well, Tom T, add in some minor league credit, and Grove's WAR looks dominant even in this group.

If someone wishes to argue that there needs to be a discount for pitchign 80 years ago, I will counter that it's strange to consider someone (R Johnson) to be the best LHP ever ("and I don’t think it’s particularly close either") when he's no better than the 3rd best pitcher of his era! By extension, Tom T's take must be that the all-time best rotation should be Rocket, Mad Dog, Unit, and Seaver I guess.

Pedro over Seaver. Tom's greatest year is now 40 years in the past. If you give a huge discount to Lefty's numbers based on timeline you have to give Seaver half that adjustment.

Isn't the heart of these arguments that you are comparing the players relative to their own era? I mean the reality is that if you take any player from 80-90 years ago and simply dump him via time travel into one of today's games he would be overwhelmed by the speed and strength of the modern player.

It seems to me that if you accept the math that generated the rankings above then Grove is a reasonable argument. If you are simply saying a player with Lefty Grove's physical skills versus a modern player with similar physical ability then Grove drops down the list.

The argument that other sports don't look at it this way is one of the things that bothers me about those sports, there is no appreciation for anything that didn't happen in the last decade.

I don't see any real reason that Lefty Grove couldn't have thrown in the mid 90's with nasty secondary pitches and command. He may have just had a great arm. BB-Ref lists him at 6' 3''. It's not like he was, say, Tim Hudson or Pedro Martinez out there.

If you look at the evolution of the olympic speed and strength events, the winning times/weights/whatever have all improved dramatically. Carl Lewis' 1988 world record in the 100 is now the 111th fastest time ever. Jesse Owens' 100 meter winning time in the 1936 has been eclipsed over 1500 times since then. And you can do the same with weightlifting, javelin throw, whatever.

The point is that the likelihood that a "hard thrower" in 1930 threw nearly as hard as a 2009 "hard thrower" seems pretty remote. I don't see why we would expect that baseball players would be unique among sportsmen to have the same, or even close to the same, skill levels when comparing the 1920s and 30s and the current era.

I'm willing to accept that advancements in baseball speed/strenght haven't been quite as dramatic as the olympic level activities but I sincerely doubt that it has been minimal.

The point is that the likelihood that a "hard thrower" in 1930 threw nearly as hard as a 2009 "hard thrower" seems pretty remote.

But I think pitching is the one athletic endeavor where this may not apply. Nolan Ryan was throwing a hundred miles an hour regularly 40 years ago without the benefit of modern nutrition science or modern training. He just had a freakishly strong arm and he made it stronger by throwing a lot. Why someone like Ryan is a possiblilty in 1969 but not 1929 doesn't make much sense to me.

We have film of Grove and his contemporaries, don't we?

There must be some way to estimate how fast they threw.

See that's why Bob Feller was so smart, he made them film him throwing faster than a speeding train.

But I think pitching is the one athletic endeavor where this may not apply. Nolan Ryan was throwing a hundred miles an hour regularly 40 years ago without the benefit of modern nutrition science or modern training. He just had a freakishly strong arm and he made it stronger by throwing a lot. Why someone like Ryan is a possiblilty in 1969 but not 1929 doesn't make much sense to me.

Two considerations.

When we say "pitchers throw harder these days", no one's actually saying that the top speed is higher than ever before. It seems that 105 is about the hardest the human body is biomechanically able to throw. Generally the idea is that the average pitchers are throwing harder than before. More guys in the 90s, for example.

The second consideration is that while no one's throwing at a higher absolute speed, it is likely they are maintaining that speed over a longer sustained period. And this doesn't mean that they are necessarily throwing higher velocity pitches later in the game, but rather that they are throwing harder to more batters than before. Maybe 30-40 years ago Nolan Ryan can dial it back to 95 or 93 pitching to the 7-8-9 batters, and not quite worry about the 1-2 hitters taking him deep, allowing him to reach back for the 100 mph later in the game. Now a starter has to bear down 1 through 9 (1-8 in the NL), always be wary of the gopher ball, and getting through the order three times is no mean feat. (And for the purposes of this Lefty-Randy comparison, there are other era considerations, such as mound height and park size.)

All speculative, I know. But I can't think of any good reason why pitching would be less susceptible to improvements in conditioning, kinesiology, and muscular training than, say, sprinting.

1. I saw this in my Reader and my first thought is that baseball is a more mature sport than basketball or football, so it is possible that the slope of the timeline is less steep. I think that Chris Dial has said something like this, or doesn't like timelining for another reason.

2. Shouldn't he be using WAA instead of WAR for a comparison like this?

3. Weren't the old pre-Seaver windups a better way to generate velocity than the more compact ones of today?

surely this kind of debate always has to add the implicite rider of context. how a player did against the only opposition he had available in comparison with his peers. Extending the debate to straight comparison of athletic attributes always strikes me as kind of odd. Like comparing a Tucker Torpedo to a Chrysler 300. The Chrysler 300 is hands down the better car but it doesn't mean much.

Now a starter has to bear down 1 through 9 (1-8 in the NL), always be wary of the gopher ball, and getting through the order three times is no mean feat.

Maybe, but Grove pitched straight through the rabbit ball era. I don't argue that there are pitchers for whom physical training has really helped them--Roger Clemens (no snark please!) and Tim Lincecum--come to mind, but what special training did Greg Maddux have? What's CC Sabathia doing in the weight room? David Wells? There may be MORE hard throwers now do to increased weight training, etc., but it doesn't preclude there being singular talents in the past.

What does the "best" pitcher mean, anyway?

"Best" as in possessing the greatest physical skills on an absolute scale, with no allowance made for era?

"Best" as in most dominant within his era?

"Best" as in gaudiest career totals, either counting or rate?

Or "best" as in "most valuable to his team(s)," either on a peak or career basis?

IMO anyone who wants to start this sort of argument should be forced to state right up front which one of those four "bests" he means. Otherwise the whole exercise becomes little more than people talking past each other.

my first thought is that baseball is a more mature sport than basketball or football, so it is possible that the slope of the timeline is less steep

The reason for that lack of "maturity," it seems to me, is that baseball is inherently scaled to the people playing it. However large or small the pitcher, his target is still the knees-to-letters of the batter facing him. The larger the batter, the larger his strike zone, which is not a good thing for the larger batter.

Seabiscuit's points in #5 are valid enough if you're just looking at straight athletic numbers, but two things occur to me: 1) Since baseball is a complicated game rather than a simple athletic event, and more speed/strength/size is not always better, there's every reason that a relatively small pitcher (as noted above, Pedro Martinez) can excel in any era. 2) Since the human species hasn't evolved or even produced hugely different phenotypes over the past decades, there's every reason to think that outliers from the past would do just fine in modern sports, even straight off the time machine. Give Jesse Owens a few weeks of practice in modern shoes on modern tracks, and I think you'd be amazed by his times and jumps – and the same applies a fortiori to Lefty Grove, who doesn't have to beat any objective time or distance, just the opposing batters.

