OK, so I’m listening: A lot of you have asked for more quick hits — short two- or three-minute reads to go along with the usual array of long features, rabbit hole journeys and deep dives that you find here on JoeBlogs.
There was an outstanding 307 page book published in 1997 called The Babe in Red Stockings. It is an
in depth, almost daily, chronicle of Babe Ruth with the Red Sox in the 1914-1919 period in which the Babe served the dual roles as both a pitcher and every day position player (1918-1919). The authors are Kerry Keene, Raymond Sinibaldi, and David Hickey. I doubt there ever has been a written such a comprehensive book on the Babe's career with the Red Sox.
My brother, my best friend, and I were discussing Joe's idea of the Shohei Award and trying to come up with a fun name for it, especially one with an obvious corporate sponsor. We workshopped a few:
The Baby Ruth Award (for obvious reasons) presented by Ferrero
The Thunderstruck Award presented by AC/DC (because we're trying to stay current with our references)
The Two-Face Award presented by DC Comics (since Ohtani is a Batman half the time)
The Batman and Lobbin' Award presented by DC Comics
And then we hit on the winner, something that captures Ohtani's two-way genius and has a perfect corporate tie-in: The Arm & Hammer Award.
Can you please make this happen, Joe? We really want to see Ohtani win the Arm & Hammer Award for the next decade.
Maybe it’s time, especially with the changes coming next year to the schedule, for the league - all of MLB - to add a most outstanding player award. Name it after an all-time great and give it to the best all around player in the league. I’ve always thought there is a distinction between who is most valuable and who is best. Ohtani seems a good reason to get on with it.
"Is it too late to create a Shohei Ohtani Award, a trophy we could hand over to the amazing Ohtani every year? We’ve never seen anything like him. Not in this sport. Not in any sport, really.
"I’m in awe of everything he does — when he hits, when he pitches, when he does his Usain Bolt imitation running to first base. In a world with Tony Awards, Grammy Awards and Emmy Awards, shouldn’t there be an (Oh!)Tani Award, for the most superhuman creature in sports? Let this man walk his own red carpet. I’d stop by to applaud.
"But there’s a special reason we need that award this year. It’s that we can’t just give Shohei that MVP hardware every year simply because no one else exists on our planet who can do these things he does. We need to allow space in our brains, and in our trophy cases, for those years when we have another choice — and in this case, a better choice."
As others have noted, Ruth was never a fully two-way player - by 1918 when he started making significant appearances in the field and at the plate, his number of pitching starts was down to 19 (half what it had been in 1916 and 1917). He was really only a full time starting pitcher for two years! Of course, to be fair, if he could have gotten 500 at-bats playing DH when not pitching, maybe he would have stuck at it longer.
Actually his 1918 season is kind of fascinating. He started off just being a pitcher and then after being in the rotation all of April he only started 8 games from May to July. Then in August he started 7 games. Through May 4, he didn't play in the field (probably not true, I'm just looking at batting orders in B-ref, so he could have played in the field before then just didn't start). Anwyay, he pitches on 5/4/1918, then in the next game he is playing 1B. And then during the May to July months, he pretty regularly plays either 1B or LF. Finally in August, he starts pitching in the rotation and then in the off days plays in the field..
Here is the Real fun part. On 5/4/18 he pitched and batted 9th. On 5/6 (the next game) he played 1st and batted 6th. Then moved up to 4th for a couple games and did bat 4th and pitch on 5/9. But the next time he started, (5/15), he batted 9th. And when he started on 6/2 he batted 9th. And when he started Game One of the WS, he batted 9th. It was almost like Boston's manager felt like when he pitched he was a different player, not the guy who led the league that year in HR, SLG and OPS.
In 1918 he threw 166 innings (more than Ohtani threw this year) and played 75 games in the field; in 1919 he threw 133 innings (more than Ohtani last year) and played 112 games in the field.
How does this not count as being fully a two-way player? Because he didn’t throw 350 innings like starters used to back then? That’s not really a fair standard, in my opinion.
It’s kinda silly to compare Ruth and Ohtani for many reasons but I definitely think Ruth was a legit, full-time two-way player for two seasons.
