How Much Better Are Players Now?

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,744
Broken out from the Mookie Betts main board thread:

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Personally I don't really pay attention to pre-Jackie Robinson numbers but Joe Sheehan even went much farther than me today on Twitter, a bunch of good ones:

 

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,744
More Sheehan:

"The 1998 Yankees would struggle today. I am deadly serious about that. They’d see more raw stuff by April 5 than they saw all ‘98."

"Pull up some 1970s and 1980s games online sometime. It’s not just a different game, but one played by almost a different species. Just look at the windups and the swings."
 

John DiFool

Member
SoSH Member
May 12, 2007
1,179
Jacksonville, Florida
More Sheehan:

"The 1998 Yankees would struggle today. I am deadly serious about that. They’d see more raw stuff by April 5 than they saw all ‘98."

"Pull up some 1970s and 1980s games online sometime. It’s not just a different game, but one played by almost a different species. Just look at the windups and the swings."
Many 70's contenders often had many starters with K's below 4/9, often below 3. Unimaginable today. One shocking way to look at it: the average K/9 now (8.5) is higher than that of all but 3 pitchers who pitched before 1980 (Nolan Ryan, Sudden Sam McDowell, and Sandy Koufax).

I also recall noting how slow-motion and laid back some old NBA & NHL games seemed, too.
 

DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
SoSH Member
Dec 16, 2010
53,850
Many 70's contenders often had many starters with K's below 4/9, often below 3. Unimaginable today. One shocking way to look at it: the average K/9 now (8.5) is higher than that of all but 3 pitchers who pitched before 1980 (Nolan Ryan, Sudden Sam McDowell, and Sandy Koufax).

I also recall noting how slow-motion and laid back some old NBA & NHL games seemed, too.
Just a random pitcher--HOFer Catfish Hunter, won the Cy Young in 1974, and struck out 143 hitters in 318 IP. Crazy.
 

tonyarmasjr

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 12, 2010
1,120
What if JD wins Triple Crown and Jose Ramirez goes for 50HR/40sb? There's a chance Betts doesn't even finish 2nd in the MVP voting.
It's pretty crazy. There could be 4 guys pushing/over 10 fWAR plus a Triple Crown winner. Can't remember an MVP race with that many deserving guys.

For reference, there have been 20 9+ fWAR seasons by hitters in the last 20 years - 8 of them by Bonds and Trout.
 
Last edited:

Cesar Crespo

79
SoSH Member
Dec 22, 2002
21,588
Would those pitchers in the 70s have more ks if they had pitched less innings? How did bullpen arms do as far as K rates? And how much of it is on hitters?
 

Philip Jeff Frye

Member
SoSH Member
Oct 23, 2001
10,231
Would those pitchers in the 70s have more ks if they had pitched less innings? How did bullpen arms do as far as K rates? And how much of it is on hitters?
Exactly. Those 70s pitchers would be striking out a lot more of today's hitters. Back then, it was considered a crime against baseball to strike out 100 times a season.
 

Al Zarilla

Member
SoSH Member
Dec 8, 2005
58,909
San Andreas Fault
More Sheehan:

"The 1998 Yankees would struggle today. I am deadly serious about that. They’d see more raw stuff by April 5 than they saw all ‘98."

"Pull up some 1970s and 1980s games online sometime. It’s not just a different game, but one played by almost a different species. Just look at the windups and the swings."
I forgot what the source or network was, but I found some extended coverage of the 1946 World Series on TV a while ago. Part of it was the baggy flannel uniforms, but most of the players looked like they were in no hurry getting down to first, or whatever as far as running goes. Looked almost like a Sunday beer league game. One of the fastest appearing players was Ted Williams, which he was never accused of being. I’m sure there are many Yankee WS films out there. When I was little, our Nun teacher marched us down to the basement every year to watch the latest Yankee World Series film on the old projector.
 

Pitt the Elder

Member
SoSH Member
Sep 7, 2013
4,419
Many 70's contenders often had many starters with K's below 4/9, often below 3. Unimaginable today. One shocking way to look at it: the average K/9 now (8.5) is higher than that of all but 3 pitchers who pitched before 1980 (Nolan Ryan, Sudden Sam McDowell, and Sandy Koufax).

