Ohtani or Ruth?

[rats60]

Originally Posted by bk400

Ohtani is playing in an era where every player is likely not only a genetic outlier in a global (and not just white American) gene pool, but also has access to modern medicine, diet and training. His stats relative to his era won't be as impressive as Ruth's, but that's because Ohtani's era is so much more competitive. It may well be much harder to have an OPS+ of 160 today than it is to have an OPS+ of 200 in Ruth's era because of the high percentage of common men playing major league baseball in Ruth's era versus the percentage of common men playing major league baseball today.

Then maybe we should be comparing Aaron Judge to Babe Ruth because he didn't have a problem putting up OPS+ 225, 215 and 210 seasons while Ohtani's best season is 187. Ohtani is not the best hitter in the game. He doesn't play defense. He is an average baseball runner despite his 50 steal season. The last season before the rules change he attempted 20 stolen bases and was thrown out 9 times. His extra bases taken percentage of 42.1% is definitely not like Mays' 63%. Ohtani's best pitching season was worse than either of Ruth's two full seasons of pitching.

Ohtani's argument for the greatest comes down to being really good at many things, but so are the arguments for Babe Ruth and Willie Mays who performed at a high level for ~20 years. When Ohtani has put in a similar amount of time is the only time to compare him to the greatest in the game. I heard these arguments for Albert Pujols and Mike Trout until their careers fell off a cliff. Now their 101 and 87 WAR doesn't seem so impressive and neither should Ohtani's 51.5.