Is Shohei Ohtani already better than Babe Ruth?

Wise Old Man wrote:

Flagpole wrote:

Ohtani has had ONE good half a season in his career so far. No, he's not already better than Babe Ruth. He's not better than anyone in the Hall of Fame yet.

Anybody who thinks Ohtani is a better hitter than Bonds was does not know the first thing about baseball. Bonds had a multiple “half seasons” better than Ohtani as a hitter. What’s the best half season anyway? Is that like the best opening 800 of a 1500? Who cares.

So, you are agreeing with me then? Good show.

i ok sch wrote:

Every MLB player now is better than Babe Ruth.

We romanticize Ruth because he was the first big star and he was head and shoulders above his peers but the level of play would be a joke compared to today.

Well, that's not true.

Flagpole wrote:

Wise Old Man wrote:

Anybody who thinks Ohtani is a better hitter than Bonds was does not know the first thing about baseball. Bonds had a multiple “half seasons” better than Ohtani as a hitter. What’s the best half season anyway? Is that like the best opening 800 of a 1500? Who cares.

So, you are agreeing with me then? Good show.

Yes!

Flagpole wrote:

Ohtani has had ONE good half a season in his career so far. No, he's not already better than Babe Ruth. He's not better than anyone in the Hall of Fame yet.

Correct.

I've seen several fluky extraordinary half to full seasons before from some good, but not great players. A couple of names that come to mind are John Olerud and Paul O'neill. I'm sure there are several other examples. If he keeps this up for 3 or 4 years (or even comes close to keeping it up), let's revisit.

And yes, none of the other players mentioned were also pitchers, so there's that. But let's just wait a bit before we induct him in the HOF or declare him to be one of the top players in MLB history.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

Wise Old Man wrote:

Anybody who thinks Ohtani is a better hitter than Bonds was does not know the first thing about baseball. Bonds had a multiple “half seasons” better than Ohtani as a hitter. What’s the best half season anyway? Is that like the best opening 800 of a 1500? Who cares.

No one is saying Ohtani is a better hitter than Bonds was, but Bonds didn't pitch and had a crappy throwing arm even for a left fielder. If it had been Ohtani in left, Sid Bream would have been thrown out by 30 feet.

Yes, BUT Ohtani is getting these lofty comparisons because he is hitting so well so far this season. The Reds have a guy (injured right now) who pitches and plays the outfield...Michael Lorenzen. He was not a full-time outfielder and not as good, obviously. The hyperbole is way too much at this point. Let the guy put together more than one great half season first. Let's also not forget that he's not 21 and doing this. He's 27. He has likely 8 more seasons POTENTIALLY of good production before father time starts to diminish his abilities.

I've seen a lot of the "next coming" baseball players based on one great season or partial season. Joe Charboneau, Mark Fidryich, Steve Avery, Kevin Mitchell, Bob Hamelin, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Dontrelle Willis.

Just some off the top of my head who were projected to be superstars and didn't or haven't reached that level - Todd Van Poppel, Jason Heyward, Yasiel Puig.

I enjoy greatness, and so I have enjoyed his first half season this year. He has been great. I hope he ends up being one of the all-time greats. WAY too early to project that though. Right now he's a 27 year old with 66 career home runs and a .271 batting average.

Harambe wrote:

Babe probably couldn't bat .150 against modern pitchers, so yeah.

Thanks for proving once again what a dumb MF you are

Ohtani is amazing but he will need to stay amazing longer than one or even a couple seasons to be on the level of Ruth (adjusted to his era of course).

Two things I was hoping to see on MLB some day is one person win the Cy Young and Batting Crown in the same year and a switch pitcher. The later is more impressive in my opinion.

data hack wrote:

Flagpole wrote:

Ohtani has had ONE good half a season in his career so far. No, he's not already better than Babe Ruth. He's not better than anyone in the Hall of Fame yet.

Correct.

I've seen several fluky extraordinary half to full seasons before from some good, but not great players. A couple of names that come to mind are John Olerud and Paul O'neill. I'm sure there are several other examples. If he keeps this up for 3 or 4 years (or even comes close to keeping it up), let's revisit.

And yes, none of the other players mentioned were also pitchers, so there's that. But let's just wait a bit before we induct him in the HOF or declare him to be one of the top players in MLB history.

Those are two very good examples. Both had very solid careers. Right now, Ohtani isn't even at their level...he's a 27 year old guy with 66 career home runs and a .271 batting average.

And, people are going crazy because he's also a pitcher. He's 4-1 this season. He has 8 wins in his career so far. The hyperbole is...well, hyperbolic!

Harambe wrote:

Babe probably couldn't bat .150 against modern pitchers, so yeah.

This guy is the most ignorant poster on the board on every topic.

Some of you guys don't seem to grasp that there has never been a player capable of having a half season like Ohtani has had. There is no overlap between pitching and hitting so being elite at both is unprecedented.