Nolan Ryan can dial it back

I don't think Ryan ever dialed anything back.

1. I saw this in my Reader and my first thought is that baseball is a more mature sport than basketball or football, so it is possible that the slope of the timeline is less steep.

It's not just that modern baseball players are likely better athletes, have superior biomechanics, etc. It's also that the level of competition is almost certainly higher now (i.e. the gap between the superstars and the average players (and the scrubs) is smaller). On the other hand of course we have the curious phenomenon over the past 20 years of incredibly high OPS+ levels among the elite starters, which some here and elsewhere have attempted to explain.

There may be MORE hard throwers now do to increased weight training, etc., but it doesn't preclude there being singular talents in the past.

I'm not sure how much weight training can help velocity. I know I threw harder as a 14 year old who could barely bench press 70 pounds than in college, doing reps at 225. Perhaps I could have trained better for pitching, and perhaps steroids can help where normal muscle building can't. I've seen enough hulks go to the radar gun booths and throw 52 MPH to be skeptical of the need for muscle on a pitcher.

What does the "best" pitcher mean, anyway?

With WAR data, best means most dominant in his specific era. As in Lefty Grove was worth slightly more wins to the A's and Red Sox than Randy was to the Mariners, D'Backs, and others, at least by my best estimation. It does not say one way or another which would be better if they had played in the same circumstances. It's not an easy question to answer, but I don't think we're talking past each other, hopefully we can come to better understanding through discussion.

I think the size of talent pool plays a bigger role than modern training techniques. Many players, especially pitchers are successful major leaguers today without being in freakish athletic shape.

The US population today is almost three times what it was in 1920. Add in integration, international players, and modern medicine that extends careers, and we're talking about a talent pool that's probably 15-20 times larger than the one that Lefty Grove dominated.

In the talent distribution of 1920s baseball, Lefty was an extreme outlier. In today's game, I think he'd be a very good pitcher, maybe even Johan Santana good, but he wouldn't dominate the way he did in the 20s.

What does the "best" pitcher mean, anyway?

With WAR data, best means most dominant in his specific era. As in Lefty Grove was worth slightly more wins to the A's and Red Sox than Randy was to the Mariners, D'Backs, and others, at least by my best estimation. It does not say one way or another which would be better if they had played in the same circumstances. It's not an easy question to answer, but I don't think we're talking past each other, hopefully we can come to better understanding through discussion.

Agreed, and I didn't mean to limit the discussion, only that each of us should state clearly what our idea of the word "best" means, since there are many competing definitions of it. One of the better threads we've had here was the one about the all-time greatest team. Some people (myself included) thought it absurd to place a 1927 team on a par with a 1998 team, but others started from a different premise, and argued that dominance within the era should be the sole criterion for ranking. And neither of us could really be said to be "right" or "wrong."

I think a talent pool magnitude of 15-20 is way high.

I'll make some guesses:

1. Including international talent, population base is effectively 450 million now. In Lefty's time, let's say they were only drawing from 2/3 of the best ballplayers, due to segregation, so we're at 66 million.
2. Modern medicine increases careers by 20% - though there seems to be a fairly stable percentage of players playing into their 40's throughout history.
3. More competition from other sports for the best athletes, reducing pool by 25%
4. Double the number of MLB teams

I get about 3X the effective talent pool, but please provide your own numbers.

It would be an interesting project to see what reducing the talent pool by 2/3 does while keeping the number of teams the same. I could try this, take my projections for only the AL and NL East teams, plus their farm systems, redistribute the players through 30 teams, and see how the A-Rods and Halldays stick out in a simulation.

And alternatively, take all the MLB players, divide them into 10 teams, and see how that depresses the numbers of the superstars.

Add in integration, international players, and modern medicine that extends careers, and we're talking about a talent pool that's probably 15-20 times larger than the one that Lefty Grove dominated.

And subtract out early specialization that forces a fair percentage of elite athletes to pick a sport when they are kids rather than playing multiple sports throughout their adolescent years, subtract out the increasing costs of running a youth baseball program that has reduced or eliminated opportunities for many potential players to even play baseball, subtract out the far-flung minor leagues, semi-pro leagues, and amateur leagues that gave opportunities to players outside of the elite college and controlled minors, and you are left with - what?

The talent pool is compressed, to be sure - the bottom of the pool is probably better - but that doesn't mean that the top of the pool is necessarily more talented than it was 80 years ago.

I do not believe that there is any meaningful way to do cross-era comparisons of players. The conditions under which the game is played have evolved too much.

-- MWE

It would be an interesting project to see what reducing the talent pool by 2/3 does while keeping the number of teams the same. I could try this, take my projections for only the AL and NL East teams, plus their farm systems, redistribute the players through 30 teams, and see how the A-Rods and Halldays stick out in a simulation.

Or even better, try seeing what the Major Leagues of today would look like with the racial barriers of the pre-Jackie Robinson era, with no blacks or Asians. It wouldn't be pretty.

If you look at things that ought to have "matured" with the game, they almost all have a timeline that is essentially parabolic (bearing in mind that baseball stats have limits and can't just run out to infinity). For example, look at fielding percentage (or its mirror, error rate). F% starts out very very low in the 1870s, rises very rapidly until about 1900 or so, then "turns the corner" and stops rising so quickly, although it is still rising. Error rate drops rapidly, turns the corner, and then drops slowly, because it is the mirror of F%. Workloads for "solid uninjured starters" does the opposite - drops very quickly from 600+ (once the schedules get long enough) down to a little over 300, turn the corner at about the turn of the century, and have been dropping slowly ever since.

Trying to work out the exact rate of maturation is somewhere between hard and impossible, but I do think it has a parabolic shape, and so the timeline should move very little during the last 50 years, then pick up a bit of speed, and then really explode in the 19th century. The short of this for this post is that Grove to today should not be much timeline. Hoss Radbourne to Grove is a lot of timeline.

- Brock Hanke

If you look at the evolution of the olympic speed and strength events, the winning times/weights/whatever have all improved dramatically.

I've always had problems with statements like this. Taken at face value, it suggests that Carl Lewis, if he were in his prime today, could not be competitive in international track. But if the same were true in baseball, then no-one would have a 20-year career.

Take Grove: 166 ERA+ at 26, 185 ERA+ at 39. You can multiply the examples. Timelining can't be that great an effect.

I don't think it is possible to arrive at conclusion as to whether Lefty Grove could or would have been the best pitcher of this era or not. Pitching is not a pure athletic endeavor, but is rather more skill based. Velocity is a helpful attribute to pitching, but it isn't determinative---if velocity was the primary determinant of pitching ability, then Nolan Ryan would probably be the best pitcher of all time. Fastball command is probably a greater determinant of pitching, and I suspect that attribute may depend on the types of hitters who were faced in particular eras. Breaking pitches can also be the difference as to whether a pitcher is nearly unhittable or not, and that strikes me as more of a skill. I don't know anything about Grove's breaking pitches, but I see no reason why a pitcher from the 1920's might not have an array of breaking pitches which would completely flummox today's hitters.