Well, I said why - in 1918 his starts dropped to 19, and further to 15 in 1919. It’s true that he pitched a fair number of innings - he completed 18 of those 19 starts - but again, 19 is half the number of starts he made in 1916 and 1917. You’re absolutely right that the comparison is kind of apples to oranges anyway, which I acknowledged by noting that Ruth’s pitching career might well have been different if the DH existed in 1918, but by deadball standards 166 innings is not a full-time workload, especially when he pitched over 320 innings in each of the previous two years. And he only played in 95 total games including his games in the field. 1919 is maybe a better argument since he played 130 total games - but he made just 15 starts and 17 total appearances as a pitcher. Even today 15 starts isn’t a full time starter for someone who pitches the whole season. And those starts were mostly early in the season; once the Red Sox had faded, he was mostly used as a hitter for the draw of his home runs. That’s not full time two-way play IMO.
In 1918 the U. S. Government promulgated "Work or Fight" rules which required all able bodied men to serve his country by either joining the Armed Forces or working in a war- related industry. By agreement with the Government the regular baseball season ended on September 1. Thus Babe Ruth probably lost several pitching opportunities and many plate appearances during 1918.
i would point out that the Red Sox only played 126 games in 1918 and 137 games in 1919 (rather than full 154 game schedule) due to WWI and world wide Spanish Flu pandemic. So his IP were bound to go down some anyway.
It just seems by the standards you’re applying there effectively *couldn’t* be a full time two-way player back then. If the standard is start 45 games and throw 350 innings and play the field (not DH) in the other days, then I don’t think anybody could do that back then or now.
So the argument isn’t that Babe Ruth wasn’t a two-way player, it’s more that nobody could possibly be a two-way player until the advent of the DH and the massive reduction in starting pitcher innings.
The way I see it, in 1918 and especially 1919, Ruth basically did what Ohtani has done—he literally threw more innings than Ohtani did. So that’s good enough for me.
I dunno - he's DHing because the team has decided that's best for him. In Japan, he played in the field, too - and would rather do that in the Show, also. And yes, I am aware they play a much shorter season in Japan (which, by the way, I think makes his play there roughly equivalent to Ruth's '18 and '19 seasons), and I don't begrudge the Angels for his usage - in fact, I think it's the best way to use him to prolong his career.
Question: why when Ohtani pitches do the Angels lose the DH? I always used to think that the rule was that the DH could replace any position player in the lineup, but that in practice the pitcher was always the weakest hitter so teams never tried it. Of course, in Ohtani’s case, he would hit and the Angels would get to replace a different position with the DH. I really think this should be the rule.
Some people say that conventional (advanced) stats undervalue Ohtani. I honestly don’t buy it. But I do think that a few of the *rules* of baseball, and the way he is deployed (as a permanent DH), undervalue his abilities. Some of them have been modified, like the one allowing him to stay in the game as DH once he’s done pitching. But baseball has developed through the years as a sport where pitchers aren’t supposed to be able to hit, and it would be interesting to see an analysis of how much that affects how Ohtani is (and can be) used.
In the major and minor leagues the DH, by rule, has always applied just to the pitcher's spot in the batting order. (In other levels of baseball, such as high school, it may apply to any defensive player). Until recently, if the pitcher began the game in the batting order, his team could not have a designated hitter during the game. I think a special rule was recently added to the baseball rules to allow a pitcher like Ohtani to move to the DH spot when he leaves the game as a pitcher.
I am looking for ways to honor both. JoeBlogs says to create a new award. Clever,, but we need something concrete. Something to do so that research in 10 years will easily reveal the unique season Shohei has. I know one could always google "best pitcher in last decade with highest batting stats. But we have MVP and CyYoung for a reason. Easy to list, such as list of all MVPS in history of MLB. We need to this to both honor him and for legacy. So,m what do we do with Shohei...
Well I love Babe Ruth. But he stated on at least one occasion that he didn’t think he could be as effective a hitter if he kept pitching (and vice versa I believe) so he opted to let the pitching go. So to say he wasn’t given the opportunity isn’t correct. Now if they had the DH then he may have thought “Oh, I can do that and pitch too. “
I just wanted to point out that the Yankees didn't make Ruth a full time outfielder. He insisted to the Red Sox in 1919 on being used only as an everyday player. Once the conversion was made, he set the major league records for homeruns in a season. He wasn't interested in being a 2-way player.
