Posted By:
cmokingBill James' work has been revolutionary and incredible for the game of baseball. However, one of the things I always wondered was: don't we have to take into context the knowledge of the game at the time?
Here's an example:
We now know that OBP, SLG and OPS are better indicators of a player's contributions to the game than AVG. However, people didn't know that back in 1910. AVG was the only thing they were thinking about. So can we blame a player for purposely increasing his AVG at the detriment of SLG and OBP? What if he swung at a few more pitches instead of taking a few more walks? What if he slapped at balls more often in order to hit singles instead of trying to slug it for a double? I don't think we can blame players in that era on the general baseball knowledge of their times. By the way, this would be an argument that Cobb is underrated.
On another note, recent research has shown that strikeouts by batters don't really matter that much compared to a different type of out. The type of complaint one would hear about Ruth was "yea, he swings for the fences and hits a bunch of HRs, but he misses alot and strikes out alot". Striking out back then was more of a negative than striking out today. But Ruth didn't know that. Maybe he was lucky in that his game just happened to fit correctly, whether he knew it or not.
Cobb avoided what people thought was the worst thing back then - strike outs. While he did what people thought was the best thing back then - high AVG. I think this is the best argument for Cobb.