Trout v. Legendary cards

[todeen]

Originally Posted by Tabe

What's fun about this reply is you didn't answer the question. Do you think Ted's stats would go up playing today? Or would Trout's go up playing in the 1940s? You think Ted hits .400 against the extreme shifts that they play today, with a 2B in shallow RF? No way. But put Trout in the 1940s against no shift?


Actually, yeah, it is absolutely unquestionable. They've been tracking fastball data for years and guys are throwing multiple mph harder now than they were even 12 years ago (2008: 90.9, 2019: 93.4). Do you think pitchers slowed down immediately after Ted retired to about 12 years ago just so the trend could reverse? Nah. Yeah, Ted hit Bob Feller well but how would he do against Aroldis Chapman, throwing 105 from the left side? And so on.

Bottom line: Ted was great but it defies logic to think that baseball is not much harder now than it was 80 years ago.

Personally, I think today's players might not be as good if they played 70+ years ago. I'm not saying that necessarily about Trout, but most players then didn't train as hard, or didn't train exclusively for one sport. They really did take the winters off. Ted Kluszewski was muscular, but he wasn't a chiseled body like some of today's players. Think of the winter Babe Ruth trained and lost weight by working around his farm. That isn't the same as going to a gym for training with experts standing around instructing what to do. There wasn't the same data or video for players to evaluate themselves. If you wanted scouting reports they were much different and taught differently. Ted Williams excelled because he was ahead of his time. He saw hitting as a science and was a precursor of today's science driven baseball training. Tony Gwynn was interviewed by Bob Costas about Teddy Ballgame, and Tony said the way Williams spoke about hitting was beyond anything most people were saying even in the 90s (still before StatCast). Personally, I think Ted Williams would still be able to hit .400 today, but not many players today could replicate their success if they played with Ted, or Hornsby, or Speaker, or Anson.

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