Rabbit hole time - you mention the Frost Tower in Austin, Texas where I grew up. I noticed a quote from the 'Bard of South Austin' - the late, great John Kelso - always worth a read and a few chuckles or outright guffaws back when you had the Austin-American Statesman physically delivered to your doorstep.
I think it should be across all sports, called the Thorpe Award, and be awarded to someone who does something unprecedented in a single sport or demonstrates excellence in multiple sports.
Not every winner will be mind-boggling, in the same way that some MVPs have greater years than others, but it would still be fun. For example, Mookie Betts bowling multiple 300s maybe isn't as amazing as what Ohtani or Deion have done, but it's still pretty freaking cool.
There's already a Jim Thorpe Award, but it's given to the best college defensive back—which seems awfully limited in scope compared to Thrope's greatness. It'd be like giving the Jim Brown award to the best college lacrosse midfielder—a nice award for the recipient, for sure, but it hardly speaks to who Jim Brown was.
I love this idea - and after Shohei retires it could be given to the best "all-around" player -- so if there isn't a hitter/pitcher type person, you give it to the player who provides the best combo of offense, defense, steals, etc.
Or you retire the award until another legit hitter/pitcher comes along.
I have to say that I'm completely sick of the Ohtani/Judge MVP thing and a bit sick of MVPs in general. Speculating about who will win actual statistical categories is more interesting than who will win a vote. Although I suppose "who will win the MVP vote" is a bit like asking who will win WAR, which is a statistical category (yes, I know that the WAR leader and the MVP winner do sometimes diverge, even in recent seasons). But I do think the emergence of WAR has made MVP talk 90% less interesting.
I really do think there are potentially a good half-dozen guys who could be average or above hitters and pitchers at the same time, if not Ohtani-like talents. I think we have the impression there aren't any because we have seen what pitchers do when forced to hit, and it's not pretty. There's maybe one candidate active at any given time to be an average major league hitter. But I think the problem is that we're starting with pitchers and seeing how many of them can hit. There are so many position players with great arms, who have the requisite velocity, that I think some of these guys could have been good pitchers. It really just comes down to whether they could develop breaking balls and command. I don't know that there's the incentive to develop them, and I don't know that it would be worth the investment and derailing them from their surer path if they failed, but I do think thinking of hitters who could pitch, and not pitchers who could hit, is the way to go.
Stan Musial signed and started out as a pitcher. He developed a sore arm and so switched to a position player. We were all lucky with that one.
Many great players both pitched and batted better than anyone around them in high school. Until Shohei l, they always chosen one or the other. Greene, the flame throwing rookie for the Reds was a 2 way layer. There were plenty of people who thought he could have made on either path. I was disappointed they didn’t allow him to try both.
Mark McGwire was first drafted as a pitcher, John Olerud was an excellent two-way player in college, and I’m sure there are many other examples. I have no doubt that if everybody who could’ve possibly been a two-way player trained to be one, we would’ve had a dozen Ohtanis before Ohtani.
But they didn’t, which is what makes Ohtani so special. And I’m not sure they will now, as baseball seems to be becoming more specialized, not less.
To your point, in highschool Aaron Judge had a 1.12 ERA and .115 batting average against. Not saying he could have made it as a pitcher but the talent is there for him and a lot of other guys.
How much could we think about two-sport stars as a precedent for Ohtani? Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson were almost as impressive, right? In a way, Ohtani is a two-sport star; it's just that both his sports are baseball.
Of course, Ohtani is better at both pitching and hitting than either Bo or Deion were at baseball. Were there ever any two-sport players who played at an *all-star* level in both sports like Ohtani does? (How good a bowler is Mookie Betts...?)
There was an outstanding 307 page book published in 1997 called The Babe in Red Stockings. It is an
in depth, almost daily, chronicle of Babe Ruth with the Red Sox in the 1914-1919 period in which the Babe served the dual roles as both a pitcher and every day position player (1918-1919). The authors are Kerry Keene, Raymond Sinibaldi, and David Hickey. I doubt there ever has been a written such a comprehensive book on the Babe's career with the Red Sox.