As pitcher, he has ace stuff and many people in baseball believed he should give up hitting to focus on pitching. He has tremendous upside as a pitcher and I don't understand why Madden doesn't have him on the mound every 5th day. They're using a 6-man rotation and don't skip a starter for travel days so Ohtani has been pitching about once a week.

I just looked up Babe Ruth's stats. He is ranked in the top 3 of 21 of the roughly 40 offensive stats that are kept. That is insane. Some of these stats are homeruns, RBI, On base %, Slugging %, WAR... Very important offensive stats. Many of them he's ranked first for career in history. Ruth also pitched, but his pitching wasn't as impressive. But you could also say that Ohtani's pitching is not very insane either. Ohtani is better at hitting, but has a long way to go to have the career that Ruth had.

Now if Ruth was playing today, who would be better? I imagine Ohtani would easily be better if they were both playing today. But for Ruth's day, he was better against his competition than Ohtani is today.

Not so Fast! wrote:

i ok sch wrote:

Every MLB player now is better than Babe Ruth.

We romanticize Ruth because he was the first big star and he was head and shoulders above his peers but the level of play would be a joke compared to today.

No, a junk journeyman 5th outfielder type isn't better than him. But I agree ever star to starter that has power is probably better than him.

A junk journeyman 5th outfielder today is definitely better than Babe Ruth. Ruth competed in an era where:

- Pitchers were overworked. 84 pitchers in 1927 threw more innings than the pitcher who threw the most innings in 1927. Since there were only 16 teams in 1927, that's 5 pitchers per team - so let's say that every starter in 1927 threw more innings than every starter in 2019. And some of the 1927 pitchers (the best guys) were hitting 300+ innings whereas the most in 2019 was 119 innings. That level of pitching can't be better than single A minor leagues today, no way no how.

- Players in 1927 were amateurs. They worked jobs in the offseason. Sounds a lot like...minor league players today. It's just not possible that the caliber of play is going to be anywhere near today's MLB level where professionals make tens to hundreds of millions of dollars to focus on the sport.

- Smaller talent pool in 1927 with no black, Latin American, or other international players. Who were the marquee guys at the All-Star Game this week? Ohtani, Tatis, Guerrero. Of course there are huge white stars like DeGrom and Trout, but if you remove every non-white player from today's game, I'd argue the overall level of play instantly drops half the distance to AAA.

So yeah, Ruth was like a AAA guy playing among A dudes. He was clearly ahead of his time. Or it's like some dude who dominated the hell out of high school or college ball - a mammoth among peers, but drop them into today's major leagues the next day and they can't compete. It's a whole 'nother level and some guys can improve to make it at the MLB level and some never get there.

They had Latino players they didn't Latino players with known African ancestry, it's a myth that is never corrected. White Latino players were in the majors during Ruth's time.

clown posters wrote:

Harambe wrote:

Babe probably couldn't bat .150 against modern pitchers, so yeah.

Thanks for proving once again what a dumb MF you are

ROFL. Come on. Pitching is much better. More motion and control.

Fielding is much better.

Maybe he could adapt (roids) but if you just drop him into a game he's gonna be pretty useless.

No, I get it. I will even agree that it's one of the most amazing first half of a seasons in the history of baseball...but so far, it is just that. If people want to call it THAT, then I'm in agreement. When they look at THAT though and extrapolate out to he's better than Babe Ruth, I can't get on board with that. At this point, just because he's already 27, he might not have enough great years left to even be elected to the Hall of Fame (and if he ever does make it to the Hall of Fame, it will be due to his hitting, not his pitching).

At the All-Star Break, Ohtani...

1) Was batting .279

2) Had 33 home runs

Now, on Sept. 23, Ohtani sits at...

1) .257 batting average

2) 45 home runs

Anyone still think he's better than Babe Ruth?

who?

When people make comparisons between now a previous era in baseball, I have to group all 5 of original 5 in M.L.B. Hall of Fame together: Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth & Cy Young. Would all five have dominated as much as they did if Negro Leagues were combined into M.L.B? Of course not. Those five would have still been very good. Would those five men with exact same genes and temperament dominate today? I never heard Cobb, Johnson, Mathewson and Young did not work hard. We know Ruth did not work as hard as he could. Would Ruth be more disciplined if he played today? Taken better care of his body? A more disciplined lifestyle? If not, Ruth would never get through the minors, no matter how much talent. M.L.B. does not bring party guys up from minors anymore.

Flagpole wrote:

At the All-Star Break, Ohtani...

1) Was batting .279

2) Had 33 home runs

Now, on Sept. 23, Ohtani sits at...

1) .257 batting average

2) 45 home runs

Anyone still think he's better than Babe Ruth?

He's basically another Josh Hamilton.

So..no. Of course not