Or even better, try seeing what the Major Leagues of today would look like with the racial barriers of the pre-Jackie Robinson era, with no blacks or Asians. It wouldn't be pretty.

That's because you're not a racist.

Maybe 30-40 years ago Nolan Ryan can dial it back to 95 or 93 pitching to the 7-8-9 batters

Other pitchers would routinely dial it back (afterall they were expected to at least try to reach the 9th, if not finish it), not Ryan.

Feller was also clocked at 98-99 back in the early 40s (when Ryan was the first guy clocked at 100, Feller whined incessantly, claiming that when he was clocked it was a one time deal, he didn't get to warm up etc etc, then he changed his story, claiming that he had warmed up TOO much, since the engineers took forever to get the equipment to work... My introduction to Bob Feller was reading an interview he gave in the late 70s/ early 80s, my overwhelming impression was what a complete #######... everynow and then he still gives interviews and... you still run into a Feller fan- a few post over at HOM, but I always wonder how could anyone root for this guy?).

We have film of Grove and his contemporaries, don't we?

There must be some way to estimate how fast they threw.

James wrote about that in the 80s, he said basically there was no way on earth Walter Johnson threw as hard as the hardest throwers today, he'd seen film and his motion/mechanics absolutely precluded it- but Grove? His motion/mechanics were visually well geared to throwing as hard as a human could throw.

A Brock Hanke sighting. I'll ask this here because I don't know when I'll see you again:

fra paolo wrote this in a recent post at BTF

"Malcolm and some other members of the Big Bad Annual (BBBA) crowd,
which included Primer's own Jim Furtado, were sort of feeling around
the theoretical foundation that the game, not the season, is the
cornerstone of performance analysis."

If you know what he meant by the game as the cornerstone, I'd love to hear an explanation. I think I understand but am not sure. I know
thatthe BBBA crew used QMAX for pitchers, but did it do anything similar for individual hitters?

I haven't looked at this closely before, so I definitely overstated it with the 15-20 times.

And subtract out early specialization that forces a fair percentage of elite athletes to pick a sport when they are kids rather than playing multiple sports throughout their adolescent years, subtract out the increasing costs of running a youth baseball program that has reduced or eliminated opportunities for many potential players to even play baseball, subtract out the far-flung minor leagues, semi-pro leagues, and amateur leagues that gave opportunities to players outside of the elite college and controlled minors, and you are left with - what?

These softer factors are impossible to quantify, and it's just as easy to come up with reasons to skew the other way (rampant child labor, malnutrition, and abject poverty in the teens and 20s certainly claimed a few promising arms).

1. Including international talent, population base is effectively 450 million now. In Lefty's time, let's say they were only drawing from 2/3 of the best ballplayers, due to segregation, so we're at 66 million.
2. Modern medicine increases careers by 20% - though there seems to be a fairly stable percentage of players playing into their 40's throughout history.
3. More competition from other sports for the best athletes, reducing pool by 25%
4. Double the number of MLB teams

I get about 3X the effective talent pool, but please provide your own numbers.

This is probably closer to the right number.

According to the 1920 census, there were 23 million white males between the ages of 15 and 44, and 16 million white males between the ages of 20 and 39.

The same numbers from the 2000 census for ALL males are 62 million and 41 million.

Assuming your number 2 & 3 and all other soft factors cancel each other out, the US talent pool is about 3 times as big as it was in 1920. 30% of major leaguers are international players, so now we are at 4-5 times.

The number of MLB teams would affect the depth of talent in the league, but we should expect there to be 4 to 5 times the number of extreme outliers/Lefty Groves playing today.

I do not believe that there is any meaningful way to do cross-era comparisons of players. The conditions under which the game is played have evolved too much.

Sure there are ways. We know the factors that have contributed to increasing or decreasing the talent pools. We can estimate them and come up with a calculation. Just that the error bars will be so large as to make anyone's calculation nothing more than a guess.

James wrote about that in the 80s, he said basically there was no way on earth Walter Johnson threw as hard as the hardest throwers today, he'd seen film and his motion/mechanics absolutely precluded it- but Grove? His motion/mechanics were visually well geared to throwing as hard as a human could throw.

James wrote that, but I don't think he was right. There is a old news story - I linked to it commenting on Tango's site - showing Johnson being measured at 134 feet per second. That is the equivalent of 91 MPH. If he was throwing 30 feet from the target then the ball would have been traveling at 95 MPH out of his hand (and I think speed out of pitcher's hand is what people report today).

Christy Matthewson is mentioned at 127 (87 MPH) and Smokey Joe Wood at 124 (85). This was in 1917, when Joe's arm went dead. He would have done better if they had gotten him in 1912.

I have no idea if any accuracy exist to the method they used to time these pitchers.

In any event, the argument that Grove is better is the argument that "best" means value to the player's actual team in the era he actually played, as opposed to time-machine hypotheticals. The argument for Grove isn't that old players had better heart or fundamentals. That's a strawman by Tango.

My introduction to Bob Feller was reading an interview he gave in the late 70s/ early 80s, my overwhelming impression was what a complete #######... everynow and then he still gives interviews and... you still run into a Feller fan- a few post over at HOM, but I always wonder how could anyone root for this guy?).

One might ask the same thing about a few other players both past and present (/understatement of the year), but when they're wearing the right uniform, that usually seems to put it all into perspective. And during his active career there were plenty of other bloviating loudmouths to dilute the impact of Feller's ramblings.

The argument for Grove isn't that old players had better heart or fundamentals. That's a strawman by Tango.

Yeah, I thought that was unneccesary snark as well.

The short of this for this post is that Grove to today should not be much timeline. Hoss Radbourne to Grove is a lot of timeline.

Hoss had the best season in MLB history, in terms of WAR, with 19.8 wins pitching and another 0.5 with his bat. It's an inescapable conclusion, the pitcher has a greater impact on the game he pitches than any position player. It was less so then than today, with more balls in play and few true outcomes, but still true. So if a pitcher pitched every day, that's what you get.

At the same time, I don't think the 5'8 Hoss could have pitched in today's game at all. He was throwing from a running start and a shorter pitching distance. They played fewer games per week, which allowed a pitcher to dominate the schedule (if teams played only twice a week today Johan Santana would probably be 3X more valuable than Pujols) and even under more favorable conditions, Hoss went too far, and wrecked his arm doing it.

I'm of the opinion that Lefty Grove deserves little extra credit for his years in Baltimore. He just wasn't that good. He was winning 20, 25 games a year, but against inferior competion, and looking at B-Ref's minors, Lefty walked 5.2 men per 9 innings at the time. I don't know what the MLE factors should be, but I know that if he was walking that many in the minors, major leaguers weren't going to be swinging at those pitches. When he came to the majors, his first year he led the league in strikeouts, with 116, and walks, 131. His ERA+ was only 98.