My brother, my best friend, and I were discussing Joe's idea of the Shohei Award and trying to come up with a fun name for it, especially one with an obvious corporate sponsor. We workshopped a few:
The Baby Ruth Award (for obvious reasons) presented by Ferrero
The Thunderstruck Award presented by AC/DC (because we're trying to stay current with our references)
The Two-Face Award presented by DC Comics (since Ohtani is a Batman half the time)
The Batman and Lobbin' Award presented by DC Comics
And then we hit on the winner, something that captures Ohtani's two-way genius and has a perfect corporate tie-in: The Arm & Hammer Award.
Can you please make this happen, Joe? We really want to see Ohtani win the Arm & Hammer Award for the next decade.
Maybe it’s time, especially with the changes coming next year to the schedule, for the league - all of MLB - to add a most outstanding player award. Name it after an all-time great and give it to the best all around player in the league. I’ve always thought there is a distinction between who is most valuable and who is best. Ohtani seems a good reason to get on with it.
Jayson Stark wrote this yesterday.
"Is it too late to create a Shohei Ohtani Award, a trophy we could hand over to the amazing Ohtani every year? We’ve never seen anything like him. Not in this sport. Not in any sport, really.
"I’m in awe of everything he does — when he hits, when he pitches, when he does his Usain Bolt imitation running to first base. In a world with Tony Awards, Grammy Awards and Emmy Awards, shouldn’t there be an (Oh!)Tani Award, for the most superhuman creature in sports? Let this man walk his own red carpet. I’d stop by to applaud.
"But there’s a special reason we need that award this year. It’s that we can’t just give Shohei that MVP hardware every year simply because no one else exists on our planet who can do these things he does. We need to allow space in our brains, and in our trophy cases, for those years when we have another choice — and in this case, a better choice."
As others have noted, Ruth was never a fully two-way player - by 1918 when he started making significant appearances in the field and at the plate, his number of pitching starts was down to 19 (half what it had been in 1916 and 1917). He was really only a full time starting pitcher for two years! Of course, to be fair, if he could have gotten 500 at-bats playing DH when not pitching, maybe he would have stuck at it longer.
Actually his 1918 season is kind of fascinating. He started off just being a pitcher and then after being in the rotation all of April he only started 8 games from May to July. Then in August he started 7 games. Through May 4, he didn't play in the field (probably not true, I'm just looking at batting orders in B-ref, so he could have played in the field before then just didn't start). Anwyay, he pitches on 5/4/1918, then in the next game he is playing 1B. And then during the May to July months, he pretty regularly plays either 1B or LF. Finally in August, he starts pitching in the rotation and then in the off days plays in the field..
Here is the Real fun part. On 5/4/18 he pitched and batted 9th. On 5/6 (the next game) he played 1st and batted 6th. Then moved up to 4th for a couple games and did bat 4th and pitch on 5/9. But the next time he started, (5/15), he batted 9th. And when he started on 6/2 he batted 9th. And when he started Game One of the WS, he batted 9th. It was almost like Boston's manager felt like when he pitched he was a different player, not the guy who led the league that year in HR, SLG and OPS.
In 1918 he threw 166 innings (more than Ohtani threw this year) and played 75 games in the field; in 1919 he threw 133 innings (more than Ohtani last year) and played 112 games in the field.
How does this not count as being fully a two-way player? Because he didn’t throw 350 innings like starters used to back then? That’s not really a fair standard, in my opinion.
It’s kinda silly to compare Ruth and Ohtani for many reasons but I definitely think Ruth was a legit, full-time two-way player for two seasons.
