1919 Ruth vs 2021 Ohtani

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Ruth pitched in the dead ball era though. Not even remotely close to an apples to apples comparison.

Are you referring to Ruth's ERA being so much lower than Ohtani's, even though Ruth pitched in more than 5X the number of games in his career than Ohtani has so far, and that during the dead ball era teams scored less runs than they do now, and thus a reason why Ruth's era was so much lower? Or how about the that fact that of the 147 games Ruth started in his career, 107 of them were complete games, whereas of the 27 games Ohtani has started in his MLB career, he has yet to pitch a single complete game?

[Shoeless Moe]

Originally Posted by bobc

are you referring to ruth's era being so much lower than ohtani's, even though ruth pitched in more than 5x the number of games in his career than ohtani has so far, and that during the dead ball era teams scored less runs than they do now, and thus a reason why ruth's era was so much lower? Or how about the that fact that of the 147 games ruth started in his career, 107 of them were complete games, whereas of the 27 games ohtani has started in his mlb career, he has yet to pitch a single complete game?

love it!!!!!!!!!

[Frank A]

In Ohtani's defense, he is not allowed to pitch a full game. They take him out in the 6th inning and let the relievers lose it for him. Had he stayed in some of those games his record would probably be 11 or 12 wins. Angels bullpen pitches like shit.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Frank A

In Ohtani's defense, he is not allowed to pitch a full game. They take him out in the 6th inning and let the relievers lose it for him. Had he stayed in some of those games his record would probably be 11 or 12 wins. Angels bullpen pitches like shit.

I think nobody has suffered more statistically for this modern thing than Jacob DeGrom.

[Ricky]

Is it possible that the reason pitchers 100 years ago were able to complete so many games and pitch so many innings is because they didn’t throw the ball as hard? Sure, maybe Walter Johnson hit the low to mid 90s a few times each game but maybe he and other pitchers only threw that hard in specific spots… and for most of the games they were throwing 80-85, saving wear on their arms.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by Ricky

Is it possible that the reason pitchers 100 years ago were able to complete so many games and pitch so many innings is because they didn’t throw the ball as hard? Sure, maybe Walter Johnson hit the low to mid 90s a few times each game but maybe he and other pitchers only threw that hard in specific spots… and for most of the games they were throwing 80-85, saving wear on their arms.

That's absolutely the reason. They also didn't strike out nearly as many guys so were throwing fewer pitches to each hitter. This idea that they were all these superhuman endurance machines because they threw a ton of complete games is just nonsense.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Tabe

That's absolutely the reason. They also didn't strike out nearly as many guys so were throwing fewer pitches to each hitter. This idea that they were all these superhuman endurance machines because they threw a ton of complete games is just nonsense.

Are there stats comparing pitch counts across eras?

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Frank A

In Ohtani's defense, he is not allowed to pitch a full game. They take him out in the 6th inning and let the relievers lose it for him. Had he stayed in some of those games his record would probably be 11 or 12 wins. Angels bullpen pitches like shit.

Wasn't knocking Ohtani for not pitching complete games. Just noting that since most pitchers get tired as a game goes on, you would normally expect them to be giving up more hits and runs by pitching later into games, which tends to make Ruth's career ERA even more impressive when compared to Ohtani.

And as for Ohtani not getting wins his bullpen blew, that argument cuts both ways. How many more wins/less losses might Ruth have if he had been regularly taken out of games when he did start tiring?

[BobC]

Some additional pitching comparisons:

Ruth at 94-46 and Ohtani at 9-4, have comparable winning percentages of around .691-.692. But Ohtani has started a total 27 MLB games so true winning percentage based on actual starts is really only .333. Meanwhile, Ruth has 94 wins in 147 starts, for a true winning percentage based on starts of around .693. Now to be fair, Ruth also had 16 relief appeances in his career, leading to a total of 163 pitching appearances lifetime. I doubt all 16 of those relief appearances resulted in wins for Ruth, but even if you factor in all his pitching appearences, he still ends up with an overral winning percentage based appearences of about .577, quite a bit higher than Ohtani.

Nows here's a pitching stat that does favor Ohtani. Over his career so far, MLB batters have averaged hitting only .199 against him, whereas Ruth's career average by hitters batting against him was .224, which though still really good, is a bit higher. Of course, in Ohtani's case the MLB batting average during the years he's pitched in so far is .248, so he's doing .049 better than the league average, not bad at all. Oooohhh, wait though, during the years Ruth pitched the MLB batting average was .332, which means Ruth was .108 below the MLB average, pitching over a much longer period of time and a lot more appearances, the majority of which were complete games.

