You can make an argument that Yaz's off-season prep work before the 1967 season is a point of inflection for MLB as serious weight training and conditioning got embraced in the subsequent years.
How Much Better Are Players Now?
- Thread starter jon abbey
- Start date
I agree that a player with a .310-.320 OBP wouldn't be a lead-off hitter in the modern game, but there are still plenty of .310-.320 OBP guys getting regular playing time in today's MLB.
The Red Sox have four sub-.310 OBPs in their starting lineup today (Leon, Nunez, Devers, JBJ). Just picking another decent team (by record) at random, looks like the A's have two regular starters sporting OBP below .310 and another at .317 (Lucroy, Piscotty, and Semien respectively).
Sure, some of them are that low as a result of prolonged slumps that they are presumably out of or going to come out of, so they may not be players that will be career .310 OBP guys, but also they're players that provide something valuable enough for teams to suffer a below average OBP...defense, power, youthful potential, etc.
This is completely wrong, outside of them leading off anyway. The league average hitter has a .319 OBP this season, granted that includes pitchers. Maybe Jerry Remy wouldn't be a starter, but he'd at least be Brock Holt and still getting 400 PA a year.
The argument isn’t that people didn’t value obp properly back then, it’s that Remy wouldn’t have been able to maintain that level of production. I used 1977 because it was in the original argument, the angels because they changed their name since then, and remy because we know him.
I'd guess this would be true of players the caliber of Jerry Remy but not for players the caliber of Joe Morgan. The players at the margins would get "marginalized."
I wasn't really making an argument about the different eras, just with shaggydog's notion that players with a .310-.320 OBP or less (then or now) wouldn't make modern lineups. They do. All the time.
Different discussion all together if we're talking about Jerry Remy of 1977 cracking a modern lineup. I agree he doesn't.
You know what, I forgot how much batting averages (and OBP) had dropped over the last few years. But Remy's power was always abysmal, a career .053, and he was only a significant plus defensively in his first two seasons. Maybe he'd be a sub on a regular basis, but I severely doubt a player with that profile would be a starter these days, and I think we all agree he wouldn't be leading off like he was back then.
Pre-knee problems California Angel Remy might make it to the bigs as a utility infielder in today's game. Maybe a Devin Marrero type who provides some value as a shuttle guy for a couple years but once he's out of options, he struggles to stick. No way he gets a starting gig, and certainly no way he makes an All Star team like he did in 1978 (with a .263/.301/.320 slash line at the break).
Assuming this was aimed at my post, I'm not framing the argument how I want, I'm framing it the way the OP did. That players from 40+ years ago wouldn't keep up against today's players. Once you start physically altering the players or changing their training etc, you're completely moving the goalposts of the original argument.
It's just a dumb idea for a thread. How are we defining better here? In his time, who could possibly have been better than Willie Mays? Back in his prime, in the 1960s, there were more great black players in the National League especially, before football and basketball began winning the battle for black athletes. Mookie Betts is a great comp for Willie Mays, size and skill-wise, but is he better than Willie? How many great black players do we have today compared to the 1960s? I would put the Dodgers, Giants, Cards, Pirates of the 1960s against the expansion-diluted teams of today. It would take a few months for the older teams to adjust to 98-mph heat, but then they are all in their 80s by now!
I agree about the 50's part at least. There was basically Robin Roberts and Warren Spahn as the dominant pitchers. The #3 guy in bWAR was Billy Pierce between 1950 and 1959.
Pitchers would get absolutely slaughtered.
2000-2009 had Pedro, Johnson, Schilling, Maddux, Oswalt, Clemens, Santana, Halladay, Smoltz. I can't even imagine how few earned runs those guys would give up during their peaks.
The scouting edge would be huge too. We're not taking into account how well catchers control the running game either vs back then or pitch framing. Steals would be shut down a fuck ton. 50's pitchers didn't slide step. I'm willing to bet they didn't throw over much either, but can't say for sure. Mookie Betts could probably crack 100 steals if he decided to.
I do think the Sea Dogs would be pretty great in any given year back then.
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Yup. He transformed himself after the 1966 season and stunned the locker room the first day of spring training. Then all 5’11 of him — and it may have been 5’10, 185 pounds — carved out a Hall of Fame career. Since then, “muscle bound” may have slipped from the dictionary.
It is not surprising and also has turned substantially on the changing economics of major sports. Players routinely had off season jobs — truck drivers, beer delivery men, whatever. There was no meaningful off season training. They played then put everything aside for 4 to 6 months. That’s why, for example, pro football had 6 pre-season games.
I do wonder about current steeper aging curves amongst hitters, in relation to just how much harder pitchers are throwing now. Take AGon for example. His prime started about a decade ago, lasted about 5 years. It may be that his decline and release were just as much because of all the heat being thrown now as it was aging per se.
He also had major shoulder surgery which zapped him of all his power and he never got it back.
No we don't. I would pick the 1981 Celtics over the GSW in a series without the 3P shot.
Yes, but you forget the other side of this argument. When you take a modern day ballplayer and drop him in the 1950s, he's losing a lot of things that give him a competitive edge.
He'll be wearing ill-fitting and not particularly appropriate jerseys and shoes and gloves. He'll be taking road trips by sleeping on trains; eating room service food; and having regular accommodations. He'll go to the park and be in smoke-filled clubhouses with no weight machines, no stretching coaches, and no massage therapists. As mentioned above, there's no film on your opponent. Pitchers are going to have to bat and may have to throw 150 pitches a game without anything to help recover. There are no anti-inflammatories.
You think these guys will be throwing 99 game after game in these conditions?
These arguments are senseless.