Best Baseball Player Ever

[.45s]

This morning's Coffee and Football happened to mention Shohei Ohtani's incredible season this year followed by a brief discussion about greatest players.  I am old enough to see guys like Hank Aaron and Willie Mays play, and have some recollection of Mickey Mantle and Sandy Koufax.  I always remember some incredible statistics about Babe Ruth's career and that he was an incredible pitcher and then paved the way for homerun hitters.  I did a quick search and found something that Tim Kirkjian wrote about his career and am providing some of that (edited) below.  The fact that he was hitting more homeruns than most teams is amazing.

 

"The game was reeling in 1920, but Ruth brought it back with tape-measure homers and overwhelming charisma.  He became the first player to glamorize the home run, hitting 54 that season, more than the next three home run hitters in the American League combined.  Also, the most startling statistic is that Ruth’s 54 homers in 1920 was more than the team totals for every other team in the American League. Ruth’s old team, the Boston Red Sox, hit only 20 homers.  In fact, the only MLB team to hit more homers than Ruth was the Philadelphia Phillies with 64.

Ruth was the first to hit 30, 40, 50 and 60 homers in a season. In 1921, he hit his 137th home run, passing Roger Connor as the all-time home run king: the next 577 only added to his record. When he retired with 714 home runs, no one in the game had half that many. In certain seasons, he hit more home runs than complete teams, from 1926 to 1932, he out-homered the Washington Senators, 343-327. Ruth finished with a career slugging percentage of .690. No active player has ever had a single-season slugging percentage of .690.

But Ruth was more than a slugger even though movies made about him depict him as a non-athletic clown; they turned the greatest player of all time into a cartoon character. Ruth was a great athlete. He was a great basketball player, quick and agile for a big man, He could run; he had 136 triples, more than any active player, and 130 more than Mark McGwire. Plus, Ruth was the best left-handed pitcher in the AL when he decided to become only a hitter. Ruth's record for scoreless innings (29⅔) in World Series play lasted nearly 42 years. Ruth still has as many career shutouts as Pedro Martinez (17).

The final homer of his career that day in Pittsburgh was the first one ever to clear the right-field roof in the 26-year-old history of Forbes Field, a fitting finale to an amazing career. In 1982, I asked Burt Hawkins, a baseball writer who covered the game starting in the 1920s, to name the best player ever."

[CJ Vogel]

None other than Mr. Barry Bonds. 

[jkates]

Shohei's 2024 season would be Bonds' 7th or 8th best season at the plate? I saw one tweet suggest it would be Bond's 11th best offensive season. 

[Gerry Hamilton]

Ohtani is the best baseball player I have ever seen 

He’s doing things that we may never see again … literally an All-Star level hitter and pitcher - when healthy. 
 

And his athleticism at 6-4, 215’ish

Hes different than anyone I have ever seen

Will he have the best career stats? Probably not.

[Jack Lala]

The modern day ball players are indeed amazing,  no doubt. But the Babe did it in the dead ball era. Today the ball jumps out of parks. And he might have won 300+ games had he continued as a pitcher. 

[AJJ_Sports]

Barry bonds is the greatest baseball player of all time

[Blake Munroe]

22 minutes ago, Jack Lala said:

 Today the ball jumps out of parks.

But, to play Devil's Advocate, Ruth also wasn't going against athletic freaks who could throw 100 mph. In fact, they weren't anywhere close to that.

[.45s]

A lot of great players listed above.

 

To put Babe Ruth's homerun numbers in to perspective when he hit 54 homeruns in 1920, think of this quote in the initial post-   "He became the first player to glamorize the home run, hitting 54 that season, more than the next three home run hitters in the American League combined.  Also, the most startling statistic is that Ruth’s 54 homers in 1920 was more than the team totals for every other team in the American League. Ruth’s old team, the Boston Red Sox, hit only 20 homers.  In fact, the only MLB team to hit more homers than Ruth was the Philadelphia Phillies with 64."

 

By today's standards and comparing the 1920 and 2023 seasons to see how the Babe outhit whole teams, last years team homerun leader was Atlanta with 307, followed by Minnesota with 249.  This means that the Babe would have hit the equivalent of 250 homeruns.  Perhaps not the best analogy, but he was way ahead of everyone at the time.

[Jack Lala]

14 minutes ago, Blake Munroe said:

But, to play Devil's Advocate, Ruth also wasn't going against athletic freaks who could throw 100 mph. In fact, they weren't anywhere close to that.

Absolutely true. But there were pitchers that could hit 90, and the junk they threw. Whew.

[Jack Lala]

30 minutes ago, AJJ_Sports said:

Barry bonds is the greatest baseball player of all time

He was definitely great. And he and Roger both belong in the HOF. Stop the silliness sports writers. And put Berknan in there too.

[.45s]

3 hours ago, Blake Munroe said:

But, to play Devil's Advocate, Ruth also wasn't going against athletic freaks who could throw 100 mph. In fact, they weren't anywhere close to that.

So true, and Ruth might not even approach the 50 or 60 homerun mark if he were playing today and in his prime; however, the main point was really how far ahead he was of everybody else at that time.

[DiggsTX]

As a Giants fan, it's Barry or Willie Mays.  As an L.A. resident, it sure is fun to watch Ohtani make history and I absolutely love Mookie, rivalry be damned.

[jkates]

5 hours ago, Blake Munroe said:

But, to play Devil's Advocate, Ruth also wasn't going against athletic freaks who could throw 100 mph. In fact, they weren't anywhere close to that.

The reason this point doesn't hold water is because it's only one side of the equation. Improve Ruth's nutrition, training, etc. in the same manner that pitchers have if you want to make a fair comparison. Give Ruth weight training and a modern bat and hitting velo wouldn't be the issue.

By the way, hitting velo isn't as big of an issue as some non-baseballers think. Good hitters can time up a fastball. 

[MarkInAustin]

Barry Bonds is the only human I know of whose head size grew as an adult.

 

Ted Williams was the best hitter I have ever seen.  Mays was the best baseball player I saw.

My parents saw Ruth play in Yankee Stadium.  He never had trouble with a fast ball, swinging a ridiculously heavy 42 oz bat. 

Today he would have been swinging 34 oz at most.

 

Williams  spanned eras and lost about 5 seasons to military service.  He ate up 96-98 mph fast balls.

  His worst hitting, which was still better than any of his peers,  came against  junk.

[AJJ_Sports]

I am unfortunately one of the type of guy that believes back then they couldn’t play in today’s game. No one on earth could convince me that babe Ruth could hit a 92 mph slider from CC sabathia lol 

Edited Tuesday at 11:11 PM by AJJ_Sports

[Jbro52]

The kid in me will always say Jeff Bagwell lol