Trout v. Legendary cards

[RCMcKenzie]

If a T206 Wagner is the Mona Lisa of baseball cards, the Trout refractors are the Jeff Koons' giant colored balloon animals.

baseball -reference has Trout trending as a batter with Wally Joyner and Tommy Henrich.

[GasHouseGang]

Rob that's a great and hilarious comparison. I actually laughed out loud when I saw it.

[MikeGarcia]

Originally Posted by RCMcKenzie

If a T206 Wagner is the Mona Lisa of baseball cards, the Trout refractors are the Jeff Koons' giant colored balloon animals.

baseball -reference has Trout trending as a batter with Wally Joyner and Tommy Henrich.

.....ANY EXCUSE TO SHOW AN UNDER-RATED PLAYER


..


A pre-war rookie sooooo overshadowed by Joe and Ted and .......

..

[Shoeless Moe]

Don't look now, but the BEST player EVER is now hitting .255 and 86th in BA.


might be time for a little juice

[Touch'EmAll]

Comparing fastest pitches of today vs. way back - be careful as the measuring has changed. I have heard a pitch loses up to 8 mph from release to plate. I do not know how/where Feller was timed, but Nolan Ryan was timed when pitch went over the plate. Today, pitches are clocked when released. Big Difference. Todays 100mph is Ryans 92 mph.

[packs]

The discussion about fastballs from yesteryear and who would be a star in today's game takes place on this board all the time. In almost every other instance the board's consensus opinion is that players today are more physically gifted than players in the past, except in this thread where people want to make weird arguments against Mike Trout.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by 100backstroke

Comparing fastest pitches of today vs. way back - be careful as the measuring has changed. I have heard a pitch loses up to 8 mph from release to plate. I do not know how/where Feller was timed, but Nolan Ryan was timed when pitch went over the plate. Today, pitches are clocked when released. Big Difference. Todays 100mph is Ryans 92 mph.

Ryan's was measured 10 feet in front of the plate.

And that point is immaterial - they've been measuring the same way for at least a couple decades now. And the average fastball has gone up significantly in that time (2.5mph from 2008 to 2019 alone). Regardless of any adjustments you make, guys are throwing harder now than they did 12 years ago. And harder than 70 years ago.

The "dilution" of talent was mentioned earlier because of expansion. That's an argument that holds no water. The US has roughly 220% of the population (150m - 328m) now that it had in 1950. Meanwhile, MLB has 188% of the teams. AND MLB now draws players from around the world, which it did not do in 1950. In other words, not only has the talent not been diluted by expansion, it's actually been concentrated. Expansion hasn't kept up with population growth.

[Kenny Cole]

Originally Posted by Tabe

The "dilution" of talent was mentioned earlier because of expansion. That's an argument that holds no water. The US has roughly 220% of the population (150m - 328m) now that it had in 1950. Meanwhile, MLB has 188% of the teams. AND MLB now draws players from around the world, which it did not do in 1950. In other words, not only has the talent not been diluted by expansion, it's actually been concentrated. Expansion hasn't kept up with population growth.

Except that a huge percentage of that population is no longer playing baseball in favor of basketball, football and soccer. That used not to be the case.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by Kenny Cole

Except that a huge percentage of that population is no longer playing baseball in favor of basketball, football and soccer. That used not to be the case.

More than offset by the millions outside the US that are playing.

[rats60]

Originally Posted by Tabe

Ryan's was measured 10 feet in front of the plate.

And that point is immaterial - they've been measuring the same way for at least a couple decades now. And the average fastball has gone up significantly in that time (2.5mph from 2008 to 2019 alone). Regardless of any adjustments you make, guys are throwing harder now than they did 12 years ago. And harder than 70 years ago.

The "dilution" of talent was mentioned earlier because of expansion. That's an argument that holds no water. The US has roughly 220% of the population (150m - 328m) now that it had in 1950. Meanwhile, MLB has 188% of the teams. AND MLB now draws players from around the world, which it did not do in 1950. In other words, not only has the talent not been diluted by expansion, it's actually been concentrated. Expansion hasn't kept up with population growth.

