Quote:
Originally Posted by Dryden
If Ruth had not bothered pitching, and he had those six season back as a hitter that even remotely resembled what he'd become, his numbers project out to about 900HR, with career stats very near .350/.480/.750.
|
It's a stretch to say those first 6 years would lead to 900+ home runs. The dead ball era essentially ended in 1920/21 with the abolishment of the spitball, using new/clean balls throughout the game, etc. Even if Ruth was hitting full time I think it's a big stretch to say he would have hit much more than 20/25 a year pre-live ball based on his early HR/AB ratio and the hitting conditions of the time.
In 1917 the league hit .248 while scoring 3.65 runs a game but by 1921 the league was hitting a collective .292 and scoring 5.12 runs a game. While Ruth had a huge impact in making the home run a big part of the game even he couldn't account for such a drastic swing in overall numbers.
On the other side of the coin, his pitching wouldn't have been nearly as good post dead ball. I'm not sure if Ruth threw a spit-ball but it's fairly obvious that his numbers would have fallen apart with the rest of the league. The only two major pitchers off the top of my head who had a relatively long stretch in both era's were torn up (comparatively speaking) in the live ball era. Pete Alexander and Walter Johnson both went from 1.75 type era's to 2.90/3.10's in the live ball.
I would even argue that Ruth potentially quit pitching for a reason other than his hitting potential but I'll save that for another day.
) means: "remarkable in magnitude, degree, or effectiveness." I don't really see a legitimate comparison to anyone else.
