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.
|