My favourite baseball questions are those that require each quantitative information and subjective evaluation to reply. Who’s the best baseball participant of all time? Nicely, I might pull up the profession WAR leaderboards, say Babe Ruth, and name it a day, however that wouldn’t a satisfying technique to attain a conclusion. All of us know that the essence of Ruth — his huge accomplishments and legend — can’t be encapsulated by what number of Wins Above Substitute he was value.
What about Barry Bonds? He ranks second with 164.4 WAR, lower than three wins behind Ruth (167.0), whereas taking part in in opposition to higher competitors; in spite of everything, Bonds wouldn’t have been allowed to play throughout Ruth’s profession. Good level, however there’s the entire steroids factor clouding his legacy. For some time, Mike Trout appeared like a worthy reply due to how a lot better he was than all people else at a time when sabermetrics have been turning into extra mainstream. We might use the info to quantify his excellence after which, every time the numbers alone weren’t convincing, we might say one thing in regards to the superior expertise stage within the sport at this time. Now, in fact, the overwhelming majority of us would most likely reply Shohei Ohtani due to his two-way exploits. We might cite his statistics, however we’d have to incorporate so many {qualifications}, most of which might relate to the truth that he’s pitching and hitting.
I’m not going to disclose my reply on this week’s mailbag as a result of none of you requested for it. As an alternative, I convey this up as a result of it pertains to a unique query {that a} reader named Derek submitted, which we’ll get to in a second. However earlier than we do, I’d prefer to remind all of you that whereas anybody can submit a query, this mailbag is unique to FanGraphs Members. In the event you aren’t but a Member and want to hold studying, you possibly can join a Membership right here. It’s one of the simplest ways to each expertise the location and assist our employees, and it comes with a bunch of different nice advantages. Additionally, when you’d prefer to ask a query for an upcoming mailbag, ship me an electronic mail at mailbag@fangraphs.com.