He found his control the next year and became Lefty Grove. Before that, he seems to have been no better than an average pitcher. An incredible talented and wild one, but no better than average in run prevention. Kind of like Randy's first few years in Seattle.

You have to factor in his leverage, though. Grove started against creampuffs while Wes Ferrell pitched against first division teams.

/Dick Thompson

James wrote about that in the 80s, he said basically there was no way on earth Walter Johnson threw as hard as the hardest throwers today, he'd seen film and his motion/mechanics absolutely precluded it- but Grove? His motion/mechanics were visually well geared to throwing as hard as a human could throw.

At about 0:59 in, you get a pretty good example of Johnson in action in this clip. One of the things that struck me is how much of a sidearmer Johnson was. I guess I hadn't realized this.

Grove in comparison can be seen here and here.. Grove's mechanics look much more modern in comparison.

Lefty Grove or Adam Eaton, who would have better numbers in today's game?

At the same time, I don't think the 5'8 Hoss could have pitched in today's game at all. He was throwing from a running start and a shorter pitching distance.

But if Hoss grew up being constantly pumped full of Bovine Growth Hormone, or whatever it is that causes today's men to be larger than yesterday's, and had modern training techniques, blah blah blah ...

These arguments are always annoying to me because I don't understand what the point is. So what if Jesse Owens couldn't compete in today's Olympics? I suppose Tango is only fudging the numbers a tiny bit, but this conversation (which occurs on BTF biweekly) is so old and boring.

Easy one. Give Eaton a running start and 50' pitching distance, and he still can't get anybody out except maybe Bill Bergen.

These arguments are always annoying to me because I don't understand what the point is. So what if Jesse Owens couldn't compete in today's Olympics?

Part of the question is how much is due to runners actually being faster than Owens, and how much due to the tracks and shoes? I don't find it boring.

I suppose Tango is only fudging the numbers a tiny bit, but this conversation (which occurs on BTF biweekly) is so old and boring.

I think it's interesting. I read the New Historical Abstract in one sitting and that's 80% dealing with this type of question. I may be a bore, but I come here to associate with other bores!

James covered this in the HOF book, too. He said that according to strict timelining, Wichita should have better playwrights than Elizabethan England.

Carl Lewis' 1988 world record in the 100 is now the 111th fastest time ever.

And it's 2.5% slower than the fastest time today. If Grove was 2.5% slower than Randy Johnson then he _only_ threw 93 MPH instead of 96.

Grove was certainly good enough to put up value as a major league pitcher during his years in Baltimore. It's also possible that pitching against inferior hitters in Baltimore and dominating them delayed the adjustment he made to "find his control" at the major league level. If you're 22-5 you probably aren't going to change much about your approach.

I think pretty much all improvement in runners since the thirties are better tracks and drugs.

Christy Matthewson is mentioned at 127 (87 MPH) and Smokey Joe Wood at 124 (85). This was in 1917, when Joe's arm went dead. He would have done better if they had gotten him in 1912.

And Mathewson was 37 in 1917.

James covered this in the HOF book, too. He said that according to strict timelining, Wichita should have better playwrights than Elizabethan England.

Which was stupid. (And then in the second New Historical Abstract, he timelined very heavily, to the point that HOMers like Ezra Sutton and Joe Start barely cracked the top 100 at their positions.)

Part of the question is how much is due to runners actually being faster than Owens, and how much due to the tracks and shoes? I don't find it boring.

I dunno if "boring" is quite the right word, but in any event, there's no way to ever know, or even make a meaningful guess, so, y'know. Plus, it does lead to the conclusion that the greatest pitchers are Unit, Maddux, Clemens, etc. (and in another couple of generations, they'll be whoever the best pitchers of that era are), which is not that exciting.

The annoying thing, of course, is because of the aspects described in #35, if you were to fully commit to the "value to his team in his era" criteria, then none of the greatest pitchers of all time pitched recently -- they just don't have enough innings pitched. Neither of these conclusions is exactly intellectually satisfying. So I try not to think about the entire issue all that much.

How fast did Maddux throw at age 37? He's a pretty direct comp to Mathewson.

Timelining would be an alternate (but false) way to explain age related decline. The player's talent level stayed the same, the competition just got better.

Re: Parabolic slopes

That should not apply to most categories of athletic achievement that measure raw output. As alluded to in many posts, those achievements usually have a disjoint function curve. They move assymptotically to some parameter, break that threshold, and rise with increaseing slope before assymptotically moving towards another barrier. Obviously, there is some maximum barrier, but most attempts to isolate the maximum barrier just lead to another assymptotic barrier.

Nevertheless,

And it's 2.5% slower than the fastest time today. If Grove was 2.5% slower than Randy Johnson then he only threw 93 MPH instead of 96.


Yes. While there may be some correlation between thrown ball velocity and MLB success as a pitcher:

(1) It only works in large groups; and
(2) Is not the only criteria for success.

If Grove was overpowering MLB hitters with a 93 MPH fastball and that was his primary value, you should expect that he would see some (at least initial) decrease in performance. His primary asset would have had some attrition in value. You would expect less of an attrition in value of his skills in changing speeds, mixing pitches, and locating pitches.

RE: Karl Lewis today (and its impact on Grove)

Some of the difference in athletic output is due to the physical difference in the athletes. Nevertheless, evolution doesn't move that fast. The majority of the difference is based on technological changes, informational changes, and training changes. karl would have gotten the benefit of those changes if you timeshifted his whole prime to present day. He would not if you just teleported him and his old Nikes to present day.

Nevertheless, Grove is not competing in the same sport as Lewis. Randy Johnson is probably not the fastest throwing person with his left hand in baseball. There is no absolute reason that Grove could not have actually thrown faster than Johnson. More important, there is no real reason that suggests Grove could not have located better, changed speeds etc. better than Johnson.

It is empirically unknowable based on existing technology. The best you can do is find people that observed both and weigh their opinions. Maybe in the future, we will have some means of gathering pfx data on Grove and we can start making more direct comparisons.

I dunno if "boring" is quite the right word, but in any event, there's no way to ever know, or even make a meaningful guess, so, y'know.

Oh ye of little imagination. Do some research to see what the track conditions were in 1936, find a modern field that is similar (I'm sure not every high school track is as good as a olympic quality track), take a good runner and give him some antique shoes. Then time him under the best conditions and not the difference.

I dunno if "boring" is quite the right word, but in any event, there's no way to ever know, or even make a meaningful guess, so, y'know. Plus, it does lead to the conclusion that the greatest pitchers are Unit, Maddux, Clemens, etc. (and in another couple of generations, they'll be whoever the best pitchers of that era are), which is not that exciting.