I also recall noting how slow-motion and laid back some old NBA & NHL games seemed, too.
I just watched the first inning of the world series in '52, '72, and '92 and it's fascinating to see how the players' biomechanics change as you go back in time. Without doing a detailed analysis, as you go back, both hitters and pitchers look like they generate far less torque than players today. Batters have compact stances with their elbows low and their hands choked up. Pitchers had long, loopy windups but somehow seemed to shortarm their throws and fielders similarly looked like they were doing their best Johnny Damon impersonation. It would be really interesting to do a video analysis on old footage and get estimates on pitching velocity, sprint speed, and exit velocity to see what the empirical difference was.

Also, to the surprise of no one, the game was played so differently as you go back in time. Players were taking very few pitches and were swinging early and often, often with Ichiro-style running swings that produced weak grounders. And, despite the fact I only watched one inning of each game, there were several bunts and bunt attempts, even in 1992.

As a thought experiment, if you took an All League team from 1952, what's the lowest level team in the Red Sox system that would beat them in a 7 game series? For instance, I think the Sea Dogs would beat them easily. I don't think those old-timers could handle 95 mph cheese or guys taking their slow slop out of the yard.
 
Last edited:

SirPsychoSquints

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 13, 2005
5,013
Pittsburgh, PA
I just watched the first inning of the world series in '52, '72, and '92 and it's fascinating to see how the players' biomechanics change as you go back in time. Without doing a detailed analysis, as you go back, both hitters and pitchers look like they generate far less torque than players today. Batters have compact stances with their elbows low and their hands choked up. Pitchers had long, loopy windups but somehow seemed to shortarm their throws and fielders similarly looked like they were doing their best Johnny Damon impersonation. It would be really interesting to do a video analysis on old footage and get estimates on pitching velocity, sprint speed, and exit velocity to see what the empirical difference was.

Also, to the surprise of no one, the game was played so differently as you go back in time. Players were taking very few pitches and were swinging early and often, often with Ichiro-style running swings that produced weak grounders. And, despite the fact I only watched one inning of each game, there were several bunts and bunt attempts, even in 1992.

As a thought experiment, if you took an All League team from 1952, what's the lowest level team in the Red Sox system that would beat them in a 7 game series? For instance, I think the Sea Dogs would beat them easily. I don't think those old-timers could handle 95 mph cheese or guys taking their slow slop out of the yard.
Boston university?
 

shaggydog2000

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 5, 2007
11,483
You guys think the best players on the Seadogs would be better than Stan Musial, Mickey Mantle, and Warren Spahn?
I think if you put them in a time machine from back then and dropped them in today, the level of competition and the way the game is played would be completely different. Starting pitchers weren't throwing all out every at bat because they needed to get through 8 or 9 innings, etc. I think some of the players, if they had grown up in this era, with modern diet, training, and coaching, would be able to play today, and some would be just as good as they were in the 50's or whatever. But some would just not have the exact type of athleticism the game today requires, including being able to use the type of swing that is best adapted to the way the game is played right now. Even players from 10 years ago might not be able to succeed because they had a different swing plane that rewarded hitting against a different type of pitcher than is most common in this exact era. And then the are all the guys who were good enough back then, but in the face of competition from a much larger pool representing a bigger US population, and the added population of foreign born players, just wouldn't be good enough today. Exceptional athletes will still be exceptional, but the middle of the pack and below are just not going to be able to hack it any more. And the vast majority of even very good players would just not succeed they way they did against modern players who are better conditioned, stronger, and have had years of analysis to let them know how to play the game in a more efficient way. Like going all out pitching for 5 innings and then being lifted for a reliever who throws 99.
 

