Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth
It's an unanswerable question, but I wonder sometimes what Oh would have done in MLB. Would he have been a star? His stats, not just the home runs but also the on base percentage due to a staggering number of walks, are off the charts.
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I wonder that too. He would not have hit anywhere near 868 home runs in MLB (smaller stadium size, use of compressed bats definitely helped him in NPB), but at the same time I think he could very well have had a decent HOF career in the US if he had played there.
There are a few other NPB guys from his generation in that "What if" category. Isao Harimoto, Japan's career hits leader, is the most interesting. He is the only player in professional baseball history to literally have survived having a nuclear bomb dropped on him (as a child), and then went on to have a career that in many ways was even better than Oh's, though he isn't as well known outside of Japan.