Cobb vs. The Aces

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Posted By: Tim James

Being in the "post season" as we are,I'm just looking at how TC did against the "aces"of the day.I think he would eclipse what Jeter is doing.Are there any "match up cards" you guys can display of "pitcher vs. batter".Maybe a story between the great TC and a good pitcher of the day.?

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Posted By: steve f

I once read that Walter Johnson would lightly ease back on his pitches, allowing Sam Crawford to up his average. This, of course, would just irritate Cobb. Cobb couldn't figure how Wahoo Sam could hit Johnson, while he struggled.

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Posted By: Anonymous

Cobb was certainly a tiger in the post-season.

...all 17 games he managed to get to

batting average was .262...OBP a remarkable .314.

and he never won a ring.

clearly Jeter will never put up career post-season numbers like this.

........perhaps the Georgia Peach was kinda soft in the middle ?

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Posted By: jay behrens

must we really rehash this Jeter crap again? It hasn't even been a week. At least I wait a few months

Jay

I love pinatas. You get to beat the crap of something and get rewarded with candy.

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Posted By: Anonymous

i didn't think you sabrometrophobiacs took that long to come up with contrarian statistics...but OK.

....let's see what you come up with in a month of number tweeking

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Posted By: jay behrens

just a quick sabrmetric point of view then...numbers is the post season are pretty much statistically meaningless when compared to player's career numbers because the sample size is too small.

Jay

I love pinatas. You get to beat the crap of something and get rewarded with candy.

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Posted By: Anonymous

well then.

...i guess Cobb's failure to do much of anything in the post-season can be attributed to it only making up a whopping 00.57% of his career.

.....hmmm.....so..if it smells like a peach and walks like a peach.... maybe we need a bigger sample?

wonder how Ruth, Dimaggio and Mantle did when it was "game on" or even Teddy "ballgame"

edited to add: you'd be surprised...

then again maybe we will have a whole thread of poo beeing spewed at how over-rated Yogi Berra was/is.

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Posted By: Chad

The thing I love most about them is that they love statistics as long as they get to choose which statistics to use.

--Chad

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Posted By: john/z28jd

I'll give Cobb some help here.When he played in the world series he was facing pitchers hes never seen before all season and teammate Sam Crawford who was a great hitter at the time,only batted .243 in the same playoffs Cobb did. Players now for at least the first 2 rounds are facing guys theyve played against that particular season and because of interleague play they mightve faced their world series opponenent too. Cobb also played in the world series very early in his career so calling him a .367 hitter would be like calling out Barry Bonds for being a 700 home run guy who only hit 1 HR in 20 games while with the Pirates in the playoffs.His career avg stood at .337 by the end of 1909,the last year he played in the world series,and wasnt nearly that high in 1907-08.


Also if you look youll see the 2nd time he faced the same Cubs pitchers in the 1908 world series as he faced the year before he hit .368(well above his career avg at that time) further proving the first point. The last and most obvious thing is that by the time his last playoff game ended he was at the ripe old age of 22,well before what you can consider anyones prime

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Posted By: runscott

There's also the fact that none of us saw Cobb play, but many of us have seen "that yankee ss who already has his own thread". Many of Cobb's contemporaries, while hating him, still thought he was the greatest player they ever played with/against. Other choices were Honus Wagner and Babe Ruth - you can listen to "The Glory of Their Times" if you want evidence straight from the horse's mouth, as opposed to the other end.

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Posted By: joe brennan

I have trouble remembering stats and the apples and oranges debate again. But I seem to recall a record of Cobb's lasting almost 50 years. What was that record again? Oh yea hits lifetime. Only a few records last that long in such high regards. Homeruns lifetime, Wins lifetime. Not a bad way to base the greatness of a player. But, since I've already gone through all the arguments in a previous thread, this obviously will not sway nor impress the Cobb vs Jeter thread. Haha, Just typing Cobb vs Jeter seem comical enough, but I can do it without bashing or name calling. Just a god old baseball discussion of who's better. These debates go on all the time and you can inset blank vs blank and it's great to see the passion one has for his or her favorites. joe

People said it was a million dollar wound. But the government must keep that money, cause I ain't never seen a penny of it.

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Posted By: rp60

Expansion era post season has created new numbers. It really is remarkable any of them have held up. And the ones that do are truly impressive..Jeter is a fine player and winner, but..Cobb is still Cobb.The king of 'our' tobacco smokin' world....

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Posted By: runscott

Joe, it's true...all good-natured discussions. You can only really say who was the greatest player of their generation - I wonder how guys like Cobb, Wagner, Ruth, even Ted Williams, Mantle and Mays - would do today. Would they get past Triple-A? Would Walter Johnson be a star in today's game?

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

I got a dollar that says Williams would make the majors. Any odds?

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Posted By: runscott

We may find out some day - I'm so glad his son saved part of Dad's head.

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Posted By: Tim James

Cobb in an interview was asked how he would bat against "todays" pitchers.He quickly answered, "around .300".Interviewer,"really"? Cobb,"You must remember,I'm nearly 70 years old ".