teddywingman

Looks like Zach Galifianakis
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2009
11,172
a basement on the hill
I think if you put them in a time machine from back then and dropped them in today, the level of competition and the way the game is played would be completely different. Starting pitchers weren't throwing all out every at bat because they needed to get through 8 or 9 innings, etc. I think some of the players, if they had grown up in this era, with modern diet, training, and coaching, would be able to play today, and some would be just as good as they were in the 50's or whatever. But some would just not have the exact type of athleticism the game today requires, including being able to use the type of swing that is best adapted to the way the game is played right now. Even players from 10 years ago might not be able to succeed because they had a different swing plane that rewarded hitting against a different type of pitcher than is most common in this exact era. And then the are all the guys who were good enough back then, but in the face of competition from a much larger pool representing a bigger US population, and the added population of foreign born players, just wouldn't be good enough today. Exceptional athletes will still be exceptional, but the middle of the pack and below are just not going to be able to hack it any more. And the vast majority of even very good players would just not succeed they way they did against modern players who are better conditioned, stronger, and have had years of analysis to let them know how to play the game in a more efficient way. Like going all out pitching for 5 innings and then being lifted for a reliever who throws 99.
I agree with most of this. I just don't agree that a 50's era all star team would lose to the Seadogs in a 7 game series.
 

shaggydog2000

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 5, 2007
11,483
I agree with most of this. I just don't agree that a 50's era all star team would lose to the Seadogs in a 7 game series.
I don't know either. Hard to say. But I bet the worst team in the MLB would embarrass an All Star team from the 50's if they were right out of the time machine and had no idea what they were about to face, including the manager. Minor league teams I'm not so sure on.
 

teddywingman

Looks like Zach Galifianakis
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2009
11,172
a basement on the hill
I don't know either. Hard to say. But I bet the worst team in the MLB would embarrass an All Star team from the 50's if they were right out of the time machine and had no idea what they were about to face, including the manager. Minor league teams I'm not so sure on.
Maybe in heaven we get to try things like this.
"Hey God, who was the best Yankees team of the 1950's?"
"That would be the 1953 team."
"Cool. Can we watch them play the 2018 Orioles?"
 

DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
SoSH Member
Dec 16, 2010
53,850
Maybe in heaven we get to try things like this.
"Hey God, who was the best Yankees team of the 1950's?"
"That would be the 1953 team."
"Cool. Can we watch them play the 2018 Orioles?"
The 2018 Orioles aren't going to heaven.
 

Spelunker

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 17, 2005
11,884
I agree with most of this. I just don't agree that a 50's era all star team would lose to the Seadogs in a 7 game series.
Zero doubt for me. They may lose to a top flight college team.

If you think otherwise, you must have a dim view of human progress in the last 60 years.
 

Pitt the Elder

Member
SoSH Member
Sep 7, 2013
4,419
Zero doubt for me. They may lose to a top flight college team.

If you think otherwise, you must have a dim view of human progress in the last 60 years.
Looks like we've hijacked this thread. Maybe a Mod can split these posts into a thread about the evolution of baseball skill or intergenerational team comparisons?
 

teddywingman

Looks like Zach Galifianakis
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2009
11,172
a basement on the hill
New thread would be good.

Future HOF'er Adrian Beltre took Bobby Bonilla's third base job at 19 years old. Bonilla at 35 was nearing the end of a pretty good career that started with the 1986 White Sox, whose catcher was 38 year old Carlton Fisk, and Tom Seaver at 42 was in the last season of his career.

That's just one example of a current player whose degree of separation from another era is Bobby Bonilla.

Oh, and Seaver was taken deep by Hank Aaron in his 7th professional start. He pitched 251 innings with a 122 ERA+ as a rookie. Aaron would hit 3 more off of Seaver in his career.

I believe the level that players are at today is miles beyond the game as it was played in the 50's. But I think you're overstating it when you say that those guys from the 50's would be laughed off the field by a minor league team of today.

My point is that the only reference we can currently use is head to head competition and the overlap of careers.
 
