Quote:
Originally Posted by rats60
When Babe Ruth faced the best Negro League pitcher Satchel Paige, he hit a 500 foot home run off him. Ruth would have dominated any competition. Josh Gibson on the other hand struck out on 3 pitches after Paige intentionally walked 2 guys to face Gibson. Ruth is easily the greatest hitter ever.
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So you're condensing the careers of two guys who combined played for over 40 years into one at-bat each. That doesn't prove anything at all.
As I said, I haven't seen any unbiased studies proving that the Negro Leagues were
equal to the major leagues. But it's clear that they were at least high minor league quality. Roy Campanella, Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Luke Easter, Monte Irvin, Larry Doby, Satchell Paige, and others all played in the Negro Leagues at the same time as Gibson.
Gibson led his league in home runs 11 times, and for his career had an OPS+ of 215. Bill James in his 1985 abstract estimates that a player moving from AAA to the majors would retain about 82% of their offensive production. I think the true number for the Negro Leagues would be between 82% and 100%. 90% seems reasonable to me. That would result in a career OPS+ of 194, four points higher than Ruth.
Part of this is just me being contrarian. I'm not certain of how good the Negro Leagues were, just having fun arguing.