Who is the GREATEST baseball player ever?

[Thump]

Ruth didn't play center. Comparing left or right to center is as ridiculous as comparing second base to center IMO.

Hey, you said Ruth was a terrible fielder and I showed you he wasn't.

You didn't come back with the position argument until I showed you they had similar stats.

 

[buckeyeboy]

Hey, you said Ruth was a terrible fielder and I showed you he wasn't.

You didn't come back with the position argument until I showed you they had similar stats.

I'd imagine that Ruth's career fielding % of .961 is nothing to brag about when it comes to non-centerfield outfielders.

 

[BB73]

We're comparing outfielders.

The best way to compare is stats.

To also measure outfielders, I'd recommend taking a look at putouts per full outfield season.

Mays played 2842 games in the outfield, and made 7095 putouts (ML record).
Ruth played 2130 games in the outfield, and made 4222 putouts.

So Mays would get 384 outs per 154-game season, and Ruth would get 305. Almost 80 outs a year is a huge difference.

 

[Thump]

I'd imagine that Ruth's career fielding % of .961 is nothing to brag about when it comes to non-centerfield outfielders.

Ted Williams played left so what's the difference?

 

[Fungo Squiggly]

To also measure outfielders, I'd recommend taking a look at putouts per full outfield season.

Mays played 2842 games in the outfield, and made 7095 putouts (ML record).
Ruth played 2130 games in the outfield, and made 4222 putouts.

So Mays would get 384 outs per 154-game season, and Ruth would get 305. Almost 80 outs a year is a huge difference.

How many of those would be attributed to the difference in position? A centerfielder SHOULD make more plays than a corner-outfielder.

 

[BB73]

How many of those would be attributed to the difference in position? A centerfielder SHOULD make more plays than a corner-outfielder.

That's true, but Mays' total is the career record for all outfielders.

I don't know the average putouts in a season for a CF and a LF/RF. Where's Bill James?

 

[Fungo Squiggly]

That's true, but Mays' total is the career record for all outfielders.

I don't know the average putouts in a season for a CF and a LF. Where's Bill James?

So we know Mays was a helluve good centerfielder. In other gnu's....

Which makes comparing Ruth's defense to Mays's defense even less meaningful, IMO. There's no real basis for comparison or perspective.

Who would be considered an "average" outfielder of Ruth's era?

 

[BB73]

So we know Mays was a helluve good centerfielder. In other gnu's....

Which makes comparing Ruth's defense to Mays's defense even less meaningful, IMO. There's no real basis for comparison or perspective.

Who would be considered an "average" outfielder of Ruth's era?

I don't really know. And I'm not interested enough to calculate the average LF/RF putouts in Ruth's era and the average CF putouts in the Mays era.

But getting 20 more putouts in a year would seem to have the same value as getting 20 more hits in a year, which should be worth at least .030 on a batting average, and thus very significant.

 

[jimotis4heisman]

Imagine Greg Maddux but hitting 130 home runs a year.

That was Babe Ruth.

Here's a link to his pitching and hitting stats.

http://mlb.mlb.com/stats/historical/individual_stats_player.jsp?c_id=mlb&playerID=121578

i never realized babe had a couple of complete games in the 30s...

nice link thump.

 

[BB73]

Here's a Cobb-Ruth discussion by some real stat-hounds.

baseball-fever

 

[stxbuck]

Babe Ruth-he could easily have made the Hall of Fame as a pitcher if he had pitched for his entire career. In addition, he might have been the best average/power combo ever-only Ted Williams was even close-Ruth hit .356 in 1927, the year he hit 60 home runs.

 

[Jaxbuck]

The only way to compare players from different era's is by how they did vs their contemporaries imo. No one dominated their era like Ruth did.

 

[Dryden]

Babe Ruth, and it's not even close. Ruth dominated his contemporaries as both a pitcher and a hitter. He had single seasons where he was hitting more HRs than entire teams.

 

[willsonphilips]

Babe Ruth, and it's not even close. Ruth dominated his contemporaries as both a pitcher and a hitter. He had single seasons where he was hitting more HRs than entire teams.

True, it's Ruth hands down, not even close. Unless, you take into account what Ted Williams would have done had WWII never taken place. Because of the war Williams essentially missed his prime. The year before he shipped off he won the Triple Crown, and the second year he was back ('47) he won it again. If you average his Triple crown years together and multiple them by the number of years he missed, which I think is fair he could have put up better numbers, Williams ranks 1st alltime in Runs Scored, RBI's, and walks. He ranks 4th in Homers, 5th in doubles, 9th in hits, and probably would have raised his career average to around .350ish which would put him 4th. Pretty good argument, I think.

 

[Buckeye Buh Nim]

Ruth did have some advantadges at the plate.

With another HOF batting in front of him he got more pitches to hit.

IMO, Ruth was the best and greatest player. Baseball was coming off the Black Sox scandal and was in serious trouble when Ruth came along and filled the parks, filled the papers, and kept the sport alive.