Last edited:

Philip Jeff Frye

Member
SoSH Member
Oct 23, 2001
10,231
This time machine stuff is so much idle speculation. If you went back and took Mickey Mantle to today's game, maybe he'd be a modern day Johnny Manziel who went nuts in the modern media culture, or maybe modern medicine would have made his knee better and he'd have been an even greater player. Not to mention modern nutrition and training and so on. Surely, there would have been players from the 50s whose skill sets are not suited to today's game, but there would have been a lot who were fundamentally talented enough that they'd thrive now, especially with access to stuff today (medicine, training, air travel, videos of pitchers on iPods) that wasn't available then.
 

teddywingman

Looks like Zach Galifianakis
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2009
11,172
a basement on the hill
Yeah I agree with that.

Obviously a lot of players from back then wouldn't make the cut today. The talent pool that mlb is drafting from today is magnitudes beyond what the 1950's provided.

Edit: When I say "a lot of players from back then," I mean to say more than half wouldn't make the cut in today's game. But many of the greats from the past might still be great today.
 

SumnerH

Malt Liquor Picker
Dope
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
31,900
Alexandria, VA
Yeah I agree with that.

Obviously a lot of players from back then wouldn't make the cut today. The talent pool that mlb is drafting from today is magnitudes beyond what the 1950's provided.

Edit: When I say "a lot of players from back then," I mean to say more than half wouldn't make the cut in today's game. But many of the greats from the past might still be great today.
Yes, but it's also a question of experience and training.

I think a lot of 1950s greats would both a) be thoroughly trounced by modern players if they time warped from their primes to today's MLB; and b) be excellent modern players if they were dropped into little league today or came forward at age 18 and had time to adjust to the modern game.
 

Marciano490

Urological Expert
SoSH Member
Nov 4, 2007
62,312
Zero doubt for me. They may lose to a top flight college team.

If you think otherwise, you must have a dim view of human progress in the last 60 years.
What progress are you referring to? You think people with similar training styles or diets are any better today than 50 years ago?
 

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,744
You think people with similar training styles or diets are any better today than 50 years ago?
This made me spend a few minutes looking at men's track records, and actually I expected much more of a jump from 50 years ago, they seem to generally be around 3 or 4 percent improved in the last 50 years. For instance, the men's 10,000M track record was 27:39.4 in 1968 and is 26:17:53 now, 82 seconds faster.

Also Wikipedia has the 25 fastest people in each race, and those are not as 'current decade-centric' as I expected having not looked at these in a while, the men's 1500m record was set in 1998.

So I think it's not that people with similar training styles or diets are that much better athletes than 50 years ago, I think it's baseball-centric training and knowledge and technology that is making most of whatever difference there is.
 

Marciano490

Urological Expert
SoSH Member
Nov 4, 2007
62,312
This made me spend a few minutes looking at men's track records, and actually I expected much more of a jump from 50 years ago, they seem to generally be around 3 or 4 percent improved in the last 50 years. For instance, the men's 10,000M track record was 27:39.4 in 1968 and is 26:17:53 now, 82 seconds faster.

Also Wikipedia has the 25 fastest people in each race, and those are not as 'current decade-centric' as I expected having not looked at these in a while, the men's 1500m record was set in 1998.

So I think it's not that people with similar training styles or diets are that much better athletes than 50 years ago, I think it's baseball-centric training and knowledge and technology that is making most of whatever difference there is.
I think this is correct along with the larger pool of players both internationally and I assume within the country given there are more opportunities for more people to get a chance to play just because of different levels of poverty and greater access to equipment and teams and community.
 

teddywingman

Looks like Zach Galifianakis
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2009
11,172
a basement on the hill
I think this is correct along with the larger pool of players both internationally and I assume within the country given there are more opportunities for more people to get a chance to play just because of different levels of poverty and greater access to equipment and teams and community.
Yes. I think this is correct, along with the post from jon abbey which I believe indicates that our raw talents have changed less dramatically than some here believe.
 

luckiestman

Son of the Harpy
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
32,622
This made me spend a few minutes looking at men's track records, and actually I expected much more of a jump from 50 years ago, they seem to generally be around 3 or 4 percent improved in the last 50 years. For instance, the men's 10,000M track record was 27:39.4 in 1968 and is 26:17:53 now, 82 seconds faster.

