The forward pass. Think about how much the potential talent pool has grown, though. The influx of Latin & Asian players, not to mention the growth of the gereral population of the U.S. definitely lessens the impact of expansion.
Also, can anyone make a reasonable argument against raising the mound to the pre-1969 level? Regarding development of new pitches, there's only so many different ways to grip & release a baseball, so I wouldn't expect any revolutionary new developments in that area. You have seen, however, refinements (improvements?) to existing pitches - the splitter/forkball, knuckle-curve, circle change etc....
Some good points, Buck about the Latin and Asian players coming over, but still I think that expansion has diluted the talent level somewhat. And as mentioned earlier in this thread in a response to haven, it seems like to me that the pitchers have increased their talent in a linear fashion while the hitters have increased their talent in an exponential fashion. It is this discrepancy in the improvement rate that has also caused these great hitting seasons, IMO.
Manny: You're being nonsensical. Bill James has addressed the expansion issue in detail. The expansion of teams is drastically overcompensated for by lack of discrimination and expansion into other countries as well as population growth in the US. You like old-time baseball. Fine. But don't try palming off some absurd assertions that the quality was better. It wasn't. You just like low scoring games. Personally, I agree somewhat. I don't want a return to the dead-ball era, but it would be nice for the average scores to be 4-3 or 3-2 again. Bobfinn: In addition to what crispee said, some old hitting/pitching coaches have also said the same thing. Furthermore, I think the case of Nolan Ryan serves as a good example. Ryan was still relatively young once the radar gun started being widely used. During the beginning of his long and illustrious career, he was widely recognized as the hardest throwing pitcher around. However, several people in the modern game have topped his hardest thrown pitch (that was tracked).
Didn't Palmero play 28 games at first a few years ago and win a gold glove? I don't put a ton of stock in gold gloves unless the guy is a great fielder. There are to many time where a guy wins a gold glove solely on his bat. He might end up being the best defensive left-fielder in recent memory by default. But Bonds never came across as a great defensive player, a good one, but not a great one.
Grrr.....haven: I believe that old-time is better. I can't be proven wrong, but I can't be proven right. But that is my story and I'm sticking to it.
Can you be absolutely, without a doubt, proven wrong? No, but when all the correllative evidence points against you... it's usually time to re-evaluate your position. If you think old-timers were better, then give us real reasons why they should be considered so in absolute terms. Players now are stronger while maintaining flexibility. They train for more of the year. There are more people training. Scouting is better. Equipment is better. People are healthier. Medicine is better. We now can correct problems with vision, etc. Teams spend more money on "experts." There are a ton of valid reasons to think that the quality of baseball might have improved. There aren't any to think otherwise, except for your wistful thinking. Stick to your story. But closing your ears and saying "na na na na na, I can't hear you" when someone makes a good case is an awfully bad way to go through life.
Can someone name for me the 20 average foreign pitchers that showed up in 1998 to account for expansion? I don't think it's a coincidence that Maris hits 61 in an expansion year and Big Mac hits 70 in an expansion year. There's no doubt that talent is diluted from one 28 team season to a 30 team season. How long does it take for the talent to reach it's prior levels would be my question.
If modern players are better, then why can't a pitcher win 30 games? a batter hit .400? a batter hit in 56 straight games?
if past players are better how come that can't hit 73 homeruns? how come they didn't have a representative who repeatedly hit 60 like Sosa did?
Pfft. You can do better than that. That's not even an argument for players being superior in the past, as you mistakenly presume. It's an argument for the dominance of the best players being greater than the dominance of the best players now. Players were once able to hit .400 because Ted Williams (etc) was that much better than the guys who were pitching to him. Players achieve relative to the rest of the league. It's utterly impossible to look at performance and say "this proves" that players are better now/were better then, since achievement is relative to one's peers (and managed at their expense). However, we do know that athletes are better these days. We do know that medicine is better, etc. We know that people have more time to train. We know that the population base is larger, even when taking into account expansion. It only stands to reason that the standard of baseball would be superior as well.
1941 Batting Average Williams-BOS .406 Travis-WSH .359 DiMaggio-NYY .357 Heath-CLE .340 Siebert-PHA .334 On-base % Williams-BOS .551 Cullenbine-SLB .452 DiMaggio-NYY .440 Keller-NYY .416 Foxx-BOS .412 Slugging % Williams-BOS .735 DiMaggio-NYY .643 Heath-CLE .586 Keller-NYY .580 Chapman-PHA .543 OPS Williams-BOS 1.286 DiMaggio-NYY 1.083 Keller-NYY .996 Heath-CLE .982 Travis-WSH .930 "Players achieve relative to the rest of the league."
