[Exhibitman]

We have a variation of this debate regularly on the boxing thread, of the 'Tyson would have killed Ali' or 'Frazier would have broken Klitschko in half' variety. The truth is that athletes in each era contended with the rules and limits and inconveniences and attitudes of the sport in each era and would train up accordingly. Joe Louis in 1937 is a 190# killing machine relative to his peers; in 2000 he would be 220# because of the training differences. Guys back then kept in shape primarily by fighting; now it is a lot of weight-lifting and core power exercises and comparatively few actual fights. Same is true of baseball. The season a Grove pitched or a Spahn pitched simply cannot be compared with what a Kershaw pitches today on raw numbers. Saying that Grove had a worse ERA or Spahn barely struck out anyone is meaningless out of context. Grove led the AL in strikeouts seven straight seasons and went over 200 once. He led the league in ERA 8 times but never went below a 2.06. It wasn't the same game strategically. It was guys who hit for super high averages and rarely struck out. Look at Earl Averill. Pretty average HOFer from the thirties. Hit .318 and had a high of 58 strikeouts. The attitude was that a strikeout was a failure, not a price to pay six times to get one HR, which is why if you look at the yearly stats there are virtually no prewar players with 100+ strikeouts but there are dozens every year now. If you look at the really rarified territory--200+ K's a year--they are all post-2000. Dave Kingman was a punchline; today he would be a superstar. Spahn led the league in strikeouts four years, never once over 200 and he pitched an average of 300 innings a year in that stretch. Koufax in his last two seasons pitched 54 complete games (led the league each time with 27) with 13 shut outs. In 1968 Bob Gibson pitched 28 complete games and did not even lead the league. Kershaw has pitched 24 complete games in his entire 14 year career. Max Scherzer has 12 and led the league three times with 4, 2 and 2. It is just a different game. That's why a peak WAR analysis makes more sense than comparing raw stats if you want to assess players of different eras.