Also Wikipedia has the 25 fastest people in each race, and those are not as 'current decade-centric' as I expected having not looked at these in a while, the men's 1500m record was set in 1998.

So I think it's not that people with similar training styles or diets are that much better athletes than 50 years ago, I think it's baseball-centric training and knowledge and technology that is making most of whatever difference there is.
I’ve read that much of the increase is due to technology (track surface and equipment).
 

teddywingman

Looks like Zach Galifianakis
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2009
11,172
a basement on the hill
Yes. I think this is correct, along with the post from jon abbey which I believe indicates that our raw talents have changed less dramatically than some here believe.
Edit, here, to reiterate that the talent pool is 5× bigger now. There's no way to measure this.

I mentioned this earlier, but maybe there is an afterlife, and God will let us watch baseball games. Eternity is a long time and I might get bored... hard telling, not knowing... but I hope to hell God lets us watch baseball. 53 Yanks vs. 2018 Orioles.

I think it was drewdog that pointed out the 2018 Orioles will not be in heaven, and I laughed for a good two minutes at his post. But I hope the gates to heaven are wide, otherwise the '53 Yankees would be missing The Mick!

Also I wouldn't be there to watch maybe.
 

americantrotter

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2005
495
Portland
Is t there something to consider about African American players too? Sure Jackie and others make it, but at what point did that talent level finally get equal shots? Not until at least the 70’s. If you compare today with back then they hamstrung themselves too.

Modern everything makes modern players better, that’s sports across the board. So much of the unevenness is also born out of access. Now we have a truly global talent pool and a much larger one. You have to believe that aside from style of play inclusiveness would be the larger hammer than anything but technology.
 

Cesar Crespo

79
SoSH Member
Dec 22, 2002
21,588
Isn't baseball less dependent on athleticism and more about skill anyway? Out of all the sports, I'd guess MLB and Golf players from the past would fair the best against current competition.
 
Sep 13, 2013
97
If you believe there is a nature component to baseball skill, the increase in population alone (even discounting the 30% of non US players) would suggest that there are more "elite" players today.

Just looking at US population estimates:
1948 - 146.6 million
2018 - 326.7 million

I guess it can be argued that some of those additional would be "elite" guys end up playing other sports.

EDIT: To expand on the last point and further jumble the logic of this post, one constant of elite practitioners of anything that involves mind/body coordination (sports, playing an instrument, woodworking etc.) seems to be early skill acquisition.
I guess this is the nurture argument with the caveat that the nurturing has to occur within a specific time frame.
 
Last edited:

Spacemans Bong

chapeau rose
SoSH Member
I find it pretty hard to believe Mike Schmidt, Eddie Murray and Dave Winfield would struggle to make the majors today. Eddie Murray hit .323 18 years later with a 40 year old body, how does Sheehan riddle that?

There’s some smoke and mirror junkball guys that might struggle today, your Ed Figureoas or Bill Lees, although who knows how radar guys would read those guys today. I’ve heard claims that 79 mph then would be 88 mph today due to where the ball is picked up. There’s some fat guy sluggers who would struggle today, although Sheehan loved Adam Dunn, who was basically a fat guy slugger at the end of his career.

I’m all for suggesting play has improved over time, but this stretches credulity.
 

Cesar Crespo

79
SoSH Member
Dec 22, 2002
21,588
If you believe there is a nature component to baseball skill, the increase in population alone (even discounting the 30% of non US players) would suggest that there are more "elite" players today.

Just looking at US population estimates:
1948 - 146.6 million
2018 - 326.7 million

I guess it can be argued that some of those additional would be "elite" guys end up playing other sports.

I think the level of competition is better today, but mostly due to the floor being raised.
 

Cesar Crespo

79
SoSH Member
Dec 22, 2002
21,588
I find it pretty hard to believe Mike Schmidt, Eddie Murray and Dave Winfield would struggle to make the majors today. Eddie Murray hit .323 18 years later with a 40 year old body, how does Sheehan riddle that?