The annoying thing, of course, is because of the aspects described in #35, if you were to fully commit to the "value to his team in his era" criteria, then none of the greatest pitchers of all time pitched recently -- they just don't have enough innings pitched. Neither of these conclusions is exactly intellectually satisfying. So I try not to think about the entire issue all that much.

Well, I don't know. Is the point to be intellectually excited/satisfied, or is it to use the cross-era comparisons exercise as a means of gaining greater understanding of how rapidly (or not) the quality of competition improves over time?

I'd say sort of what Andy said earlier: there simply is not a single "right" way to approach this issue.

but in any event, there's no way to ever know, or even make a meaningful guess, so, y'know.

On some of these issues there are ways. For the track and field, it wouldn't be so hard to build a 1930's track and some 1930's shoes and see what it does to modern runners times.
Also, from the film (as noted above), we can get a pretty good idea of how hard guys threw.

My general impression is that while there have been huge improvements in single skill athletic achievements, due to advanced training (and drugs), for multi-disciplinary athletics (like baseball) the improvement is much smaller.

One thing that should be noted is that we should exclude better nutrition, health care and advanced training from any argument. The hypothetical scenario implies Grove and Randy Johnson pitching in the same league at the same time. If Grove was live now, he would have had the benefit of all those advances.

On quick glance, I think every single comment under the W Johnson video contains misinformation. Congrats Utoobers!

Vintage track. That sounds cool.

Also, from the film (as noted above), we can get a pretty good idea of how hard guys threw.

Has anyone ever tried this? If I tried to watch them with a stopwatch, the random error in my reaction speed would probably mean estimates anywhere from 60-120 MPH. I suppose it could be done more scientifically, but not by me.

Of course, from most of those old time films the guys must have been throwing 300 mph! and trotting around the bases in 5 seconds after homers.

One thing that should be noted is that we should exclude better nutrition, health care and advanced training from any argument. The hypothetical scenario implies Grove and Randy Johnson pitching in the same league at the same time. If Grove was live now, he would have had the benefit of all those advances.

Agreed, and if Randy Johnson was pitching in Grove's era, he'd lose all of the advantages of those advances. Almost certainly he'd be less than 6 feet 10 inches tall, for one thing. One has to apply that factor equally in both directions.

we should exclude better nutrition, health care and advanced training from any argument. The hypothetical scenario implies Grove and Randy Johnson pitching in the same league at the same time. If Grove was live now, he would have had the benefit of all those advances.

I don't understand the logic of this at all, unless you've got some kind of way to evaluate Grove without examining what he actually did do in the '20s and '30s.

Oh ye of little imagination. Do some research to see what the track conditions were in 1936, find a modern field that is similar (I'm sure not every high school track is as good as a olympic quality track), take a good runner and give him some antique shoes. Then time him under the best conditions and not the difference.

Swimming is a sport that tends to catalog these items reasonably well. They generally track how changes in pool tech and suit tech have as an average contribution to time. Obviously, you can't fully isolate out the changes due to the specific athletes training or how the tech conforms to a specific athlete's attributes.

If you took the whole population of pitchers from 1940 and transported them to todays game, then you would expect that the overall pool would perform poorer. Some should perform better-- the changes in the game enhance their attributes. Their average careers should last a bit longer, but some would have shorter careers (their decline in skill value would lead to bad adaptions).

We can do that skill exercise even with the recent past. How would prime-Glavine fare in modern baseball? He would still have his pitching repoitoire. He would still be able to locate. Would the change in strike zone effect his ability? How about Jim Palmer (who also got a lot of outs on a fastball that is above the modern zone)?

Today’s players are simply bigger, stronger and faster

After reading the Earl Weaver story on another thread it makes you think. If they're so much faster now why are they still out by a step at 1B on a routine grounder?

I don't understand the logic of this at all, unless you've got some kind of way to evaluate Grove without examining what he actually did do in the '20s and '30s.

There's two way to look at this 1) who provided more value, 2) who was the better pitcher -ability wise.

For 1) you just look at what they did vs. the competition available, no timelining. For 2) you have to timeline to estimate what the two would do if they played at the same time vs. the same competition.

If you are doing 2), the implicit assumption is they played at the same time. So, any generally available advances in health/training/medicine are either available to both or to neither. i.e. you are asking, if Lefty Grove and Randy Johnson were both born in 1900 or in 1965, who would have been the better pitcher.

If you include health/training/medical adavnces, you are analyzing some bizaare time machine scenario, where you pluck an adult Lefty Grove out of the 1930's and bring him to the 1990's, and deny him modern training and medical knowledge. That makes no sense.

"Has anyone ever tried this? If I tried to watch them with a stopwatch, the random error in my reaction speed would probably mean estimates anywhere from 60-120 MPH. I suppose it could be done more scientifically, but not by me."

On Mythbusters, they measure speed by the number of frames of film that go by using a high speed camera.

You could do the same with old film, as long as you know the film speed (frames per second). Just count how many frames the pitch takes from pitcher to catcher, and the rest is just math.

There's two way to look at this 1) who provided more value, 2) who was the better pitcher -ability wise.

For 1) you just look at what they did vs. the competition available, no timelining. For 2) you have to timeline to estimate what the two would do if they played at the same time vs. the same competition.

If you are doing 2), the implicit assumption is they played at the same time. So, any generally available advances in health/training/medicine are either available to both or to neither. i.e. you are asking, if Lefty Grove and Randy Johnson were both born in 1900 or in 1965, who would have been the better pitcher.

If you include health/training/medical adavnces, you are analyzing some bizaare time machine scenario, where you pluck an adult Lefty Grove out of the 1930's and bring him to the 1990's, and deny him modern training and medical knowledge. That makes no sense.

Let me restate my objection. "I don't understand the logic of this at all, unless you've got some kind of way to evaluate Grove and Johnson that can separate 'ability' from 'physical gifts gained in part through superior health care, nutrition and training methods.'" ;-)

There's two way to look at this 1) who provided more value, 2) who was the better pitcher -ability wise.

For 1) you just look at what they did vs. the competition available, no timelining. For 2) you have to timeline to estimate what the two would do if they played at the same time vs. the same competition.

If you are doing 2), the implicit assumption is they played at the same time. So, any generally available advances in health/training/medicine are either available to both or to neither. i.e. you are asking, if Lefty Grove and Randy Johnson were both born in 1900 or in 1965, who would have been the better pitcher.

If you include health/training/medical adavnces, you are analyzing some bizaare time machine scenario, where you pluck an adult Lefty Grove out of the 1930's and bring him to the 1990's, and deny him modern training and medical knowledge. That makes no sense.

Precisely.

And (1) and (2) are equally valid questions/approaches.

If they're so much faster now why are they still out by a step at 1B on a routine grounder?

Because being stronger, they hit the ball harder, and it reaches the infielder (who throws harder) faster.

