OT: Shohei Ohtani is pretty, pretty, pretty good
For those who missed it, Ohtani pitched eight innings last night and gave up only one run. He also hit his MLB-leading 40th homer. He is now 8-1 with a 2.79 ERA. To the best of my knowledge, the last time a baseball player had a season like this was in 1919, when Babe Ruth went 9-5 with a ERA of 2.97 while also hitting 29 home runs.
Anyway, I don't remember us having an Ohtani thread and figured it was time. The man is incredible.
August 19th, 2021 at 1:13 PM ^
Agreed. I found myself saying, "He's better than Babe Ruth" and checking myself. But he is.
And consider this. The Babe was great, for sure, but he didn't compete in a baseball that also had the best black players, or the best Latin American players, too. Ohtani is playing far better competition.
August 19th, 2021 at 1:28 PM ^
Imma let you finish, but Babe Ruth is the greatest of all time.
To put the 1919 season mentioned in the OP in more context, MLB teams averaged 28 HRs for the season. He out-homered by himself more than half the teams. He led the league in OBP with .456.
August 19th, 2021 at 1:36 PM ^
I think it's hard to know exactly what to do with the Babe. As noted above, he only played against whites. He also played in a smaller league with fewer pitchers and didn't have to travel as much (though the circumstances of travel were worse). But as you say, he was out-homering entire teams (he out-homered all but one team in baseball in 1920). It's hard to beat that.
August 19th, 2021 at 3:26 PM ^
League was smaller which concentrated the available talent. Does this cancel the lack of minority involvement? We always lament expansion as diluting the talent pool. Guess we'll have to be happy with no doubt best of his era and continue arguing--hence one of the great things about sports that analytics can't explain.
August 19th, 2021 at 3:47 PM ^
Baseball analytics are great because they have WAR to encapsulate a player’s impact in all areas compared to the average replacement player, so comparison across eras has more substance.
of course there are problems with using WAR as the end-all to settle arguments. So many ways to dissect the data so the conversations about goats continues.
anyone know if there is a WAR for babe Ruth back that far to compare to ohtani this year? A quick google search didn’t yield anything useful for me
August 19th, 2021 at 3:55 PM ^
1919 batting WAR = 9.1, pitching WAR = 0.8
2021 batting WAR = 4.1, pitching WAR = 3.8
Baseball Reference has everything.
August 19th, 2021 at 5:13 PM ^
yeah but in 1919 they just called it "The Great WAR"
August 19th, 2021 at 6:53 PM ^
If you're curious Ruth is still first in all-time WAR at 183.1. Walter Johnson is second at 164.8. Ruth was so much better than his peers for so long it was ridiculous. Pujols is the active leader at 99.5 (declining recently) followed by Trout with 75.9.
Ruth also had the three highest WAR individual seasons. 14.2, 12.9, 12.6. And six of the top 11. Ohtani could get up to somewhere in the 10-11 range which would put him around 20th all-time this year.
Summary: Ruth was god damn ridiculous and possibly underrated.
August 19th, 2021 at 4:30 PM ^
Plus, he was hung-over a lot of the time as well!
August 20th, 2021 at 8:24 AM ^
I actually read a very interesting article about how Babe Ruth may have been part black based on family history. Some "accused" him of being so at the time.
August 19th, 2021 at 1:55 PM ^
For additional context, the current team average for homeruns right now is 146.1. Gavvy Cravath was second in HRs in 1919 with 12. Ruth nearly tripled his next closest competitors.
Otani's feat is impressive. And honestly, the Ruth comparisons are apt for 2021 within the right context. But let's not lose ourselves entirely.
August 19th, 2021 at 2:50 PM ^
On the flip side, the average ERA was right around 3.00. So he was basically an average pitcher. This year, the average ERA is 4.23 and Ohtani has a 2.79 ERA.
August 19th, 2021 at 3:11 PM ^
MLB batting avg is 2.40. Degrom was on pace for a sub 1.00 season. Enuff.