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Posted By: jay behrens

The great would great in any era. It's the the lower end of the spectrum that wouldn't sniff the majors, like Bill Bergen. Imagine that major league talent looks like a bell curve. Early on, the curver was fairly flat, with difference between the greats and boarderline major leaguers very pronounced. Today, the curve is very pronounced, with the difference between the greats and boarderline major leaguers not as pronounced. When you place the two curves on top of each other, the outliers where the greats are are matched up. The middle of the curves do not. The middle of the curve for the early game would be near the boarderline candidates for todays game. Wish I had a graphic to show this, as it is much clearer that way.

Needless to say, Cobb and Ruth would be a great hitters in any era, just as Matty and Johson would be great pitchers in any era.

Jay

I love pinatas. You get to beat the crap of something and get rewarded with candy.

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Posted By: runscott

Jay, I'm not so sure you are right about that. I think some of the greats from long ago would MAKE the majors, just not necessarily be successful. And I think some of the greats from the 1800's wouldn't have made it past double-A.

Without even considering things like better nutrition, training habits, etc, here are some population stats. Also keep in mind that it's now 2006 and the ML's draws from Japan and other countries (and blacks), whereas in 1910 and 1880 you were drawing purely from white America. So back then, ML'ers were the best of a much smaller population base.

In 1880, 52 million, including blacks who weren't allowed to play
In 1910, 90 million, including blacks who weren't allowed to play, supplying 16 teams
In 2000, 281 million (50 states only), supplying 30 teams
In 2006, ???, supplying 30 teams

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Posted By: Rhett Yeakley

Scott, you make some good points, but there is something else to consider as well in todays game. Growing up now, a youth has many different sports to choose from, not everyone plays baseball anymore. At the turn of the century baseball was the undisputed king, there were local teams everywhere. Today on the otherhand, there are many major sports taking great athletes away from baseball. It is a variable that at least has to be considered.
-Rhett

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Posted By: jay behrens

True, the 19c game was very different, but from 1900 on, it's essentially the same. The same tools are needed to be successfull. Pitchers are less likely to be successful today becuase the pitching style has radically changed from 1900 to date. Hitting hasn't changed too much. What made a great hitter back then makes a great hitter today. Although I think a lot of top hitters today might not fare so well in the older game becuase swinging for the fences doesn't transelt well to the deadball era. My orignal post was strictly about the talent of player, nothing else.

Your population numbers are also misleading. Even though there was smaller pool to draw from, there were no other sports drawing top athletes away from baseball, only the stigma that many in society placed on being a ball player and the low pay. Today, you have basketball, football, hockey and the X sports drawing many top althletes away from baseball. So saying there is a pool of even 500 million available to draw from, doesn't mean much since many of those athletes are going to sports other than baseball. So even with a 10 fold increase in the pool of athletes, the number of available options for athletes has increased much more than that. With the popularity of baseball waining among athletes, the pool is propably even smaller, but the athletes that are getting there are much better trained.

Jay

I love pinatas. You get to beat the crap of something and get rewarded with candy.

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Posted By: runscott

Rhett and Jay, you make good points about today's youth having other sports to choose from. But keep in mind also that with all the money available to athletes today, more people grow up trying to make the majors. Additionaly, back in the old days baseball players were considered ruffians - dishonorable sport that families sometimes thought disgraced them. Take Rube Marquard, for example, and I'm sure his story is fairly typical.

....so, I stick with my original assertion. But like you guys, it's just an opinion based on numbers I've looked up (like the pop stats), and what I've read about the old game, which is quite extensive.

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Posted By: joe brennan

The curve is very good point. But the big difference is today with more teams and oppertunities the talent is watered down. Pitching is really watered down. When only a few teams were in the league only the very very best played .
Another thing to remember n the late 20's and 30's the depression made men find any kind of work they could. This lead to an influx of men playing sports that would have otherwise been business men. This is expecially true in the boxing game. Some great fighters came out in that era because jobs were scarce.
It's alot like the Latin American kids today. They eat, drink and sleep baseball because they know that's their ticket out of poverty.
In the meantime our kids are playing playstation on the couch.

People said it was a million dollar wound. But the government must keep that money, cause I ain't never seen a penny of it.

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Posted By: Tim James

Bottom line,pitchers will always have ways to confound batters.Batters will always have to rise to the occasion and hit "major league" pitching.I'm more than sure that Cobb and Ruth would find a way to do so in today's realm.One thing that has never changed is that you still have to get it over the plate for it to be a strike.I would still welcome some cards depicting the years Cobb faced post season pitchers.'07,'08,'09 ?

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Posted By: Jonathan

When I watched the HBO Baseball Documentary, some of the people said Walter Johnson through the hardest they had ever seen...A few estimated that he was pitching between 100-105, in which case he would still be almost unhittable today. Another interesting thing to consider, is Smokey Joe Wood; Johnson himself proclaimed Wood as the "hardest throwing man he had ever seen." Interesting...

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Posted By: jay behrens

Given the fact there were no radar guns to measure a pitch back then, speed estimates have to be taken with a large grain of salt. If you have ever seen film of pitchers throwing in a game back then, there is almost no way they could be throwing 100+ mph as almost everyone had a sidearm delivery back then which is not condusive to throwing the fastest possible pitch. This is also a big reason as to why pitchers could pitch more, and more often. The motion puts much less strain on the arm. He might have occasionallt thrown in the low to mid 90s, but I doubt he ever hit 100 mph.

Jay

I love pinatas. You get to beat the crap of something and get rewarded with candy.

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Posted By: Jerry

Cobb hit .299 lifetime against Johnson