I'm not sure if I'm being entirely facetious :)

Let me restate my objection. "I don't understand the logic of this at all, unless you've got some kind of way to evaluate Grove and Johnson that can separate 'ability' from 'physical gifts gained in part through superior health care, nutrition and training methods.'" ;-)

Well, obviously there's no precise way to do it. But if one wants to attempt to perform snapper's (2), one has no choice but to make the attempt to account for the health care/nutrition/training issue.

Bob, I am glad that I am not the only one who had that thought.

If they're so much faster now why are they still out by a step at 1B on a routine grounder?

The SS arm is stronger too, and the ball might he hit harder. It's not a vacuum.

***

According to b-r.com, Grove allowed runs at 68% the league rate while facing nearly 17,000 batters. RJ, facing a few more batters, allowed runs at 74% the league rate.

If we expect the average pitcher in Grove's time, transported at age 18 to today to still give up the same number of runs as today's average pitcher, then Grove wins by this measure.

The average pitcher in the 1920s/30s weighed 15-20 pounds less than pitchers today. That's huge, isn't it? So, in no way do I think that the average then is equal to the average now. If you give them all 20% more runs allowed today than yesteryear, Grove still comes out great, just not RJ-great. You'd have to make the pitchers in Grove's time to allow 10% more runs today for Grove = RJ.

Note that Rally's WAR seems to credit RJ alot more than Grove, compared to b-r.com's ERA+, seeing that he's got them virtually equal to begin with.

***

The other option is to transport Lefty and his peers not when they were 18, but at birth, so that they can benefit from nutrition and technology. Or transport their parents first, so that Lefty would get the benefit of better genes as well.

In a strict "against competition at the time" without making any further adjustments, then Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Sadaharu Oh might bubble to the top.

***

Yes, you can reasonably argue that the 4 greatest pitchers of all time are indeed Clemens, Pedro, Maddux, and RJ.

You can reasonably argue that the 4 greatest hockey players of all time all played on the same ice in 1987 too: Gretzky, Lemieux and your pick of Messier, Bourque, Larianov, Makarov, Fetisov, too. It's not an inconceivable notion that all the best players are playing at the exact same time.

***

I didn't fudge any data. Whoever said that should explain themselves.

In fact (emboldened by GGC having had the same thought :) it occurs to me again that a beauty of baseball is that it pits players against opponents. (It isn't alone in doing this; boxing does too, within weight classes, and even for heavyweights, sheer enormousness is no advantage.) In football, they've had to move the goalposts back. In basketball, a ten foot rim isn't as high above the fray as it was in 1949. But in baseball, it's harder to see absolute gains because most things in the sport are relative to other players.

You could do the same with old film, as long as you know the film speed (frames per second). Just count how many frames the pitch takes from pitcher to catcher, and the rest is just math.

This has been tried. One problem is that the oldest film was hand-cranked, i.e. there is no fixed speed. The other is that the frames are sufficiently far apart that it makes a difference; e.g. Grove throws from the mound to the plate between frames 12 and 13. If it's 12.1 frames he threw 97 and 12.9 frames he threw 88.

It seems to me, though, that you could do mathematical simulations looking at the distribution of skills and population size. Maybe the fastest man in the world in 1900 was just as fast as the fastest man today, but it's much more likely that the fastest man today is running track rather than farming along the Yangtze or working in a coal mine. Maybe, if speeds are normally distributed, the tail end is simply farther to the right in a population of 6 billion than in a population of 2 billion. Though I think the idea of a normal distribution breaks down at some point, as it suggests that with a sufficiently large population to choose from you'd eventually get someone who could run the 100m in 8 seconds.

The average pitcher in the 1920s/30s weighed 15-20 pounds less than pitchers today.

Does CC Sabathia account for the difference? More seriously though it is unlikely the nationwide obesity epidemic has completely missed major league pitchers.

I really doubt that the ball is being hit much harder on a routine grounder due to reaction time and the upper limit on how fast you can swing a bat (caveat: astroturf IS much different). I also doubt the SS throws that much harder now, have you seen David Eckstein? It is more likely that instead of the SS beating a player by a full step they're now beating the player by 97.5% of a step. A player can only gain a small fraction of a second over 90 feet.

The other option is to transport Lefty and his peers not when they were 18, but at birth, so that they can benefit from nutrition and technology. Or transport their parents first, so that Lefty would get the benefit of better genes as well.


Birth is fine. Genes don't change in the short term due to environment, that's Lamarckianism and was discredited by Darwin.

The average pitcher in the 1920s/30s weighed 15-20 pounds less than pitchers today. That's huge, isn't it? So, in no way do I think that the average then is equal to the average now.

But if those pitchers knew what we know today about nutrition, strength training, etc., I bet most of them would add a lot of that weight within a year or two. Some may be based on early childhood development, but I'm guessing 60-80% of that weight gain is intentional.

I can't see why anyone wants to give "credit" to today's pitchers/players for medical, nutritional and training advances available to anyone born in the right decade? Why is that a useful comparison? It's just like saying a modern sprinter is "better" than Jess Owens b/c he has a better track and better shoes? These seem like meaningless comparisons.

To know who was better, talentwise, we have to presume both grow up/learn to play in neutral environments. To give modern players credit for the improved environment is as silly as giving old time players credit for not having to face blacks and asians.

Does CC Sabathia account for the difference? More seriously though it is unlikely the nationwide obesity epidemic has completely missed major league pitchers.

Probably not, he's just one of 300-400 pitchers. But you could always try looking at the median instead of the mean.

Snapper, if you want to argue that it is meaningless to compare Ruth to Gibson to Oh to Bonds because we are in fact comparing Ruth+environmentA to Gibson+environmentB to Oh+environmentC to Bonds+environmentD, then I cannot disagree with you.

The problem is that "Grove+environmentA" is written as "Grove". And references to "Grove" is usually as "he", as in Lefty Grove himself.

If one wants to say that Spitz is 1 second faster than his competition while Phelps is 0.2 seconds faster (or whatever the numbers are), and then say Spitz is by far the best swimmer, then that's a problem. You can say Spitz outclassed his competition more, but you can't say more than that within this context.

(All numbers for illustration only, and I have no idea of Spitz v peers, etc).

I also doubt the SS throws that much harder now, have you seen David Eckstein?

I guess that I should doubt pitchers throw much harder either: have you seen Moyer and Wakefield?

I'm not sure I follow the logic of saying we have to give Grove the benefit of today's nutrition and training. If Grove was a "better" pitcher than RJ, then you're saying that he didn't need modern training and nutrition. If all you're saying is that "Grove exceeded his contemporaries by more than RJ exceeded his", then there's nothing to argue about because the plain numbers will give the answer.

It seems to me that what we really would like to know is how Grove would perform if we could pluck him out of 1930 and put him on the mound tonight. It's the dispute over that which is driving the debate, and it doesn't require hypothesizing about how Grove personally would be affected by changes in nutrition. It does require judgments about the average level of play in 1930 v. 2009, because our metrics are geared to that +/- from that point (or from replacement level, but the issue is the same).