August 19th, 2021 at 3:27 PM ^
That's fair. Plus one.
August 19th, 2021 at 3:01 PM ^
For yet further context, Babe Ruth put up his numbers when his per day average was...
2.2 porterhouse steaks
5.6 coney dogs
1.8 shots of whiskey
12.7 beers
I think that the advanced stats speak for themselves.
August 19th, 2021 at 3:11 PM ^
I always think of Ruth as the sort of person who inspired some of the Greek myths.
August 19th, 2021 at 3:17 PM ^
Gulo, all those were just Prohibition PEDs.
August 19th, 2021 at 5:35 PM ^
Hahaha. I buy it!
August 19th, 2021 at 3:22 PM ^
Babe also hit against the spitball-
August 19th, 2021 at 4:12 PM ^
This, in a thread of some great jokes, is the best of them all. "Season of Goo" be damned.
August 19th, 2021 at 4:02 PM ^
Yeah, but as the poster above you stated, he didn't play against the best in the world, and more than half of the guys playing back then had other jobs and were no where as strong and well conditioned as today's players.
August 19th, 2021 at 4:40 PM ^
That goes both ways. If Ruth could do what he did looking like an Average Joe (i.e. the most unlikely looking sports superstar in history), imagine what he could do if he had today's training and conditioning...
August 19th, 2021 at 5:33 PM ^
"The Babe was great, for sure, but he didn't compete in a baseball that also had the best black players, or the best Latin American players, too. Ohtani is playing far better competition."
Ummm ... Ohtani is also playing against the best Asian players.
August 19th, 2021 at 6:03 PM ^
Hmmm.
Talent is far more dispersed these days than back then. Pro football was just being born. NBA did not exist. Hockey only had six teams. I would argue he played against more talent, not less.
Black population was at 10% in 1920. It is at 13.4%
Not sure how widespread baseball was in Latin America and whether they were MLB caliber players at that point.
He hit a deadened ball. Players today hit a lighter ball.
August 19th, 2021 at 8:33 PM ^
There are arguments both ways. He also played in an era when there weren’t specialized pitchers and guys threw 120 pitches and then trotted out a few days later to do it again.
with all that said, I’m not arguing that ohtani is better than Ruth, just who had a more impressive season.
August 20th, 2021 at 9:58 AM ^
Ohtani is a great player but he is not better than Ruth. Ohtani has 87 career Home runs. This is one season of him doing things that nobody but the Babe has done but talk to me when his career is over and we can compare numbers. There’s no way he’s catching the Babe in championships. He will be lucky to get one and the Babe is on the Mount Rushmore of players. I don’t think Ohtani will be even close to be mentioned as top 5 of all time when his career is over. I know he didn’t start his career in MLB but he’s just not as good as Ruth. Best player in the game right now, for sure. Just my opinion…
August 19th, 2021 at 1:13 PM ^
He's the best player in baseball by a mile.
August 19th, 2021 at 1:16 PM ^
It was great to watch. I was hoping they would give him the 9th. I was really impressed with his pitching...accuracy, power, variety of pitches...he has it all.
August 19th, 2021 at 1:17 PM ^
I see you were very careful with the way you wrote that.
August 19th, 2021 at 1:22 PM ^
I see what you did there.
August 19th, 2021 at 1:26 PM ^
I hear what he did there.
August 19th, 2021 at 3:20 PM ^
So ridiculous that an apology was necessary from Morris.
August 19th, 2021 at 3:35 PM ^
Hey is that you uncle Andy? I thought you only posted on facebook and mlive.
August 19th, 2021 at 4:05 PM ^
So terrible that we live in an age where people have to apologize for being racist am I right?
August 19th, 2021 at 4:20 PM ^
Please tell me how you can distinguish the intent in Morris' voice between a racist Asian stereotype and Elmer Fudd.
