Enough of just talking about Babe Ruth and how he would do today. That is just boring after a while. We never talk about how other great sluggers of the past could do today. How would Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, and Hank Greenberg do today? Discuss!
xFIP?! I laugh at you!
Enough of just talking about Babe Ruth and how he would do today. That is just boring after a while. We never talk about how other great sluggers of the past could do today. How would Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, and Hank Greenberg do today? Discuss!
Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls - it's more democratic.-Crash Davis
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Like Pujols, except with more walks.Originally Posted by Honus Wagner Rules
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To paraphrase John McGraw, "numbers" are the biggest white elephant ever.
A swing--and a smash--and a gray streak partaking/Of ghostly manoeuvres that follow the whack;/The old earth rebounds with a quiver and quaking/And high flies the dust as he thuds on the track;/The atmosphere reels--and it isn't the comet--/There follows the blur of a phantom at play;/Then out from the reel comes the glitter of steel--/And damned be the fellow that gets in the way. A swing and a smash--and the far echoes quiver--/A ripping and rearing and volcanic roar;/And off streaks the Ghost with a shake and a shiver,/To hurdle red hell on the way to a score;/A cross between tidal wave, cyclone and earthquake--/Fire, wind and water all out on a lark;/Then out from the reel comes the glitter of steel,/Plus ten tons of dynamite hitched to a spark.
--Cobb, Grantland Rice
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I'm not sure to be honest. In my opinion, Gehrig at best matches Frank Thomas peak from 1991-1997. I doubt he would have done better, and it's more likely IMO that he wouldn't have matched Thomas during his prime. Then again, who knows.
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All three of them the same?
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I have Pujols and Gehrig very close for peak, but Foxx trailing Pujols by a decent margin. Eventually, Pujols will overtake Gehrig in the all-time rankings, especially if he tops 600 HRs. I.e, I already have Pujols ahead of Foxx for career value and quite a bit ahead for peak. As for peak, I think Gehrig and Pujols are a coinflip. I need to look at the numbers more to decide whom I think has the better peak of the two.
Last edited by pheasant; 06-25-2012 at 04:12 PM.
No, I think Gehrig would be Pujols with more walks, and of course better durability. Foxx, I think would hit more home runs today, and perhaps his batting average would be a little lower. Maybe he would be like Thome, except with a few all time great seasons throughout his career. Greenberg, it's hard to say. He missed so much time because oh injuries and the war, it's hard to see what kind of hitter he really was.
The amazing thing about Greenberg is his potential. He only had 7 full seasons, and yet in almost each one he hit for a career high in something. His career high for doubles, hits, home runs, RBI, and batting average all came in 5 different seasons.
Foxx trailing Pujols in peak? Have you seen his 1932/1933 seasons?
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I imagine he is a believer in league quality, as am I. So I have no problem stating Pujols peak>Foxx peak
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Better durability? Pujols has been consistently durable in his career, never playing less than 143 games in a single season.
Well you can't beat playing every game of every season.
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Regardless of whether he's more durable or not, Pujols has been consistently durable in his career. I don't think Gehrig crushes him in that department.
League quality or not, Foxx came within .003 batting average points of consecutive triple crowns! This is a league which had perhaps the two best hitters of all time as competition.
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When evaluating the 3, I will use a 10 year peak and look at road stats too.
Here's what I have:
10 year peak
J Foxx, .336/.440/.652
Pujols, .331/.426/.624
Gehrig .350/.457/.660
Road stats, career
J Foxx .307/.405/.561
Pujols .321/.408/.608
Gehrig .351/.458/.644
Foxx's road stats don't stack up. When factoring in league quality, I now have Pujols dusting Foxx. Greenberg might have been as good as Foxx had he not missed all of that time due to the war. But I can't put him anywhere Foxx, let along Pujols and Gehrig.
I have modest adjustments for league quality. Today, I have the brawny Gehrig getting walked more than Pujols while averageing 40 HRs during his peak per year, while hitting .300 with similar OB% and Slugging% to Pujols. I have them as a tossup for peak. PUjols will easily break into the top 10 ever, and probably the top 5 or 6.
I honestly believe that Ruth and Williams are true outliers. But Gehrig and Pujols make great candidates for the 3rd best hitter ever, in my humble opinion.
Last edited by pheasant; 06-25-2012 at 04:53 PM.