The problem is that "Grove+environmentA" is written as "Grove". And references to "Grove" is usually as "he", as in Lefty Grove himself.

Correct, so I think we have to either compare "in era" w/o timelining, or only timeline on those factors that were not "universal", i.e. I am fine with timelining to adjust for the exclusion of black players.

I can't see why anyone wants to give "credit" to today's pitchers/players for medical, nutritional and training advances available to anyone born in the right decade

I don't "want to" give or deny anyone "credit" for anything, I'm just baffled by the idea that we can meaningfully measure how much Randy Johnson has benefited from those advances, or imagine how it would have affected Lefty Grove to have them.

The problem is that "Grove+environmentA" is written as "Grove". And references to "Grove" is usually as "he", as in Lefty Grove himself.

Sure, but all that's saying is that people all too often fail to take context into account when interpreting stats. And the issue is that nutrition/medicine/training is inescapably part of context, just as are, ballparks, equipment, quality of competition etc.

In football, they've had to move the goalposts back. In basketball, a ten foot rim isn't as high above the fray as it was in 1949.

And in baseball, they've moved the fences in; at least since the 60s.

It seems to me that what we really would like to know is how Grove would perform if we could pluck him out of 1930 and put him on the mound tonight.

But which Grove are you putting on the mound tonight? The Grove who was born in 1900 and whose body was a product of those conditions, or a Grove who was born in, say, 1980 with the same genes, but whose body is a product of these conditions? It matters how one answers that.

I don't "want to" give or deny anyone "credit" for anything, I'm just baffled by the idea that we can meaningfully measure how much Randy Johnson has benefited from those advances, or imagine how it would have affected Lefty Grove to have them.

I would argue that there's no reason Lefty Grove couldn't have been every bit the pitcher Randy Johnson is despite the time he pitched in.

The real issue is that some are going from Step A: Grove outclassed his competition more than RJ to Step C: Grove is therefore better, without addressing Step B: how good was the competition to begin with.

Why would, for example, it be ok to compare Alex Ovechkin (NHL, 2009) to Gordie Howe (NHL, 1959), but not ok to compare Ovechkin to Sergei Makarov (Russian League, 1984)? Is the competition level of the (6-team) NHL from 50 years ago somehow a better comparison level than the Russian league of 25 years ago? One-third of the NHL players of today are not North Americans, and one-half of the best players are not North Americans.

Similarly, why would MLB from 80 years ago somehow be "ok" in order to devise a list that include Lefty Grove and RJ, but it would not be ok to include pitchers from Japan in the 1990s? Or high school pitchers from Canada for that matter?

Once you have established that the competition level is not the same in the various leagues, why is it ok to do the Step C, and show Grove's dominance over his competition class, but then refer to Grove himself as the best LHP ever as Dan originally concluded in his blog post:

I'm of the opinion that Lefty Grove is the best left-handed pitcher of all time

Step B was missing. You can't get to Step C without going through Step B. And if you won't go to Step B, then you stop at Step A: Grove outclassed his competition more than RJ did his.

Lost in this argument is the middle guy of the trio bunched up at the top of Dan/Rally's list; Warren Spahn.

You can reasonably argue that the 4 greatest hockey players of all time all played on the same ice in 1987 too: Gretzky, Lemieux and your pick of Messier, Bourque, Larianov, Makarov, Fetisov, too.

Wait a second, is hockey immune from timelining? Because if it isn't, on the Carl Lewis analogy there must be quite a few players today greater than Gretzky ever was.

All this talk about plucking pitchers out of one time and having them face each other without training or modern medicine or whatever reminds me of this quote for "Eastbound and Down".

You know what Kenny Powers says? Fundamentals are the crutch of the talentless. This one coach I had tried to put me on a weight training program, and I was all like, “You and your weights can go frick off somewhere. I’m not lifting that shite. That shite is heavy. You tell me why I need strength training when I’m strong enough to throw a goddam 100 MPH pitch. frick. THAT. See in life, when you have talent, all the other shite doesn’t matter. If we were on an island with no weights, and no running drills, who would be on top then? The guy with the talent. In a nutshell, you can train all you want. You can work on your catching, on your throwing, your running. Hell, it might be enough to get you into the Majors. But in order to be a standout, an All-Star, a Champion, you need more than hard work and dedication. You need something that you can’t work for. You need a blessing from God… Almighty.

Kenny Powers is a buffoon and pretty much anything he says like this should be laughed at. But it almost sounds like that's what we're talking about, and that seems wrong. I'm not sure how else you could frame a discussion like this - and I do think there's value in these discussions - but I thought it should be pointed out.

I guess I'm saying that what makes a player is more than just his talent or his competition. It's everything. His health, his talent, his work ethic, his upbringing, his environment, etc... all of that contributes to who he is on the field, and it's impossible - and silly - to try to control for all of those. It's inherently unfair to compare someone from a disadvantaged era to a modern pitcher, which makes it practically impossible to quantify. I still value the discussion, but that needs to be acknowledged.

(I hope that made sense)

Eckstein is still able to beat runners with a throw even though he can't throw that hard. He's a good comparsion for our hypothetical ancient infielder. Moyer and Wakefield aren't trying to beat a runner to a base with their throws.

I think the whole argument about modern conditioning, nutrition, stronger, faster is nonsense. Based on all available evidence Grove threw low to mid-90s heat with great location and movement along with a good curveball. Of course he would have pitched well in today's game (Johan Santana?). If Grove had pitched in the 60s and 70s he would have at least been Steve Carlton. The only argument I can come up with for Johnson over Grove is quality of competition due to integration, etc.

(But which Grove are you putting on the mound tonight? The Grove who was born in 1900 and whose body was a product of those conditions, or a Grove who was born in, say, 1980 with the same genes, but whose body is a product of these conditions? It matters how one answers that.

So let me get this straight-- you don't want to compare the two pitchers. You want to compare who has the better genes?

We're not selling genes here!

Sorry, obligatory.

But Tango is of course correct. You can't say that a player is greatest ever just because he dominated his competition, any more than you can say that some AA team is the best team ever because they didn't lose a game all year. Quality of competition is important.

The real issue is that some are going from Step A: Grove outclassed his competition more than RJ to Step C: Grove is therefore better, without addressing Step B: how good was the competition to begin with.

I agree that you must address the competition. I'm fine with adjustments for size of talent pool, number of teams, relative attractiveness of baseball vs. other sports or other careers, etc.

I just object to the bigger/stronger arguments to the extent that everyone is bigger/stronger due to extrinsic factors. If those players were alive today they'd be bigger and stronger themselves.

Again size and strength improvements due to general nutrition levels, advanced training, etc. are no different than the better tracks and shoes in the Carl Lewis analogy. If any of the old timers were to play today, they would have those advantages too.