There’s some smoke and mirror junkball guys that might struggle today, your Ed Figureoas or Bill Lees, although who knows how radar guys would read those guys today. I’ve heard claims that 79 mph then would be 88 mph today due to where the ball is picked up. There’s some fat guy sluggers who would struggle today, although Sheehan loved Adam Dunn, who was basically a fat guy slugger at the end of his career.

I’m all for suggesting play has improved over time, but this stretches credulity.
Prince Fielder did ok. CC Sabathia, Colon, etc. This is what I meant about MLB being less about athleticism. The game is full of fat guys. Pablo Sandoval even.
 

shaggydog2000

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 5, 2007
11,483
Yeah, the rate of improvement in a lot of olympic sports dropped off in the 80's once steroid testing got better. The Hammer throw record for example, was set in 1986. Since then a bunch of records will improve when people improve tech, like the swimsuits that led to all sorts of records in Beijing and then got banned. It's not that humans aren't getting better at these sports and have hit some limits, it's more that the records are distorted by drug use and technology changes, so it's harder to see the clear progress.
 

Boggs26

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 12, 2005
1,152
Ashburnham, MA
I would say it's near certain that the elite players of the 70s and later would still be Major league caliber, though it's arguable if they'd still be elite. Would you take 1975 Joe Morgan (11 bWAR) or 2018 Mookie Betts in a 2018 playoff game?

I think once you go back before the 70s it starts to become questionable how many elite players would even be starters and how many good players would even make rosters. Who is the best player on the Red Sox that you'd want to replace with 1955 Richie Ashburn (6.3 bWAR - in the top 10 in baseball that year) ignoring position? Would he be better than Benintendi? Moreland? Bradley?
 

shaggydog2000

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 5, 2007
11,483
New thread would be good.

Future HOF'er Adrian Beltre took Bobby Bonilla's third base job at 19 years old. Bonilla at 35 was nearing the end of a pretty good career that started with the 1986 White Sox, whose catcher was 38 year old Carlton Fisk, and Tom Seaver at 42 was in the last season of his career.

That's just one example of a current player whose degree of separation from another era is Bobby Bonilla.

Oh, and Seaver was taken deep by Hank Aaron in his 7th professional start. He pitched 251 innings with a 122 ERA+ as a rookie. Aaron would hit 3 more off of Seaver in his career.

I believe the level that players are at today is miles beyond the game as it was played in the 50's. But I think you're overstating it when you say that those guys from the 50's would be laughed off the field by a minor league team of today.

My point is that the only reference we can currently use is head to head competition and the overlap of careers.
But this is the definition of survivor bias. It's only looking at the very few players that were able to cross eras. Which means they must have been incredibly talented to play for that long. Plus, they could adapt slowly to the changes between the eras, and possibly had the right skills and raw abilities to adapt. I think a good number of players from the 50's could adapt to a different era if they were dropped into it as a teenager. But as a 30 year old forced into a completely different style of play, they'd certainly have hard times in their first game.

And as @Philip Jeff Frye mentioned, the guys who succeeded may end up being different ones because of modern medicine and training helping to fix injuries that hampered or ended careers back then. Maybe the best pitching talent of the 50's never made it out of the minors because he threw out his arm and they couldn't do anything to fix it. Maybe if that guy was playing in an era with pitch limits he never has arm problems in the first place and becomes a hall of famer. We really can't tell what would happen with the same players growing up in a different era. Some would be better, some worse, and the competition is definitely higher now.
 

DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
SoSH Member
Dec 16, 2010
53,850
We assume current NBA, NHL and NFL teams would destroy ones from 60s and 70s. I don't think I could articulate why baseball wouldn't be different.

To me a better bar argument would be a current WNBA team against some 60s NBA team.
 

charlieoscar

Member
Sep 28, 2014
1,339
Back in the earlier days (before players got bargaining strength for salaries through a union), most players had to work in the off-season and a lot of them reported to spring training out of shape, Today, players can afford to spend time off-season to train and home skills, to study video tape and things. In general, parks were much larger* so players weren't trying to hit home runs with every swing; therefore, pitching strategy was different and starters weren't trying to throw every pitch as hard as they could. They went deeper into games and still had their fastball when needed. [There was no way of accurately measuring pitch speed but there certainly were pitchers who could "bring it" and who undoubtedly could have improved their speed given today's techniques, training, etc.]