You have 32 NFL teams, 30 NBA teams and 30 MLB teams. The US population increase doesn’t come close to covering that and that doesn’t account for other sports. Baseball was pretty much the only major sport for a long time. The NBA didn’t even exist until after WW2. The NFL was an after thought. Jackie Robinson was a much better football player, in fact baseball was his worst sport at UCLA. Yet he ended up in the BBHOF.

The best athletes are not playing baseball. Athletes may be better, but if the second tier athletes are now the ones playing the game, they are not better than the first tier athletes from a previous era. I remember an interview with Darryl Strawberry and Eric Davis about the Crenshaw HS baseball program in the 80s. They said that it was completely different than when they played a decade earlier. Baseball was no longer cool, the guys who would have played with them were now just playing football or basketball due to specialization.

You are throwing out absolutes like they are facts, they are not. They are your opinion. I disagree with them and that is my opinion. If you want to think Trout is great, fine, but I am not convinced. I have been watching the game for over 50 years and he isn’t close to the best player I have seen. He isn’t close to a 5 tool player. Maybe he can improve and convince me or maybe he declines like the other would be “greats.”

[HistoricNewspapers]

Originally Posted by rats60

You have 32 NFL teams, 30 NBA teams and 30 MLB teams. The US population increase doesn’t come close to covering that and that doesn’t account for other sports. Baseball was pretty much the only major sport for a long time. The NBA didn’t even exist until after WW2. The NFL was an after thought. Jackie Robinson was a much better football player, in fact baseball was his worst sport at UCLA. Yet he ended up in the BBHOF.

The best athletes are not playing baseball. Athletes may be better, but if the second tier athletes are now the ones playing the game, they are not better than the first tier athletes from a previous era. I remember an interview with Darryl Strawberry and Eric Davis about the Crenshaw HS baseball program in the 80s. They said that it was completely different than when they played a decade earlier. Baseball was no longer cool, the guys who would have played with them were now just playing football or basketball due to specialization.

You are throwing out absolutes like they are facts, they are not. They are your opinion. I disagree with them and that is my opinion. If you want to think Trout is great, fine, but I am not convinced. I have been watching the game for over 50 years and he isn’t close to the best player I have seen. He isn’t close to a 5 tool player. Maybe he can improve and convince me or maybe he declines like the other would be “greats.”

You may want to look again.

1950...94.5% of the league was white. 1.7% black. 3% Latino.

2016..63.7% white. 6.7% black. 27.4% Latino.

Where did the talent pool come from:
1950 United States population 150 million people to draw from
2016 7.6 Billion.....players are drawn from all over the world now.

Again, if the baseball players are worse now, then why are they taller, running faster, throwing harder, and catching the ball better?

Baseball could expand to three times the amount of teams right now and still be more talented overall than the lore of yesteryear.

Japan itself can add an entire league of teams now as good as 1900-1950 MLB leagues. So could Cuba.

The 1980's is a little different story. That competitive level is closer to today's level. Their talent pool draw is impressively high amount of players as well, but still not as much as now.

You also mentioned that humans haven't evolved, but in 1870 the average height and weight of a MLB player was 68.9 inches and weighed 163 pounds.

The average height now is 74 inches and 207 pounds. And these guys throw better, run faster, and catch it better...they are bigger and MORE athletic.

Like I said before, it isn't really about evolving, although there clearly has been an increase in human size in a short period of time. It is about the vastly higher numbers of population to draw from that dwarfs the players of yesteryear...we are talking billions of more people to draw from.

We could have three MLB leagues, two NBA, and two NFL RIGHT NOW and STILL have a higher overall level of MLB talent now compared to the pre war times.

There a lot of people I know who picked their wives based on size so they could grow a bigger athlete...so you have the selective aspect too.

The WORLD POPULATION in 1900 was 1.6 billion. Baseball only chose from white America.
The WORLD POPULATION in 1950 was 2.5 billion. Baseball only chose from America, and white America 95% of the time.
The WORLD POPULATION in 1980 was 4.43 billion.
The WOLRD POPULATION in 2020 is now 7.8 billion. Baseball chooses from a world wide population from which athletes are bred and trained in their craft so they can make millions of dollars.

Not that hard to see the difference.