Of GOATs and men

 

It now seems likely—especially if the rest of the major leagues keep pitching him as mindlessly as the Yankees did—that Shohei Ohtani will break Aaron Judge's short-lived, Real Original Home Run Record.

This will, of course, trigger all the more, MLB-inspired acclamations that Ohtani is the greatest all-around player what ever lived. 

Hey, what can I say? He certainly is an outstanding ballplayer, hitting, pitching, and rocking a sleeveless sweater vest like nobody's business.

Ohtani should look to his laurels, though. Coming up fast behind him is MLB's newest p.r. project, Ronald Acuna, Jr., who an AP story last weekend was calling maybe the greatest "power-speed player" that ever was.

AP's reasoning? 

Well, currently at 23 home runs and 44 stolen bases, Acuna has a chance to become the fifth ever, 40-40 player—40 dingers, 40 steals. 

What's more, we were told, his future could be almost unlimited. What is to stop him, this year or the next, from going on to 40-plus homers and 60, or 70, or 80 steals for the season, which would indeed make him the greatest power-speed guy ever?

Hey, not to take anything away from either Ohtani or Acuna. Both are extraordinary players who are a joy to watch. But their being hailed as The Greatest of All Time at anything is indicative mostly of how MLB deliberately misuses statistics—and why the game is so bad today.

It used to be that you decided "the greatest ever" after the fact. No more. Now, the selective use of statistics can tell you the future today.

Shohei Ohtani, great as he is, will not come close to Babe Ruth—among others—in any of the lifetime stats, old or new, that matter most: runs, RBI, home runs, batting average, OPS, OPS-plus, wins, complete games, shutouts, relative dominance of the era they're playing in, etc.

MLB's commentators know this—which is why we get bombarded with claims such as, "Ohtani has more strikeouts," or "Ohtani has been a combination pitcher/position player longer than Ruth ever was." 

But of course, Ohtani is not really a pitcher/position player at all. He has never recorded a single chance in the field save on the mound. When he is not pitching, he is a Designated Hitter, a "position" that did not even exist until 1973. 

It's nice that he strikes out a lot of guys—as everyone does, in an era when nearly all batters swing from the heels on every pitch. What he can't do, usually, is pitch into the eighth inning, something he has achieved only 6 times in his 81 lifetime starts. He isn't close to becoming what the Babe was in his time, which was the dominant, left-handed pitcher in the game.

The "power-speed" calculation is even more contrived. 

The four previous, 40-40 guys Aruna is supposedly chasing were Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds, old friend Alex Rodriguez, and Alfonso Soriano. Three of them were infamous juicers. (Funny to think that good old Soriano is the only legitimate 40-40 guy.)

But in any case...this is the standard?

Bobby Bonds, sire of Barry, came within a single home run of becoming a 40-40 guy back in 1973. No one much cared. 

Then there's Rickey Henderson, who only hit 297 homers, stole 1,406 bases, and flagged down a mind-boggling, 6,468 outfield putouts, third on the all-time list.

Think Rickey might have stolen even more bases with the special, super-size bags of today, and limits on throw-overs to first?

I think so. In fact, I did the algorithms. According to my calculations, the exact number of bases that Rickey would have stolen under present conditions, + or - 4, is...a bajillion. He would have stolen a bajillion bases.

But forget Rickey. What about Ken Griffey, Jr., who stole as many as 24 bases in a season, and finished 9th on the all-time putout list, before his legs started to go?

What about Mickey Mantle, clocked the fastest man ever to first, as 3.1 seconds, and whose stolen base rate of 80.1 percent is a little ahead of Aruna's 79.5%?

What about Henry Aaron, 9th on the all-time putout list, with a record 755 home runs, and 240 stolen bases? What about...oh, who was that guy...FIRST on the all-time putout list, 660 home runs, 339 stolen bases, despite losing two years to the Army...?

Oh, yeah. Willie Mays. We're ready to say that Ronald Acuna, Jr., is a better "power-speed" guy than Willie Mays?

In a pig's eye.

Supposedly, too, Jolting' Joe DiMaggio was very fast, but they never ran him. Hell, for that matter, even Babe Ruth stole home ten times. 

I could go on. (And do!) But the fact is that all of these ballplayers played a different—usually much smarter—brand of ball in their eras. They ran as much as they thought it was a good idea—and they didn't try to strike everybody out, or swing for the fences on every pitch.

The one argument the presentists might have is that some of these GOATs played before the smashing of the color line in 1947.

Even this is mitigated by the fact that many of the best Black athletes today choose football and basketball over baseball. 

But the hypocrisy of the commentators is revealed by the fact that, somehow, none of the greatest Negro League players ever figure into these conversations.

Martin Dihigo, an incredible player, inducted into the American, Cuban, and Mexican baseball halls of fame, used to be a top-flight pitcher, and played nearly every other position on the field. Ted "Double-Duty" Radcliffe was considered an outstanding pitcher and catcher...to name just two among many other Negro League stars who pitched and played the field.

To be sure, it is more difficult to measure exactly how good Black players were before 1947, because the statistics are limited or incomplete.

But that's just the point. MLB and the baseball press want to rely only on the stats—and only on the stats they like. 

What you end up with is comparing sprinters to marathoners. The players we generally think of as the true, Greatest of All Time, played at least 15, 20, even 25 years.

MLB's GOATs of today...have trouble just staying on the field. Ohtani has missed an average of 23 games a year so far. Acuna, 32. Aaron Judge, whose record-breaking I thrilled to last year, in what really was one of the greatest seasons of the modern era, averages 33 missed games a year, and counting. And all those numbers would be even worse without the Covid epidemic of 2020.

These incessant injuries to the greatest ever is all too indicative of baseball as it's played today. (Shocking fact I heard yesterday on the Mets' broadcast: 19 of the 30 MLB teams have not yet had a starter pitch into the 8th inning this year.) 

As Kevin pointed out recently, today's trainers somehow think that the regular wear-and-tear of playing the long season is not a workout on its own.  It is.

Today's game is full of shiny, pretty things, that are played full-speed, all the time, until they break. Which they do constantly. Then we're told, never mind, that while they were out there, they were the best there ever was. 

I'm not buying it. Endurance counts, too. Give me 20 years of Ronald Acuna, Jr., and then I'll tell you if he's better than Willie Mays. Say hey.