Batters back then didn't have the ways to improve eyesight that today's batters do--Lasik surgery, contact lenses, eye training methods--but there certainly were players whose instincts, reflexes rivaled today's players. And they didn't have the video tape and data on pitchers to study.

*The Red Sox began playing in Huntington Avenue baseball grounds: CF was 530' until it was extended to 635' in 1908. The original Fenway Park had a 324' LF/488' CF (with a deep niche of 510')/405' RF power alley/313' RF. However, the RF line went to ~358' from 1926-30, 1933-35. There was a reduction in LF (312')/CF (388.7')/CF deep niche (420')/RF power alley (382') in 1934. Also, the addition of seats in RF reduced to distance for Ted Williams in 1940 in the power alley and down the line. Fenway was by no means the only park to have vast distances to the fences compared to today's stafia.

All-in-all, you are talking about a different ball game and if the players of yore were given the chance to train and study with today's improved methods and they played in today's parks, I think a fair number of them would succeed.
 

terrynever

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Aug 25, 2005
21,717
pawtucket
This time machine stuff is so much idle speculation. If you went back and took Mickey Mantle to today's game, maybe he'd be a modern day Johnny Manziel who went nuts in the modern media culture, or maybe modern medicine would have made his knee better and he'd have been an even greater player. Not to mention modern nutrition and training and so on. Surely, there would have been players from the 50s whose skill sets are not suited to today's game, but there would have been a lot who were fundamentally talented enough that they'd thrive now, especially with access to stuff today (medicine, training, air travel, videos of pitchers on iPods) that wasn't available then.
I agree with this, too. Not just Mantle. With Babe Ruth, he was 6-foot-2 and 215 in his Red Sox days when the average player was probably 5-9 and 160. So if you want to drop Babe into today's world, picture him as Aaron Judge, and then add in his talent, and his natural uppercut swing. Babe invented launch angle.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

Member
SoSH Member
Jan 23, 2009
20,676
Maine
I agree with this, too. Not just Mantle. With Babe Ruth, he was 6-foot-2 and 215 in his Red Sox days when the average player was probably 5-9 and 160. So if you want to drop Babe into today's world, picture him as Aaron Judge, and then add in his talent, and his natural uppercut swing. Babe invented launch angle.
This is a great point. If we're going to time warp players of the past into the present for a seven game series, do they at least get the benefit of being scaled proportionally to modern norms?
 

SirPsychoSquints

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 13, 2005
5,013
Pittsburgh, PA
This is a great point. If we're going to time warp players of the past into the present for a seven game series, do they at least get the benefit of being scaled proportionally to modern norms?
Everyone can hypothesize however they want, but I believe the premise is they show up to the ballpark and they’re facing X team instead of the 1977 California Angels and their leadoff hitter, Jerry Remy.
 

Boggs26

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 12, 2005
1,152
Ashburnham, MA
This is a great point. If we're going to time warp players of the past into the present for a seven game series, do they at least get the benefit of being scaled proportionally to modern norms?
No, because that's the whole point. Many of the players of the past were undersized (by today's standards), had less "athletic" bodies, and therefore are less likely to be able to compete at today's level. Obviously, if you take the most talented athletes of any era, resize them by today's averages, give them the benefit of modern training, medicine, and nutrition, and then put them on the field they'd probably be fine. But by that standard we could take the best rounders player from the 18th century and they would also likely hold their own in MLB... They just wouldn't even vaguely be the same person they started out as.
 

shaggydog2000

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 5, 2007
11,483
Everyone can hypothesize however they want, but I believe the premise is they show up to the ballpark and they’re facing X team instead of the 1977 California Angels and their leadoff hitter, Jerry Remy.
Great example. Because as much as I like Remy in the booth, as a player a guy with a .310-.320 OBP is not going to be in the lineup these days, let alone leading off. But back then he could steal a few bases...