Bob Feller Career

G1911 · #1 10-31-2022, 02:45 PM

I don't see how one we can give credit for events which did not happen, only those which did. I can't get him close to the top 10 because I don't see how we can use seasons that did not happen to move him up, or deduct seasons that did actually happen from others.

The best pitcher may be some guy who never made it into the majors. Maybe it was some farm kid in 1877 who chose to become a grocer instead. Maybe it was some guy who never left the sandlots. When we are ranking and talking about the best, what we are really saying and doing is judging the best careers in MLB, because that's the highest level of competition there has been and presents a reasonable dataset, counting those we can reasonably evaluate by some measure beyond the emotional. Could Feller have been a top 10 possible talent? Maybe. Would Feller rank higher if he hadn't missed 4 years? Quite possibly. He might also have suffered a severe injury in 1943 and been out of baseball and a footnote today. One can't really evaluate that which did not happen to give extra points to selected people. I know this is an unpopular and bummer of a view, but I just don't see a way to do it within the confines of reason.

jingram058 · #2 10-31-2022, 02:53 PM

Bob Feller was no racist, and that's the end of it. "Dr. Jones, it's time to ask yourself what you believe."

Hankphenom · #3 10-31-2022, 02:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jingram058

Bob Feller was no racist, and that's the end of it. "Dr. Jones, it's time to ask yourself what you believe."

And if he wasn't, he was way ahead of the rest of the country.

Peter_Spaeth · #4 10-31-2022, 03:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hankphenom

And if he wasn't, he was way ahead of the rest of the country.

I think it was George F. Will who made the point that while Mays might not have had to endure some of the outright racism Robinson did, he was still the target of a more subtle racism; for example, the press apparently was fond of referring to Mays' childlike enthusiasm for the game. Also, Life Magazine (or maybe Time) apparently created a shitstorm by putting Larraine Day on the cover with one arm around Leo (her husband) and the other around Willie.

One more about Willie and the 50s, there was a hit song by the Treniers about him, it's actually a good song but listening to the lyrics from today's POV is just painful.

Peter_Spaeth · #5 10-31-2022, 03:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by G1911

I don't see how one we can give credit for events which did not happen, only those which did. I can't get him close to the top 10 because I don't see how we can use seasons that did not happen to move him up, or deduct seasons that did actually happen from others.

The best pitcher may be some guy who never made it into the majors. Maybe it was some farm kid in 1877 who chose to become a grocer instead. Maybe it was some guy who never left the sandlots. When we are ranking and talking about the best, what we are really saying and doing is judging the best careers in MLB, because that's the highest level of competition there has been and presents a reasonable dataset, counting those we can reasonably evaluate by some measure beyond the emotional. Could Feller have been a top 10 possible talent? Maybe. Would Feller rank higher if he hadn't missed 4 years? Quite possibly. He might also have suffered a severe injury in 1943 and been out of baseball and a footnote today. One can't really evaluate that which did not happen to give extra points to selected people. I know this is an unpopular and bummer of a view, but I just don't see a way to do it within the confines of reason.

Yes, but while anything is possible, some outcomes are far more probable than others, no? Don't you think the chances he would have performed at a similar level are much higher than that he would have sustained a career ending injury? I wouldn't go so far as to simply credit anyone with numbers for hypothetical seasons, but I think at some level one can consider the phenomenon in one's assessment.

G1911 · #6 10-31-2022, 03:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Yes, but while anything is possible, some outcomes are far more probable than others, no? Don't you think the chances he would have performed at a similar level are much higher than that he would have sustained a career ending injury? I wouldn't go so far as to simply credit anyone with numbers for hypothetical seasons, but I think at some level one can consider the phenomenon in one's assessment.

Certainly I think it is more likely he would have performed well than not. Pitcher arm's dying is not some weird and unusual thing though; it happens all the time and to the majority of pitchers. Give him an extra thousand innings or so and the odds are not tiny. This, what I think is more likely than another scenario, though, is irrelevant. We do not know what would have happened because we are not omniscient. When we look at the numbers to try to determine who had the best MLB careers (what is almost always actually meant when we say "best"), we can only evaluate actual reality, the things that we know have actually happened or the things that it would be more reasonable to think happened than to think that they did not happen. Any argument placing Feller in the top 10 relies on fanfiction, giving credit for years which did not happen, and assuming the best possible outcome of these fictional events in his favor. If the question is "who are your top 10 MLB pitchers who bad luck and for whom events probably most hurt the career value of?", Feller may be a good candidate.

I like Feller. But I see no reasonable way to give credit for years that did not happen. If I make up fantasy years for one player, I can do it for any of them. By the same logic I can conclude the immensely talented Bobby Bonds is a top 10. If things had just gone differently for X, if X had just done things a little different, if luck had been with X, X could have been the best. If only. It's true for all of us, really. If I'd just done X at Y time, I'd be the big winner at Z. If X had never happened to me and my situation would be different, I'd be #1. But reality doesn't work that way.

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