Similarly, why would MLB from 80 years ago somehow be "ok" in order to devise a list that include Lefty Grove and RJ, but it would not be ok to include pitchers from Japan in the 1990s? Or high school pitchers from Canada for that matter?

There's a difference in that MLB 80 years ago was the highest level of play around, as it is today. Japan in the 90's is better than AAA but not quite as good as MLB, and high school is so far away that I need not say anymore.

If the best pitcher's skill of the highest league is greater 80 years later, how much of that is attributed to the pitcher and how much to his environment? I don't think it makes sense on an alltime list to knock players down for not having advantages that they would have had if they were born 80 years later.

You can certainly knock the players of the 30's down for drawing talent from a smaller population, and for not playing against the great players who were excluded by skin color.

Yes, I don't think that timelining on the principle that everything today is better makes any sense. On the principle that overall league strengths are greater today than in the past because of any number of factors, timelining makes a lot of sense; but it's not the march of time per se that matters, it's the cultural history that leads one to the conclusion that for various reasons (health, training, equipment, integration, international scouting, and more efficient scouting overall), the quality of competition is a good bit higher in MLB 2009 than in MLB 1939. At some future time, the conditions that have produced the strong major leagues of the moment might decay a bit, and we really would look back on a past Golden Age of baseball c. 2009.

I don't think the argument is moot or nonsensical or boring. Grove dominated a weaker league more than Johnson dominated a stronger one. An extreme (indeed, cartoonish) timeliner would say that Grove would be lucky to beat out Matt Harrison for a job in 2009; the converse of that is that Johnson would treat the 1930s AL like an American Legion league. An extreme old-fartist, OTOH, would say that Grove would be throwing aspirin past these kids today and completing every start and pitching three times on relief between them, while Johnson would take one look at Jimmie Foxx and mess himself. The truth is somewhere in between, and it's fascinating to try to pin down where it might be, at least roughly.

on the Carl Lewis analogy there must be quite a few players today greater than Gretzky ever was.

When Carl Lewis has as many assists as anyone else has points, then you've got your analogy.

Otherwise, to suggest that a 9-time MVP from 25 years ago could somehow be outclassed by "quite a few" players today is unfounded.

The slope of competition improving must be very low in team sports, because these players, who peaked in their 20s, still play in their late 30s. This is why we can make decent comps with players from the last 30, maybe 40 years ago.

The further back you go, the more your margin of error will increase, to the point that you can't make any reasonable conclusion. Hockey players from the 1920s were small like Theo Fleury (the smallest player on the 1990s). But it took a talent package as great as that to be able to make it to the NHL. Anyone two steps below Fleury in talent, but equal in size, couldn't cut it today. That's why no one would try to say how Howie Morenz and the other greats of the past would do today. It is understood that the environment is simply not comparable. They stick to Step A.

For some reason (and that probably has to do with the abundance of stats available), this doesn't stop baseball fans. They make the comparison all the time, even going back to Honus Wagner and earlier.

If the lists stopped at Step A, and if Dan didn't end his blog post as he did, I wouldn't have commented.

And build up players in the 30s for not having as many options for athletes to make a living therefore increasing the talent pool for baseball.

I don't think the argument is moot or nonsensical or boring. Grove dominated a weaker league more than Johnson dominated a stronger one. An extreme (indeed, cartoonish) timeliner would say that Grove would be lucky to beat out Matt Harrison for a job in 2009; the converse of that is that Johnson would treat the 1930s AL like an American Legion league. An extreme old-fartist, OTOH, would say that Grove would be throwing aspirin past these kids today and completing every start and pitching three times on relief between them, while Johnson would take one look at Jimmie Foxx and mess himself. The truth is somewhere in between, and it's fascinating to try to pin down where it might be, at least roughly.

Fully agreed.

I think it's fine to say Grove was the best LHP ever. In order to prove the opposite you need to be able to quantify by how much the level of competition is changed. Tango has the burden of proof to show Randy Johnson was better by coming up with plausible adjustments due to level of competition. That's not an easy argument to win. Heck I don't think I could reasonably prove Johnson was better than Spahn based on level of competition.

I am a timeliner. I absolutely believe that today's players are better than they were in the past.

But I tend to limit this to average and replacement level -- WAA and WAR *do* mean more today; as the average player and the replacement level player are so much better than they were 70 years ago. To argue otherwise is ludicrous.

However, I cannot accept that the true superstars of the past do not deserve equal standing. Can we state with absolute certainty that Babe Ruth wouldn't have been a fat drunk? No, of course not -- but it's possible. Imagine what a sober, possibly roided-up, lean-muscle Ruth who hadn't spent the first third of his career as a pitcher would have done. Same with the other true outliers: guys like Wagner, Johnson... and yes, Robert Grove.

Basically, although I do agree with TT's assertion (the best I can understand it, his math knowin' stuffs is smarter'n mines) that 92 WAR today is more impressive than 98 WAR in 1930; I don't think you can dismiss what players then actually DID. Lefty Grove DID dominate his league (as has RJ). Lefty Grove WAS a great pitcher. The basic argument I attempt to settle when ranking players is how would they fare against each other, in the same league, at the same time -- and this is impossible to truly resolve.

Maybe Grove would have benefitted from modern nutrition and exercise programs, maybe not. Then again, maybe a 6'10" Randy Johnson would not have played baseball in 1930, but been instead exhibited in a traveling freak show. We must (IMO) do our best to translate production to a neutral framework, but it isn't possible to do with 100% accuracy. Lefty Grove DID dominate his competition to a greater level than Johnson. Some allowance MUST be made for the fact that he played in a segregated league, and that some of his opponents (and teammates) wouldn't have made it past AA (the minors or the self-help organization) today. I still can't accept without face-to-face evidence (which, of course, can never happen) that this means RJ is by necessity a better pitcher than Grove. His performance would have had to have been even better than it has been to prove this to me beyond a reasonable doubt.

All this said, just because I'm not convinced RJ is better than LG, I'm not convinced he's not. Were I to rank the greatest southpaws of all time, it would still be 1) Grove, 2) Johnson -- but that doesn't mean I'm right and Tango's wrong, it just means that I don't have enough evidence to conclude that RJ is demonstrably better. I DO have enough evidence to conclude that today's replacement level player is better than in 1930, but "above replacement" is not all that matters, in either direction. I believe that in the same league, at the same time, with the same benefits and hindrances, Grove would be a better pitcher than Johnson.

But I could be wrong.

There's a difference in that MLB 80 years ago was the highest level of play around, as it is today

For white people.

For black people, the higher level of play around was the Negro Leagues. Therefore, if say Paige had an ERA that was 62% of the league average, when you construct your list, it is Paige that would be at the top of the list.

You can make the same claim for Russian hockey players as well, seeing that the Russians were the equals of Canadians in 1972, and throughout the 70s, 80s.

That 98 WAR is without credit for Baltimore. A quick check shows that Grove was injured his 1st year of MLB, it's not all adjusting to the higher level.