Ohtani

[Frobby]

16 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

 

Where are we pulling this 50% chance to ever pitch again nonsense from? Think about it like this. An ace pitcher will cost you 25+M a year, a truly elite hitter will cost your 25+M a year. Ohtani is both of those and only takes one roster spot. So 50M annually is completely reasonable. 

There’s a very real chance that Ohtani won’t hold up as a starter after his second TJ surgery.  His last one only held up for 3+ seasons.  This probably going to be a 10-year contract.   There’s a lot of risk to Ohtani the pitcher.  

By Fangraphs’ metrics, Ohtani has only been with $50 mm in a season one time, and just barely.  They’ve measured his career so far at $159 mm, ages 23-28.   So I agree that these $500 mm numbers being kicked around are an insane overpay.  Honestly even $400 mm is a huge risk IMO.
 

[SilverRocket]

I have to imagine he is worth a lot more to a big-market team in a marketing and business sense than just his on-the-field value, as long as he has star power. This also isn't the Ohtani of four years ago where was merely good on both ends. He's become an elite hitter and I would take the over on this 50% guess of whether he becomes a reliable starter again.

[joelala]

1 hour ago, interloper said:

Sure I will allow for the fact that if Babe Ruth decided to commit to a totally different diet, adopt a new intense training regimen, embrace analytics, dissect and rebuild his swing path and mechanics, figure out how to throw a modern pitching repertoire with enough shape and spin to get out guys who have been on his brand new training plan since middle school, then ok sure, THEN he could hang. 

This is silly. If he grew up playing baseball in this era this would all take care of itself. Take an exact genetic clone of Ruth and raise him to play baseball today and I have to think he’d be one of the best players in the world still. 

[E-D-D-I-E]

2 hours ago, interloper said:

We will just have a difference of opinion about this. Babe Ruth would not be able to hang in today's game, in all likelihood. The things that Ohtani has done no one has ever done in the game before. And he's doing it in the most difficult era of baseball with the best athletes who feature wildly hyper-specialized talents. That's just a fact. To Ruth it would feel like he's going up against a team of androids. He'd be toast bro. 

Your entitled to your opinion and I respect that. We don't agree, but that's ok.

To be sure, you have no better understanding of how older players would do in today's baseball, then I do.  

[Can_of_corn]

21 minutes ago, joelala said:

This is silly. If he grew up playing baseball in this era this would all take care of itself. Take an exact genetic clone of Ruth and raise him to play baseball today and I have to think he’d be one of the best players in the world still. 

Same genetic material.

[E-D-D-I-E]

2 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Ruth never did it full time like Ohtani did.  He'd either pitch part time or hit part time.

 

Free agency isn't the only way to build a team.  

 

True. I still find the comparisons comical. Ohtani might be the closest thing to Ruth, but it ain't that close.

Another supporter of the be good for 5 years if your lucky, trade your stars and start over. You do realize the margin for error on how GOOD your organization has to be to make that work? You can't miss on your trades, you can't miss on drafts, or fall to the bottom. A quality free agent is needed for winning teams. The risk is already daunting for med/small market teams to sign a premium free agent. Let's make it worse...

[Ohfan67]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Same genetic material.

Are you saying Jose Canseco is the same genetic material as Ruth? Huh? 

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Ohfan67 said:

Are you saying Jose Canseco is the same genetic material as Ruth? Huh? 

Did you click both links?

[joelala]

8 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Same genetic material.

Are they identical or fraternal?

[Ohfan67]

1 minute ago, Can_of_corn said:

Did you click both links?

Ahhh. I thought one was Jose's hitting and one was Jose's "pitching". I didn't even know that Jose had a twin. 

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, joelala said:

Are they identical or fraternal?

If they were fraternal they wouldn't have identical genetic material and I wouldn't have used them as an example.  (I'd have used Kim and Kelly Deal)

[OriolesMagic83]

I expect Ohtani to shatter both the AAV record and total contract record.  I will be surprised if he doesn't get a $50 million AAV and a contract over $500 million.  For a team in a large city/large Japanese/Asian population, there will be a multitude of extra revenue streams available.  An obvious one would be to partner with a luxury tour team to have guests enjoy games in a luxurious sky box.  Obvious TV deals with Japanese stations.  Just imagine if the O's could make TV revenue from the vast majority of Japanese households. 

[joelala]

5 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

If they were fraternal they wouldn't have identical genetic material and I wouldn't have used them as an example.  (I'd have used Kim and Kelly Deal)

Fine. Fair.  

[btdart20]

26 minutes ago, joelala said:

Fine. Fair.  

As an anecdote, it’s fair.  As a sample size of nature versus nature of identical twins (or genetically cloning Babe Ruth to play today), not even close.

[MCO'sFan]

4 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

This is also taking the argument a bit too far.  Ruth today would have access to training (in season and off-season), diet and equipment that he didn't have back then.  The difference in park dimensions, how tight the ball is wound and bat size would be huge for him.  If he had any sort of discipline, he could still be a very good player.

He had freak hand/eye coordination, that's always an advantage no matter the era.  I don't believe anyone thinks he'd be as good as he was when he was playing but I do believe he'd still be very good.  To say he "would not be able to hang in today's game" is a bit much, IMO.

I think Ruth could (not would) be a HOF player in today’s game. But we will obviously never know for sure. He’d have to hit something like 250 HR to change the game the way he did back then. I think that is an often overlooked part of his story. Also, we’ll never know what he would have done with the DH. He may have been able to keep pitching if they had the DH. But to just dismiss any great player from any era is a little shortsighted. It wasn’t just their talent that made them great. It was their competitive nature, their drive and work ethic too.