Once more on Shohei Ohtani and Babe Ruth

I blogged after the 2021 season that Shohei Ohtani was no Babe Ruth. I said, let's see you do it again.

With the big news of Ohtani officially "qualifying" as both a pitcher and batter, ie, minimum number of innings pitched to be eligible for the ERA title etc, and minimum number of plate appearances to be eligible for the batting title etc., I am ready to modify that.

But, with caveats.

The "qualifying" idea did not exist back in Ruth's day. If it had, he might have pushed his Red Sox manager in 1918 and 1919 for a few more plate appearances in the first year, and a few more innings in the second.

In 1918, Ruth fell THREE plate appearances short of qualifying as a batter in the WWI shortened season (126 games for the BoSox). He easily qualified as a pitcher. 1n 1919, post-WWI shortened, he was 7 innings short of qualifying as a pitcher. He easily qualified as a batter.

As for people saying this is so unique?

That cuts both ways, beyond the issue of a "demarcation problem" and Ruth not knowing and not having 100 years of clairvoyance.

Tis true that Ruth did this in the segregation era, and also the pre-modern era of no relievers, which would have cut his innings in 1919, and also, of no transcontinental travel, with baseball all in the northeastern one-quarter of the country.

On the other hand, Ruth did this without the DH, playing as a batter out in right field.

On the third hand, Ruth did appear to have himself a coke habit. On the issue of "roiding," he possibly (unconfirmed) injected himself with sheep testimacles — once. 

On the fourth hand, he didn't have a batting helmet, shin guards or an arm guard at the plate.

On WAR? Ruth had a combined WAR of 7.0 in 1918. Adjust for a full 162 game schedule and that's 8.9 or 9.0 WAR, what Ohtani did a year ago. In 1919, on a 140 game schedule, he had 9.9 combined WAR. Adjusted to 162 games, that's 10.4 WAR, more than Ohtani this year.