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Why more walks. Power hitters as a group got an inordinately high share of walks from 1920 to 1950. Integration stopped that trend. You don't pitch around guys as much when the #8 hitter has 20 home runs.
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just to be fair, Foxx's road numbers would correspond to someone with an overall line of about .314/.415/.578.
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If we adjust walk rates and isolated power for Gehrig to today's rates he would have had about a 163 OPS+. Foxx would have been about 148. Its not entirely fair because the average player might have had a lower batting average in Gehrig's time had they tried to hit more home runs, but Pujols has a better relative batting average than Gehrig and if the average player hit the same share of extra bases and walks today as they did in Gehrig's time, Pujols would have about a 185 OPS+.
Are you by any chance related to Pujols? TOP 5 or 6 best PLAYER ever? REALLY?
How high do you have Frank Thomas?
You are using numbers that show Foxx for his entire career, decline years included, while Pujols is just starting to decline. In a few years, his road stats will be well below Foxx's.
Last edited by willshad; 06-25-2012 at 11:20 PM.
I also think Gehrig's RBI numbers would beat any other player today, by a good margin. People unfairly say that he only drove in so many runs because of Ruth. In 1934 he drove in 165, despite Ruth being washed up, and being the only real offensive threat in the lineup. In 1936 he drove in 152, in 1937 he drove in 159. Sure they had Dimaggio, but Dimaggio didn't have the OBP Ruth had, and he was also taking away a ton of Lou's RBI opportunities. Heck, even when he had the disease, he still drove in 114, which is about what Albert had in some of his prime years.
Gehrig would drive in 150 or more in today's game, unless he was on a really terrible team. There is nobody remotely close to him playing now.
Last edited by willshad; 06-25-2012 at 11:23 PM.
There is more to walking than just being pitched around. Some players are simple more patient while other are more free swingers. Some have better eyes than others. Do you think Eddie Yost was being pitched around when he had 130 walks every season?
The Grand Poobah of Sweat
I'd say 4/3/5.
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Yost doesn't matter in analysing Foxx. My point is that power hitters from 1920-the early 50s got a chunk of extra walks because they were a particular danger. Foxx drew just over 100 walks a year (102) during his 12 straight 30 HR seasons. Pujols has drawn 89-though he also has high IBB totals. I just don't think that walk totals mean that Foxx, Ruth or Gehrig were particularly patient hitters.
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Pujols drove in a higher percentage of his team's runs for his career than Gehrig did in his 11 year prime. Gehrig's teams averaged almost 800 runs excluding his RBI during those 11 years. Pujols teams have averaged about 630 excluding his RBI for his career.
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I believe that if he was playing today, Lou Gehrig would have a decent chance at 800 career Home Runs. He would likely not have to suffer the multiple concussions that he had in his time, because of being able to wear batting helmets, and if he did have a concussion or two, he wouldn't be allowed to come back and play the next day.
There have been multiple medical studies in recent years that have shown that multiple concussions followed by a player coming back too soon from those injuries is what leads to ALS, or ALS type death, and that is likely what happened to Gehrig. There were at least 6 times that Gehrig was hit in the head with a pitch or knocked out on a collision at the plate only to come back and play the next day.
I see Gehrig as a career .320 hitter in modern MLB, 700-800 career HR's, a .427 career OBP, and the Yankees would have a few extra titles in the 2000's. I think Gehrig was just that good and would have been incredible in any era
As good as Pujols is, I see Gehrig as just a little bit better: more speed on the basepaths which led to more triples than Pujols, and a better OBP too. I think Pujols is the #2 1B of All-Time though and the #10 Non-Pitcher of All-Time, with a chance to get to around #5 or #6
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There must be some study you are referring to, but I don't think I've seen it.
AL
*********BB-HR (per 9 innings)
1919-1928 3.3- .35
1929-1945 3.6- .54
1946-1947 3.7- .54
1948-1954 4.0- .67
1955-1962 3.6- .88
1963-1993 3.3- .83
1994-2012 3.4-1.08
I don't see the trend. Historically, there is no correlation between walks and homers.
Do you have a study identifying walks based on a 'power-hitter' criterion? Moreover, the highest level of walks was historically after intergration.
Last edited by drstrangelove; 06-26-2012 at 02:08 PM.
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