1968 Wins McLain-DET 31 McNally-BAL 22 Stottlemyre-NYY 21 Tiant-CLE 21 Hardin-BAL 18 Won-Loss % McLain-DET .838 Culp-BOS .727 Tiant-CLE .700 Ellsworth-BOS .696 Santiago-BOS .692 Innings McLain-DET 336.0 Chance-MIN 292.0 Stottlemyre-NYY 278.7 McNally-BAL 273.0 McDowell-CLE 269.0 Comp. Games McLain-DET 28 Stottlemyre-NYY 19 Tiant-CLE 19 McNally-BAL 18 Hardin-BAL 16 "Players achieve relative to the rest of the league."
Tell him, Finn. I'm behind you all the way on this one. Just because we have advanced in society today with medicine, strength training, etc. shouldn't automatically mean that we dismiss the old-timers in that they don't "measure" up to today's ballplayers. I'm still waiting for someone to break Hack Wilson's RBI record of 190 in a season....
191 rbi. Remember they added that extra one after looking at old box scores or something. so the ball is as soft as a sock when today's players are good but everything is equal when the old-timers prevail. please. lets face it. baseball changes all the time, sometimes minor, sometimes fundamentally. minor changes give us pitching eras and hitters era. fundamental changes say no one will get to 41 wins again or pitch innings like they used to but people today get a lot more saves than they used to. there's no use arguing who is better outside of era cuz it was so different. again, i say you would do as relatively good in any era as you did in your own era. if you think mclain won 31 just cuz he's better than anyone else today then you are mistaken. and bonds didn't hit 73 just b/c he is phenomally better than anyone (meaning superstars) from previous times. from an entertainment standpoint i don't think baseball wants to go back to low scoring games so i don't envision steps being taken (raising the mound, softening the ball) to stop this offensive era anytime soon. but maybe one day they will and we will be amazed by a guy who hits 44 and people will try to say, yeah but he couldn't hit 73 like barry and someone else will have this argument too.
Shouldn't you mention that 1968 was the reason they lowered the mound? It was the "Year of the Pitcher" after all - because of that, they shrunk the zone and lowered the mound. Relative to his peers, McLain wasn't as dominant as say, Randy Johnson is today, or Greg Maddux was in the mid-90's. AND, shall we chart McLain's career after that magical season - he almost duplicated it the next year, with 24 wins, and 325IP - then he fell apart, lost his fastball and was out of baseball by 1973, think it had anything to do with pitching nearly 700 innings in two years? Thats why no one will win 30 games, to make enough starts to do so would seriously damage the arm, especially considering there is far more stress on the arm nowadays than in 1968. And Barry Bonds was similarly dominant last year, as Williams was in 1941, except he did it against a vastly greater talent pool, I mean put Barry Bonds in 1941 and he would Dwarf those numbers . . . in the Negro Leagues, because a wealth of talent was not allowed to play in the majors. And as for 56 games straight - its nearly a statistical impossibility, the amount of luck involved would probably make it impossible to achieve. Kudos to Joe, but I don't think its a measure of how great players are, rather just how impressive that run was.
Ok, lets play your game of sticking players where they don't belong. Lets stick Ted Williams in the 2001 season. A juiced ball, pitchers who shouldn't be in the majors and tiny ballparks. He would dwarf Bonds numbers. Hell, if we put Ruth in the 2001 season, he could probably hit over 100 HR's. True they lowered the mound after that season. Do you think they will change anything in today's game because of players hitting 70 HR's on a regular basis? Take today's batting records for what they are worth. Today's game is geared toward hitting. And yet no one can hit .400. Boggles my mind.
and yet people used to be able to hit 400 but not hit 70 homers, boggles the mind. see the game you are playing, you just keep taking stats out of different eras and acting like they were valid but nothing today is valid as if this is the only time offense has ever been big. before 1941 I don't know how many people hit 400, but it was several. didn't teddy ballgame play 1 or 2 or 10 seasons after his last 400 season. why couldn't he do it again. because the game changed. maybe not drastically in those 10 years but since 400 was already hard it wouldn't take much to stop it. do you really think no one ever hit 400 again just b/c they suck worse now. i mean i'm sure everyone probably does suck worse than williams but he was damn amazing. the pitchers era started coming in, relievers who could replace tired pitchers came along, people started swinging harder with two strikes. as for the last reason, that's why they hit more homers now and don't get the average. the opposite is why they could have higher averages but not hit as many homers. as for wilson's 191 rbi, hell that came in maybe the most super-juiced ball period of all time (at least based on what people say about it since i wasn't exactly alive). i think it was 1930 and and 30-31, there are several records that still exist i think. highest team era, most runs scored by a team in a year, rbi, only team to never be shutout (31 yankees?).