Well, I said why - in 1918 his starts dropped to 19, and further to 15 in 1919. It’s true that he pitched a fair number of innings - he completed 18 of those 19 starts - but again, 19 is half the number of starts he made in 1916 and 1917. You’re absolutely right that the comparison is kind of apples to oranges anyway, which I acknowledged by noting that Ruth’s pitching career might well have been different if the DH existed in 1918, but by deadball standards 166 innings is not a full-time workload, especially when he pitched over 320 innings in each of the previous two years. And he only played in 95 total games including his games in the field. 1919 is maybe a better argument since he played 130 total games - but he made just 15 starts and 17 total appearances as a pitcher. Even today 15 starts isn’t a full time starter for someone who pitches the whole season. And those starts were mostly early in the season; once the Red Sox had faded, he was mostly used as a hitter for the draw of his home runs. That’s not full time two-way play IMO.
In 1918 the U. S. Government promulgated "Work or Fight" rules which required all able bodied men to serve his country by either joining the Armed Forces or working in a war- related industry. By agreement with the Government the regular baseball season ended on September 1. Thus Babe Ruth probably lost several pitching opportunities and many plate appearances during 1918.
i would point out that the Red Sox only played 126 games in 1918 and 137 games in 1919 (rather than full 154 game schedule) due to WWI and world wide Spanish Flu pandemic. So his IP were bound to go down some anyway.
It just seems by the standards you’re applying there effectively *couldn’t* be a full time two-way player back then. If the standard is start 45 games and throw 350 innings and play the field (not DH) in the other days, then I don’t think anybody could do that back then or now.
So the argument isn’t that Babe Ruth wasn’t a two-way player, it’s more that nobody could possibly be a two-way player until the advent of the DH and the massive reduction in starting pitcher innings.
The way I see it, in 1918 and especially 1919, Ruth basically did what Ohtani has done—he literally threw more innings than Ohtani did. So that’s good enough for me.
I dunno - he's DHing because the team has decided that's best for him. In Japan, he played in the field, too - and would rather do that in the Show, also. And yes, I am aware they play a much shorter season in Japan (which, by the way, I think makes his play there roughly equivalent to Ruth's '18 and '19 seasons), and I don't begrudge the Angels for his usage - in fact, I think it's the best way to use him to prolong his career.
Question: why when Ohtani pitches do the Angels lose the DH? I always used to think that the rule was that the DH could replace any position player in the lineup, but that in practice the pitcher was always the weakest hitter so teams never tried it. Of course, in Ohtani’s case, he would hit and the Angels would get to replace a different position with the DH. I really think this should be the rule.
Some people say that conventional (advanced) stats undervalue Ohtani. I honestly don’t buy it. But I do think that a few of the *rules* of baseball, and the way he is deployed (as a permanent DH), undervalue his abilities. Some of them have been modified, like the one allowing him to stay in the game as DH once he’s done pitching. But baseball has developed through the years as a sport where pitchers aren’t supposed to be able to hit, and it would be interesting to see an analysis of how much that affects how Ohtani is (and can be) used.
In the major and minor leagues the DH, by rule, has always applied just to the pitcher's spot in the batting order. (In other levels of baseball, such as high school, it may apply to any defensive player). Until recently, if the pitcher began the game in the batting order, his team could not have a designated hitter during the game. I think a special rule was recently added to the baseball rules to allow a pitcher like Ohtani to move to the DH spot when he leaves the game as a pitcher.
I am looking for ways to honor both. JoeBlogs says to create a new award. Clever,, but we need something concrete. Something to do so that research in 10 years will easily reveal the unique season Shohei has. I know one could always google "best pitcher in last decade with highest batting stats. But we have MVP and CyYoung for a reason. Easy to list, such as list of all MVPS in history of MLB. We need to this to both honor him and for legacy. So,m what do we do with Shohei...
Babe wasn’t given the opportunity to do both.
I have no doubt he would have been just as astonishing.
Well I love Babe Ruth. But he stated on at least one occasion that he didn’t think he could be as effective a hitter if he kept pitching (and vice versa I believe) so he opted to let the pitching go. So to say he wasn’t given the opportunity isn’t correct. Now if they had the DH then he may have thought “Oh, I can do that and pitch too. “
Thank you for the insight.
I just wanted to point out that the Yankees didn't make Ruth a full time outfielder. He insisted to the Red Sox in 1919 on being used only as an everyday player. Once the conversion was made, he set the major league records for homeruns in a season. He wasn't interested in being a 2-way player.
