Old Timers vs. Young Bucks

[rats60]

Originally Posted by Rookiemonster

Why do you think nobody will hit .400 again?

Tony Gwynn hit .394. George Brett hit .390. Rod Carew hit .388. It is not like anyone is not coming close. Fielders have much larger gloves. That has to count for something. They are robbing hitters of hits, so the difference is even smaller.

As someone else said, if they are just dropping guys into a game without modern training and equipment, they wouldnt be as good. If Babe Ruth was born in 1990 and playing today, he would be destroying the competition.

[Mountaineer1999]

Originally Posted by rats60

Tony Gwynn hit .394. George Brett hit .390. Rod Carew hit .388. It is not like anyone is not coming close. Fielders have much larger gloves. That has to count for something. They are robbing hitters of hits, so the difference is even smaller.

As someone else said, if they are just dropping guys into a game without modern training and equipment, they wouldnt be as good. If Babe Ruth was born in 1990 and playing today, he would be destroying the competition.

Tony Gywnn was the last and that was over 20 years ago. It also feels tainted because of the 110 games played. No one will ever hit .400 again.
No way Babe Ruth destroys the competition today. He may be pretty darn good but I dont think elite.

[sago]

There are other fundamental issues that have to be considered by changing eras they played in.

For example, taking Mickey Mantle exactly the way he was and bringing him into today's game, he would end up in rehab more times than Steve Howe did.

It's entirely possible that he would have stayed sober as well, and who knows how much better he would have been, great as he was.

[tedzan]

this new breed of ballplayers do not have the patience to wait out the pitcher and make him "work".

Check-out Ted Williams in 1941......

PA = 606
AB = 456
Hit = 185
BB = 147
BA = .406

Check-out Ted Williams in 1957......

PA = 541
AB = 420
Hit = 163
BB = 119
BA = .388

Now compare those numbers with the stats of Brett, Carew, Gwynn......

Brett (1980)

AB = 449
Hit = 175
BB = 58
BA = .390

Carew (1977)

AB = 616
Hit = 239
BB = 69
BA = .388

Gwynn (1994)

AB = 419
Hit = 165
BB = 48
BA = .394


The point I am making here is......"a Walk is as good as a Hit".

How many times have you heard this from your coaches (managers) when you were playing BB ?

If you do the math regarding Brett, Carew, Gwynn....all it takes is the following number of Walks
for them to have hit .400

Brett needed only 12 more Walks to achieve .400

Carew needed only 19 more Walks to achieve .400

Gwynn needed only 7 more Walks to achieve .400



TED Z
.

[howard38]

Originally Posted by tedzan

this new breed of ballplayers do not have the patience to wait out the pitcher and make him "work".

Check-out Ted Williams in 1941......

PA = 606
AB = 456
Hit = 185
BB = 147
BA = .406

Check-out Ted Williams in 1957......

PA = 541
AB = 420
Hit = 163
BB = 119
BA = .388

Now compare those numbers with the stats of Brett, Carew, Gwynn......

Brett (1980)

AB = 449
Hit = 175
BB = 58
BA = .390

Carew (1977)

AB = 616
Hit = 239
BB = 69
BA = .388

Gwynn (1994)

AB = 419
Hit = 165
BB = 48
BA = .394


The point I am making here is......"a Walk is as good as a Hit".

How many times have you heard this from your coaches (managers) when you were playing BB ?

If you do the math regarding Brett, Carew, Gwynn....all it takes is the following number of Walks
for them to have hit .400

Brett needed only 12 more Walks to achieve .400

Carew needed only 19 more Walks to achieve .400

Gwynn needed only 7 more Walks to achieve .400



TED Z
.

Maybe I'm missing your point but walks do not figure into batting average. Also, Ted Williams was an exceptional case. George Sisler walked less often than any of the three players you mentioned and still managed to bat over .400 twice.

[Exhibitman]

Batting average is not the end-all stat. A few points over 600 plate appearances is as little as a fluke single a month instead of a ground out.

Walks are valuable, not just offensively but because they impose a hitter's will on a pitcher. Williams was perhaps the greatest hitter of all time in part because he refused to expand the strike zone. That was one of his hitting philosophies: make the pitcher give you a pitch to hit. And you cannot just walk a Williams or a Bonds every time up because the continual on base presence will end up worse in the end for the opposing team. Bill James ran a test comparing what would happen to an average team with a Babe Ruth who was walked every time versus a team with Ruth where he hit his career norm. The always walked Ruth team did better.

