of throwing a Mays-like talent in the AL in Ruth's prime have been on his black ink. That's just one guy. What about the lesser talents that had an effect on the leaderboard. No one thinks that Duke Snider is an all-time great. But he was compared with Willie and Mickey in his prime.

As an example, Derek Jeter is considered to be the least talented of the big three shortstops today. But his '99 season is far and away better than any of Nomar's seasons and was the best season by anyone in baseball that year. That's the sort of thing that changes our interpretation of players.

When A-Rod retires after having hit 837 home runs, people will wquestion the amount of his greatness because Jeter had X championships. THey are going to say that Nomar had a higher bating average and that he never struck out. They are goin to point out that Jeter and Nomar spent their careers playing in parks that favored the pitchers, while A-rod has played in the friendliest confines in the league. All of these arguments are not valid. A-Rod is the best. But they will be factored into A-Rod's evaluation.

You can't do that type of analysis for Ruth without changing his league context. He was in a unique situation. Had Ruth had the stats of Mantle or Williams or any other all-timer, he'd still rate as the best because of his screwy league context. But we know that none of these guys were as good as Ruth. The fact that his league contexts during the first half of his career were so screwy, really screws up the method by which we evaluate players.

ISiddiqui

07-06-2003, 11:58 AM

If you look at the stats you have to conclude that three-quarters of the top players of all time played before 1950.

Not true at all! In the Win Shares system it seems to be fairly balanced (perhaps 40% of the top 100 in each position are after 1950 instead of 50%, that's not a big deal). For example let us take James' top 10 rankings for 1B:

1. Gehrig: 1923-39
2. Foxx: 1925-45
3. McGwire: 1986-2000
4. Bagwell: 1991-present
5. Eddie Murray: 1977-1997
6. Mize: 1936-1953
7. Killebrew: 1954-1975
8. Greenberg: 1930-47
9. McCovey: 1959-80
10. Thomas: 1990-present

That's 60% from after 1950! (The next ten is about the same as well). We just don't rank those from 1950 ahead, we rank those from after 1950 in high places as well. Some of the best players of all time played after 1950 (Mays, Morgan, Schmidt, Brett, Berra, Mantle, Bench, Bonds, etc.)... and this IS based on stats.

You seem to assume that all us Ruth fans believe that modern players suck. That just isn't true. We've even said that Bonds will be remembered as a Top 5 player. Ruth will be #1 and then the next 4 will all be interchangable, so if you want him #2 go right ahead.

You can't do that Ruth. I'm fairly sure that he'd have been the best. But what would the effect of throwing a Mays-like talent in the AL in Ruth's prime have been on his black ink. That's just one guy.

I have NO idea why you seem to forget Gehrig constantly. Also Jimmie Foxx as well. And Rogers Hornsby played during Ruth's early career. Three all time greats.

No one thinks that Duke Snider is an all-time great. But he was compared with Willie and Mickey in his prime.

He WAS a great player in his prime, but to be an all-time great, you have to do great for your entire career. His 26.60 Win Shares per 162 games (compared to 34.76 for Mays and 38.12 for Mantle) seems to show that he didn't.

When A-Rod retires after having hit 837 home runs, people will wquestion the amount of his greatness because Jeter had X championships. THey are going to say that Nomar had a higher bating average and that he never struck out.

That is such bull, it borders on crazy. If A-Rod hits 837 HRs, there won't BE any discussion 50 years down the road. People are going to say A-Rod was the best without question. The only people that will argue are Yankees and Red Sox fans.

The only thing that would make me disagree with what I've just said is if Nomar hits .400 for 4 straight years. BUT, if they continue on the paths as they are now, no one will be mentioned as better than A-Rod by serious fans. Hell, A-Rod is already acknowledged as the best by serious fans.

Had Ruth had the stats of Mantle or Williams or any other all-timer, he'd still rate as the best because of his screwy league context. But we know that none of these guys were as good as Ruth.

I doubt he would actually. If Ruth had the stats of Mantle and Williams back in the 30s, he'd still be the first slugger and thus would retain his title as the Bambino. But he'd be passed as #1 on at least a third of the lists by Mays or Williams or Mantle by now.

It is part of Ruth's legacy that his records took so long to fall. It took over 30 years for someone to hit 61. Then even longer for anyone to reach the 60 HR plateau again. His amazing SLG% record in a season took about 70 years to break. His all time HR record took over 30 years to break.

I'm sure in 50 years that Bonds will be ranked high.. and possibly some publications will rank him as the #1 player of all time and Ruth as #2. It could happen. I wouldn't argue that vociferously with them, but right now, in the present Ruth is better than Bonds. IF Bonds stays around long enough to break Aaron's record, then I may change my mind.

oykib

07-06-2003, 06:32 PM

I doubt he would actually. If Ruth had the stats of Mantle and Williams back in the 30s, he'd still be the first slugger and thus would retain his title as the Bambino. But he'd be passed as #1 on at least a third of the lists by Mays or Williams or Mantle by now.
It is part of Ruth's legacy that his records took so long to fall. It took over 30 years for someone to hit 61. Then even longer for anyone to reach the 60 HR plateau again. His amazing SLG% record in a season took about 70 years to break. His all time HR record took over 30 years to break.
I'm sure in 50 years that Bonds will be ranked high.. and possibly some publications will rank him as the #1 player of all time and Ruth as #2. It could happen. I wouldn't argue that vociferously with them, but right now, in the present Ruth is better than Bonds. IF Bonds stays around long enough to break Aaron's record, then I may change my mind.

My quote meant that the statistics that these lesser greats put up would still qualify as the best sesons ever if they'd been done in the early 20s context. If guys that we know were top ten, but clearly not the best overall players would be seen as the best just because of the league context, then we have to take that league contest with a grain of salt.

As for the last part, I've been saying thoughout the thread (you can check, since none of my posts has been edited recently) that Ruth still rates higher than Bonds. I said that Bonds needs about two more seasons around his current level to pass Ruth.

But I still disagree that Ruth's numbers dominace are all Ruth. As people love to point out about the players of today, It's just easier to put up numbers in some contexts. The players from the sixties may have been able to break or approach some of Ruth's records had there been more scoring in the league in general and had their been as few great players and the lesser average players of Ruth's era to play against.