[Carter08]

Originally Posted by rats60

You can't compare Ruth and Ohtani. Ruth didn't have the option to pitch and DH. If he had, who knows what he could have been. This year, all Ohtani is doing is hitting, he isn't playing in the field. He has an OPS+ of 174. Ruth's career OPS+ was 206 and he played defense too.

As for pitching, Ruth started 147 games, completed 107 games and threw 17 shutouts. Ohtani has started 86 and had 1 complete game and shutout. Ruth led the league in ERA, something Ohtani is yet to do. Ohtani has a better ERA+, but he only pitches 5 1/2 innings per start, unlike Ruth who was expected to go through the lineup more than twice.

Ohtani faces a higher quality player pool post-segregation. So there’s that.