Rabbit hole time - you mention the Frost Tower in Austin, Texas where I grew up. I noticed a quote from the 'Bard of South Austin' - the late, great John Kelso - always worth a read and a few chuckles or outright guffaws back when you had the Austin-American Statesman physically delivered to your doorstep.
I think it should be across all sports, called the Thorpe Award, and be awarded to someone who does something unprecedented in a single sport or demonstrates excellence in multiple sports.
Not every winner will be mind-boggling, in the same way that some MVPs have greater years than others, but it would still be fun. For example, Mookie Betts bowling multiple 300s maybe isn't as amazing as what Ohtani or Deion have done, but it's still pretty freaking cool.
There's already a Jim Thorpe Award, but it's given to the best college defensive back—which seems awfully limited in scope compared to Thrope's greatness. It'd be like giving the Jim Brown award to the best college lacrosse midfielder—a nice award for the recipient, for sure, but it hardly speaks to who Jim Brown was.
Didn't realize that! Yeah, agreed, what a weirdly specific thing for such an impressive athlete.
(Also, it looks like it's now officially the "Paycom Jim Thorpe Award." Blecch.)
I love this idea - and after Shohei retires it could be given to the best "all-around" player -- so if there isn't a hitter/pitcher type person, you give it to the player who provides the best combo of offense, defense, steals, etc.
Or you retire the award until another legit hitter/pitcher comes along.
I have to say that I'm completely sick of the Ohtani/Judge MVP thing and a bit sick of MVPs in general. Speculating about who will win actual statistical categories is more interesting than who will win a vote. Although I suppose "who will win the MVP vote" is a bit like asking who will win WAR, which is a statistical category (yes, I know that the WAR leader and the MVP winner do sometimes diverge, even in recent seasons). But I do think the emergence of WAR has made MVP talk 90% less interesting.
I really do think there are potentially a good half-dozen guys who could be average or above hitters and pitchers at the same time, if not Ohtani-like talents. I think we have the impression there aren't any because we have seen what pitchers do when forced to hit, and it's not pretty. There's maybe one candidate active at any given time to be an average major league hitter. But I think the problem is that we're starting with pitchers and seeing how many of them can hit. There are so many position players with great arms, who have the requisite velocity, that I think some of these guys could have been good pitchers. It really just comes down to whether they could develop breaking balls and command. I don't know that there's the incentive to develop them, and I don't know that it would be worth the investment and derailing them from their surer path if they failed, but I do think thinking of hitters who could pitch, and not pitchers who could hit, is the way to go.
Stan Musial signed and started out as a pitcher. He developed a sore arm and so switched to a position player. We were all lucky with that one.
Many great players both pitched and batted better than anyone around them in high school. Until Shohei l, they always chosen one or the other. Greene, the flame throwing rookie for the Reds was a 2 way layer. There were plenty of people who thought he could have made on either path. I was disappointed they didn’t allow him to try both.
Mark McGwire was first drafted as a pitcher, John Olerud was an excellent two-way player in college, and I’m sure there are many other examples. I have no doubt that if everybody who could’ve possibly been a two-way player trained to be one, we would’ve had a dozen Ohtanis before Ohtani.
But they didn’t, which is what makes Ohtani so special. And I’m not sure they will now, as baseball seems to be becoming more specialized, not less.
To your point, in highschool Aaron Judge had a 1.12 ERA and .115 batting average against. Not saying he could have made it as a pitcher but the talent is there for him and a lot of other guys.
Obviously this honor must be the Tungsten Arm Award.
How much could we think about two-sport stars as a precedent for Ohtani? Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson were almost as impressive, right? In a way, Ohtani is a two-sport star; it's just that both his sports are baseball.
Of course, Ohtani is better at both pitching and hitting than either Bo or Deion were at baseball. Were there ever any two-sport players who played at an *all-star* level in both sports like Ohtani does? (How good a bowler is Mookie Betts...?)
Say, Joe, I think you and Mike forgot about the unofficial nicknames again.
That was getting to be a drag anyhow. Forcing a nickname wasn’t even working as well as Joe’s search for a new NFL team.
I liked it! But I'll take the most mundane conversation about baseball over anything having to do with football any day of the week.