Hypothetical Question, could Ruth hit modern pitching

[Peter_Spaeth]

Did George Washington throw in the 90s?

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Did George Washington throw in the 90s?

Yes, but only with a dollar, not a rounders ball.

[steve B]

I think physically and with his reactions Ruth and most great hitters would still be great hitters.

What I think would cause them trouble hitting today and require a lot of adjustment is how batters and pitchers are analyzed. Over 20 years ago some teams were exchanging annotated game film of every at bat. I'm fairly sure that it's now all teams.

Using that, they were able to tell things like what pitch in what location a batter had trouble with. Or what pitch a pitcher was most likely to throw in a certain situation. And use it to spot if a pitcher was tipping his pitches and how.

If any of the greats had a weakness it would probably be found. Like in the article saying Ruth preferred a low outside pitch. Knowing that, a pitcher could throw him only pitches that were inside or up in the zone.

Mostly because of this, I don't think they would become dominant hitters, but still great.

[ullmandds]

Would Ruth be as successful as a pitcher today?

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

Would Ruth be as successful as a pitcher today?

Exact same answer as hitting.

[packs]

I'm still wondering why anyone thinks today's pitching is better than in the past. Are people throwing harder more consistently, sure. But why does that make pitching harder to hit? It clearly isn't hard to hit a 100 MPH fastball. If it were, you would have a lot more elite pitching in the league. But since 100 MPH is becoming fairly common and being an elite pitcher who throws 100 MPH is not, I think it's fair to assume it's not very difficult to hit modern power pitching.

What I think would be difficult is to hit pre-war pitching. That was a world where everyone could PITCH. Maybe not throw 100 MPH, but they could certainly pitch. The same differences would exist as they do when you're in the box against Aroldis Chapman vs Greg Maddux. Except in the pre-war era everybody had to have a little Maddux in them because they would be expected to pitch 9 innings and go through the order three times. That meant developing craft.