Reasons why Bonds should be our DH next year

[DrungoHazewood]

And what were their findings?

Ruth was 234 WARP3, with a peak of 18. Bonds is 233 with a peak of 15.5. Ruth had 15 seasons over 10, Bonds 14.

So, essentially, it's too close to call. Maybe a tiny edge to Ruth, although Bonds isn't done yet.

[Fan4Life]

Ruth was 234 WARP3, with a peak of 18. Bonds is 233 with a peak of 15.5. Ruth had 15 seasons over 10, Bonds 14.

So, essentially, it's too close to call. Maybe a tiny edge to Ruth, although Bonds isn't done yet.

Interesting. Question: Why is it that when comparing "all time greats" the only real numbers that matter are who tallied the most. For example, Aaron is the current HR King, BUT, it took Hank over 4000 more AB's to get to that mark. That would be like 8 -10 more years of baseball? Seems to me that should be a factor. Also, different topic, but in the NFL, the 1000 yard rushing season used to be the measuring stick for a great running back... then we went from 12 games a season to 14 then to 16... so why doesn't that number evolve with the changes in attempts? Seems like that should matter also.

[DrungoHazewood]

Interesting. Question: Why is it that when comparing "all time greats" the only real numbers that matter are who tallied the most. For example, Aaron is the current HR King, BUT, it took Hank over 4000 more AB's to get to that mark. That would be like 8 -10 more years of baseball? Seems to me that should be a factor. Also, different topic, but in the NFL, the 1000 yard rushing season used to be the measuring stick for a great running back... then we went from 12 games a season to 14 then to 16... so why doesn't that number evolve with the changes in attempts? Seems like that should matter also.

People remember big milestones and don't really care about how you got there, or if the rules changed, or the conditions changed, for the most part.

Fans are stubborn - they cling to round numbers. Pitchers are still largely judged on 20-win seasons even though the conditions that produce 20-game winners change pretty radically every generation.

The NFL just doesn't care that much about the continuity of records. Baseball has only made a couple of significant rule changes since 1900, but football changes basic things like scheduling, playoffs, blocking rules, pass interference, QB protection constantly.

[Fan4Life]

People remember big milestones and don't really care about how you got there, or if the rules changed, or the conditions changed, for the most part.

Fans are stubborn - they cling to round numbers. Pitchers are still largely judged on 20-win seasons even though the conditions that produce 20-game winners change pretty radically every generation.

The NFL just doesn't care that much about the continuity of records. Baseball has only made a couple of significant rule changes since 1900, but football changes basic things like scheduling, playoffs, blocking rules, pass interference, QB protection constantly.

Do you have a top 3-5 rule changes you would make to the game today?

[DrungoHazewood]

Do you have a top 3-5 rule changes you would make to the game today?

No, not really. I think the on-field game is great. I like the DH, and besides that nothing of substance has changed in over 100 years since the foul-strike rule, and I'm fine with that.

I'd like the rules on the books to actually be enforced - like the real strike zone, and the rules about baserunner interference, among others.

There are some structural, higher-level things I'd change about the game, but not the playing rules.

[El Gordo]

I'm not sure all those 500-ft homers he hit are really verifiable. He's supposed to have hit a 690-ft blast in spring training once. I take all stories like that with a big fat grain of kosher salt. Even some of Mantle's shots (like he 565-ft homer in Washington) had questionable means of measurement after the fact.

If you want to believe those kind of things then Big Dan Brouthers tops them all. He once hit a homer at old Union Park for the NL Orioles that supposedly rolled down the hill behind the park, ended up on a train, and went all the way to the west coast.

Ruth was a very great player without embellished stories.

I'm basing my arguement on this article in the Baseball Almanac by William Jenkinson. http://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/art_hr.shtml. The crux of his essay is what you are saying, that most long distance HR stories are highly embellished and that the 500 ft HR is a rarity. He mentions Brouthers' blast. Even so he seems convinced of the accurracy of reports that Ruth had 500 footers in every park in the AL in 1920. My point is if he hit even half as many as are cited he would be extaordinary in comparison to todays' much better conditioned athletes who rarely if ever hit 500 ft HR's . I don't know how he did it. He was truly unique.

[giantfan]

If you would read more carefully you would see that I'm not talking about hitting pitchers or the number of HR's, I'm talking about pure power and distance. It's easier to drive a 100 mph fast ball out than an 80 mph fast ball. Ruth's bat speed was measured during his career and it is the same as Pujols is today with a bat that sometimes weighed 10 to 20 ounces more. It doesn't matter what the level of talent was in pitching, though I think he faced some of the greatest pitchers as well, he hit the ball farther more often.

Is that the same reason why baseball players are able to hit hrs much further in batting practice? At slower velocity the hitters are allowed to gear up and drive the ball further. Just watch the hr derby they have each year. Hey I know you want to have some romanticism about the history of baseball but the game is simply different today.