August 19th, 2021 at 5:21 PM ^
uh.. because elmer fudd and asian stereotypes sound nothing alike?
that said, i'm asian and i personally didn't care much. but that doesn't mean it wasn't hurtful to others. i'm more of the anti-dentite camp of it wasn't even funny and worth saying..
"so this offends you as an asian person?" "no, it offends me as a comedian!"
August 19th, 2021 at 9:28 PM ^
Agree. Racist, unfunny, stupid as fuck would be my rank order, but your mileage may vary. If you're too dumb to filter that. . .
August 19th, 2021 at 8:16 PM ^
Does Jack Morris typically do Elmer Fudd impressions during broadcasts?
August 20th, 2021 at 8:14 AM ^
If his intention was to make an Elmer Fudd voice, then he would have said that in his apology. He knew what he did, it was dumb, but it also directly reflects the cultural phenomenon that it is still okay to make fun of or stereotype certain racial groups. Take into consideration that Stephen A Smith already got in trouble for making insensitive comments about Ohtani, his accent was not only offensive, but also incredibly stupid. The stupidity in the comment alone requires an apology.
If you are Asian American, i'd like to hear why you think stereotypical Asian accents are similar to Elmer Fudd's accent. If you are not Asian American, please stop trying to tell other racial groups when they should be offended or not, given you have no idea the context or weight certain jokes and stereotypes carry.
August 19th, 2021 at 5:18 PM ^
I hereby use my authority as an Asian American to absolve Jack Morris of his sins.
If Dave Chapelle is allowed to do chinky voice in his stand ups because he's married to an Asian, I hereby allow Jack Morris to do chinky voice because I'm a fan of the Tigers.
August 19th, 2021 at 5:23 PM ^
to be fair, chapelle was using the voice to make fun of transgender people.
wait. i'm not sure what my point is.
August 19th, 2021 at 11:08 PM ^
Let me try explain to you how this hits Asian-Americans from a certain era (back when there was the scare of Japanese autos taking over)...so we grew up with parents who had the really bad stereotypical accents. Bringing "friends" from school over was often a painful experience as they would make fun of them (and indirectly, me). Jack Morris was replicating this, on a night when many Asian-Americans in the Detroit area were tuning in to watch Ohtani.
August 19th, 2021 at 1:17 PM ^
If he doesn't win the MVP it's a joke. Vlad Jr. is having a great year, but you have to go back 100 years to compare the year that Ohtani is having. BTW, he's a lot bigger than I thought he was.
August 19th, 2021 at 1:18 PM ^
If he doesn’t have another serious injury, he could very well go down as one of the top 5 players to ever play the game. He’s on another level.
I also have the feeling that today is the day for Miggy. Rarely does he play a day game after a night game. He must’ve really wanted to be in the lineup.
August 19th, 2021 at 1:51 PM ^
It's kind of depressing that Mike Trout could also make a claim on that top 5 pedestal. The Angels have two maybe top 5 players ever on their team at the same time and they've won zero playoff series.
August 19th, 2021 at 2:00 PM ^
You have missed the last five years if you think Mike Trout is an all time great.
He hasn’t played in more than 140 games since 2016. He’s not played in 40 yet this year.
Availability and durability matter.
August 20th, 2021 at 8:18 AM ^
This is certainly a "Kirk Gibson is the next Mickey Mantle" moment.
August 19th, 2021 at 1:20 PM ^
At this point, he’s a created player in MLB The Show when you want to pitch and bat
August 19th, 2021 at 1:29 PM ^
It’s hard to comprehend his ability…to compare to football, it would be similar to a QB leading the league in completion %, TD/Int ratio, yardage and leading the league in tackles!?
I couldn’t even duplicate this performance in a video game.
great for the game…best athlete, all categories
August 19th, 2021 at 1:33 PM ^
"similar to a QB leading the league in completion %, TD/Int ratio, yardage and leading the league in tackles!?"
Time to create the Heisman Trophy for baseball.