The discussion over dropping a player in this era or that one like he'd beamed down on the transporter is silly. Unless a player was raised in the era you cannot fairly gauge how he would have done because you are creating an anachronism. Think of it this way: if I beamed down to colonial New York I could hang out a sign and instantly become the most knowledgeable medical practitioner of the age, even though all I have is a decently educated layman's knowledge of first aid and medicine. I know CPR, the Heimlich, germ theory, and a bunch more techniques and facts that were unknown at the time but are basic first aid standards today. It would be an anachronism, same as parachuting Mike Trout into a deadball era game.

Pitching speed is an interesting issue that I feel has been misinterpreted in some posts here. If the average guys today are faster than before, in the low 90s and a flamethrower is around 98-101, what makes the average guy so much faster than the old timers? It isn't that the upper end of speed has expanded. What fascinates me is not that the average pitcher today is faster but that the outlier, the fastest, is still around 100-105 MPH. That has remained consistent for as long as we have been able to measure accurately (e.g., Ryan and Feller, #1 and #2 for a single pitch). What that tells me is that there is a mechanical limit to pitching speed regardless of technical perfection. I am guessing that Johnson and Grove at their best approached that limit and would still be elite power pitchers if they were raised and trained today, because they were the outliers of their era. My speculation also is that the average guy today may throw faster than the average 100 years ago because of better technique and training. But technique and training benefits the elite guys too. Here are two images of Clayton Kershaw from May:




When I got the cards I was struck not by how consistent his motion is, but how textbook it is for modern mechanical teachings for pitchers: balance, leg drive, no inverted W arm, etc. That is not unusual today. Pitchers today have been carefully trained to have very sound mechanics. It was unusual even 50 years ago to see a wide variance in motions because oddball pitchers who were effective were not trained otherwise. Marichal's leg kick, Spahn's windmill, Tiant's no-look, Gibson's fall off the mound, all would not have survived training. Might have made them better or perhaps not, even though it does make the average guy better to have a more consistent and efficient technique. So the lower end of the spectrum rises (average speed) but the elite flame throwers still hit around 100-105 because the amount of force an arm can generate is limited by basic structural factors: how much load can the bone take, how much leverage can be generated by the motion, etc.

[tedzan]

Originally Posted by howard38

Maybe I'm missing your point but walks do not figure into batting average. Also, Ted Williams was an exceptional case. George Sisler walked less often than any of the three players you mentioned and still managed to bat over .400 twice.

Howard38

Pardon me for correcting you, but Walks are a significant factor in determining BA.
As a Walk in place of an Out subtracts from a time at Bat.

For examples....

Brett (1980) needed only 12 more Walks

AB = 449 - 12 BB = 437 AB ...... 175 Hits / 437 AB = .400
Hit = 175
BB = 58
BA = .390

Carew (1977) needed only 19 more Walks

AB = 616 - 19 BB = 597 AB ...... 239 Hits / 597 AB = .400
Hit = 239
BB = 69
BA = .388

Gwynn (1994) needed only 7 more Walks

AB = 419 - 7 BB = 412 AB ...... 165 Hits / 412 AB = .400
Hit = 165
BB = 48
BA = .394


P.S.
George Sisler was an amazing hitter....his batting performance is quite unique in the history of BB.


TED Z
.

[howard38]

Originally Posted by tedzan

Howard38

Pardon me for correcting you, but Walks are a significant factor in determining BA.
As a Walk in place of an Out subtracts from a time at Bat.

For examples....

Brett (1980) needed only 12 more Walks

AB = 449 - 12 BB = 437 AB ...... 175 Hits / 437 AB = .400
Hit = 175
BB = 58
BA = .390

Carew (1977) needed only 19 more Walks

AB = 616 - 19 BB = 597 AB ...... 239 Hits / 597 AB = .400
Hit = 239
BB = 69
BA = .388

Gwynn (1994) needed only 7 more Walks

AB = 419 - 7 BB = 412 AB ...... 165 Hits / 412 AB = .400
Hit = 165
BB = 48
BA = .394


P.S.
George Sisler was an amazing hitter....his batting performance is quite unique in the history of BB.


TED Z
.

I understand what you're saying, Ted, but a walk can also replace a hit and therefore lower batting average as well. There are other old-timers who batted near or over .400 who also had walk totals as low or lower than Brett, Carew and Gwynn. Al Simmons, Bill Terry and Harry Heilmann had fairly low totals and Nap Lajoie's were even lower than Sisler's.

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by howard38

I understand what you're saying, Ted, but a walk can also replace a hit and therefore lower batting average as well. There are other old-timers who batted near or over .400 who also had walk totals as low or lower than Brett, Carew and Gwynn. Al Simmons, Bill Terry and Harry Heilmann had fairly low totals and Nap Lajoie's were even lower than Sisler's.

dead ball era is an entirely different critter tho, the ball was rarely replaced in games, the spitter was legal, ball was hard to field, players would accept bribes not to field a ball correctly...etc there's a reason batting avg dropped after 1920 relative to the avg before then.