[giantfan]

Ruth's bat speed was measured? Really? And how scientific was the test? Anything like Bob Felller (20 years after Ruth) throwing his fastball as a motorcycle zoomed by?

I don't know what they supposedly used but it has to be old footage of ruth which really cant be relied on. He was a great player in his era.

[Fan4Life]

Is that the same reason why baseball players are able to hit hrs much further in batting practice? At slower velocity the hitters are allowed to gear up and drive the ball further. Just watch the hr derby they have each year. Hey I know you want to have some romanticism about the history of baseball but the game is simply different today.

Hey Drungo.. isn't their a theorum in physics that would backup El Gordo's claim of faster in, faster(farther) out? For each and every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction?

[Fan4Life]

Is El Gordo arguing that Ruth was just as physically gifted at the players of today, while at the same time saying that the pitchers were physically inferior?

I'm speaking to this...

Originally Posted by El Gordo

If you would read more carefully you would see that I'm not talking about hitting pitchers or the number of HR's, I'm talking about pure power and distance. It's easier to drive a 100 mph fast ball out than an 80 mph fast ball. Ruth's bat speed was measured during his career and it is the same as Pujols is today with a bat that sometimes weighed 10 to 20 ounces more. It doesn't matter what the level of talent was in pitching, though I think he faced some of the greatest pitchers as well, he hit the ball farther more often.[/Quote]

[giantfan]

Hey Drungo.. isn't their a theorum in physics that would backup El Gordo's claim of faster in, faster(farther) out? For each and every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction?

Squaring up a 100 mph fastball is very difficult. Yes in theory it would go further but you have to hit it first.

[Fan4Life]

Squaring up a 100 mph fastball is very difficult. Yes in theory it would go further but you have to hit it first.

Agreed. Does anyone know what the consistency of the bat has been over the years? Is it possible that Ruth's bat was closer to an aluminum bat today...? Is there necessarily a relationship between the weight of a bat and it's hardness?

[giantfan]

Agreed. Does anyone know what the consistency of the bat has been over the years? Is it possible that Ruth's bat was closer to an aluminum bat today...?

Todays bats are constructed much better then in ruths days. The maple bat is probably the closest thing to a aluminum bat out there.

[DrungoHazewood]

So what? I think it's a big so what. We are arguing that Ruth is the greatest of all time. He may be. However, we honestly don't even know if he was the best of his time. Can you say for sure that he was better than Josh Gibson? Do you know for sure that he would have been so much better than everyone else if the league wasn't made up of white only ballpayers. His WARP or whatever would probably have been significantly decreased if the competition had been stronger.

But that's the whole point of adjusting the guy's numbers for quality of competition. Doesn't matter that Josh Gibson wasn't there - there are ways of figuring out how good the AL was in 1920 and comparing that to how good the AL is today.

Babe Ruth could have been the best player of all time if he'd played his whole career in the Midwest League. He would have had to hit .575, and you'd have to do a lot of mathematical gymnastics to prove it, but just because his competition wasn't as good doesn't mean he wasn't as good.

BTW, Ruth was essentially the 1st power hitter.

Well, sorta. Yes, he was the first person to hit homers at the rate of a modern slugger. But there were plenty of guys before him who had big slugging percentages (with lots of doubles and especially triples). They were just limited in how many homers they could hit because most parks had very distant fences - in the early days the fence simply marked the boundary of the property and were put up to keep people from watching the game for free. I'd bet anything guys like Dan Brouthers, Sam Thompson, Ed Delehanty, Roger Connor, Cap Anson, and Long Levi Meyerle would have been 40-50 home run hitters had they been born in 1900.

In the minors there were players that topped 40 homers a year in the 1890s.

He kind of broke the mold. Not too long after him, came Foxx and Gehrig. Just curious. Maybe Drungo can tell us. How do Gehrig and Foxx rate against players all-time and against their era?

Gehrig is extremely good, almost everyone has him in their top 20 of all time. Foxx is somewhat lower, but still very, very good. Foxx' WARP3 is 130, Gehrig's 147. Both had almost annual MVP-type performances even after adjusting for quality of league.

[El Gordo]

I'm speaking to this...

If you want to know what I'm trying to say read the article in Baseball Almanac. I posted the link in a reply to Drungo's post. However the question you seem to be asking is, is the distance a baseball travels, a result of the velocity of the pitch in combination with the velocity of the bat swing. Taking into account the angle of incidence in the collision, one would think this to be so, though I'm no physicist. I'm not claiming Ruth is the greatest hitter of all time (though IMO he is)I am saying he is on record as hitting more verifiable long disatance HR's than Bonds or any other contemporary slugger for that matter. Given the fact that he was obviously in poorer condition and smaller he is truly an athletic anomaly.