Bob Feller Career

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Yes, but while anything is possible, some outcomes are far more probable than others, no? Don't you think the chances he would have performed at a similar level are much higher than that he would have sustained a career ending injury? I wouldn't go so far as to simply credit anyone with numbers for hypothetical seasons, but I think at some level one can consider the phenomenon in one's assessment.

Certainly I think it is more likely he would have performed well than not. Pitcher arm's dying is not some weird and unusual thing though; it happens all the time and to the majority of pitchers. Give him an extra thousand innings or so and the odds are not tiny. This, what I think is more likely than another scenario, though, is irrelevant. We do not know what would have happened because we are not omniscient. When we look at the numbers to try to determine who had the best MLB careers (what is almost always actually meant when we say "best"), we can only evaluate actual reality, the things that we know have actually happened or the things that it would be more reasonable to think happened than to think that they did not happen. Any argument placing Feller in the top 10 relies on fanfiction, giving credit for years which did not happen, and assuming the best possible outcome of these fictional events in his favor. If the question is "who are your top 10 MLB pitchers who bad luck and for whom events probably most hurt the career value of?", Feller may be a good candidate.

I like Feller. But I see no reasonable way to give credit for years that did not happen. If I make up fantasy years for one player, I can do it for any of them. By the same logic I can conclude the immensely talented Bobby Bonds is a top 10. If things had just gone differently for X, if X had just done things a little different, if luck had been with X, X could have been the best. If only. It's true for all of us, really. If I'd just done X at Y time, I'd be the big winner at Z. If X had never happened to me and my situation would be different, I'd be #1. But reality doesn't work that way.