Ohtani is still considered in the early part of his MLB career, and therefore has a lot more playing to do and stats to put up. However, he's already incurred significant injuries and downtime from playing, and in going forward in his MLB career to get close to some Ruth pitching stats will take an exceptional improvement in some areas for him to begin approaching Ruth. I wish him well, good player.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by BobC

Some additional pitching comparisons:

Ruth at 94-46 and Ohtani at 9-4, have comparable winning percentages of around .691-.692. But Ohtani has started a total 27 MLB games so true winning percentage based on actual starts is really only .333. Meanwhile, Ruth has 94 wins in 147 starts, for a true winning percentage based on starts of around .693. Now to be fair, Ruth also had 16 relief appeances in his career, leading to a total of 163 pitching appearances lifetime. I doubt all 16 of those relief appearances resulted in wins for Ruth, but even if you factor in all his pitching appearences, he still ends up with an overral winning percentage based appearences of about .577, quite a bit higher than Ohtani.

Nows here's a pitching stat that does favor Ohtani. Over his career so far, MLB batters have averaged hitting only .199 against him, whereas Ruth's career average by hitters batting against him was .224, which though still really good, is a bit higher. Of course, in Ohtani's case the MLB batting average during the years he's pitched in so far is .248, so he's doing .049 better than the league average, not bad at all. Oooohhh, wait though, during the years Ruth pitched the MLB batting average was .332, which means Ruth was .108 below the MLB average, pitching over a much longer period of time and a lot more appearances, the majority of which were complete games.

Ohtani is still considered in the early part of his MLB career, and therefore has a lot more playing to do and stats to put up. However, he's already incurred significant injuries and downtime from playing, and in going forward in his MLB career to get close to some Ruth pitching stats will take an exceptional improvement in some areas for him to begin approaching Ruth. I wish him well, good player.

League batting average was .263 in 1919.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

League batting average was .263 in 1919.

Not arguing, just look at Ruth's Advanced Pitching stats on baseball-reference.com

The .332 is shown as the MLB average supposedly over the years Ruth was pitching, unless I'm reading something wrong.

[frankbmd]

Originally Posted by BobC

Not arguing, just look at Ruth's Advanced Pitching stats on baseball-reference.com

The .332 is shown as the MLB average supposedly over the years Ruth was pitching, unless I'm reading something wrong.

I think you are for in the American League

1915 .248
1916 .248
1917 .248
1918 .254
1919 .268

How you get .332 for these five years would suggest that you need a new abacus or

perhaps you were looking at On Base Percentage or OBP. I dunno.

And i'm happy with my current accountant.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by frankbmd

I think you are for in the American League

1915 .248
1916 .248
1917 .248
1918 .254
1919 .268

How you get .332 for these five years would suggest that you need a new abacus or

perhaps you were looking at On Base Percentage or OBP. I dunno.

And i'm happy with my current accountant.

I'm not sure what they're showing in the Advanced Pitching statistics then. Here's the links for both Ruth and Ohtani, Look for yourself, I'm not making this up. They show the Batting Against Averages of all players against both Ruth and Ohtani over their careers, and then right below those figures they show what they call the MLB Averages. I can't tell how the site is coming up with those specific MLB Average numbers though. Would think/hope they are consistent in the way they are being calculated so that whatever they actually represent, Ruth's is still much lower than whatever they are measuring than Ohtani's is.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...ruthba01.shtml


https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...ohtansh01.shtm


And who ever said I wanted to be your accountant???

[robw1959]

Originally Posted by BobC

Some additional pitching comparisons:

Ruth at 94-46 and Ohtani at 9-4, have comparable winning percentages of around .691-.692. But Ohtani has started a total 27 MLB games so true winning percentage based on actual starts is really only .333. Meanwhile, Ruth has 94 wins in 147 starts, for a true winning percentage based on starts of around .693. Now to be fair, Ruth also had 16 relief appeances in his career, leading to a total of 163 pitching appearances lifetime. I doubt all 16 of those relief appearances resulted in wins for Ruth, but even if you factor in all his pitching appearences, he still ends up with an overral winning percentage based appearences of about .577, quite a bit higher than Ohtani.

Nows here's a pitching stat that does favor Ohtani. Over his career so far, MLB batters have averaged hitting only .199 against him, whereas Ruth's career average by hitters batting against him was .224, which though still really good, is a bit higher. Of course, in Ohtani's case the MLB batting average during the years he's pitched in so far is .248, so he's doing .049 better than the league average, not bad at all. Oooohhh, wait though, during the years Ruth pitched the MLB batting average was .332, which means Ruth was .108 below the MLB average, pitching over a much longer period of time and a lot more appearances, the majority of which were complete games.

Ohtani is still considered in the early part of his MLB career, and therefore has a lot more playing to do and stats to put up. However, he's already incurred significant injuries and downtime from playing, and in going forward in his MLB career to get close to some Ruth pitching stats will take an exceptional improvement in some areas for him to begin approaching Ruth. I wish him well, good player.

This is known as doing a deep dive, research-wise, and very well done, Bob.

[robw1959]

Sorry - somehow there was a double entry here.