Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/402 ... cord-books?

One could argue the two greatest baseball players of this century are Japanese. Japanese players have not had the opportunities to play in the MLB that they do now. Does this mean we make Sadaharu Oh the all-time MLB home run champ?

Whoopycat wrote:One could argue the two greatest baseball players of this century are Japanese. Japanese players have not had the opportunities to play in the MLB that they do now. Does this mean we make Sadaharu Oh the all-time MLB home run champ?

No - the talent of the Japanese leagues, especially when Oh played, isn't (& wasn't) on the same level of MLB. While the Negro leagues had equal, if not superior, talent of MLB at the time.

The modern NPB is somewhere between AAA and MLB in terms of quality, the second best league in the world. A league that is better than AAA that includes HOF-caliber players seems kinda "major" to me. I don't think it would be ridiculous to officially recognize it as such.

Roland

totally disagree with your comment.....the Negro Leagues had good hitters, and good enough to make MLB as proven after integration...that doesn't mean ALL of the hitters were better than white MLB counterparts, or they would have filled all lineups post integration (or even now)

more so, the pitchers, while there were some good ones, were overall lesser quality than MLB, one look at the Negro Leagues record books proves that...which also means the Negro League offense stats are inflated...by how much is anyone's guess, but it's easy to see

nothing is or ever will be fair about discrimination....it got rectified when the country wasn't even ready, but at least two men were (Jackie and Branch), along with other GMS (Veeck, et al) who tried to integrate earlier

however, some modern day pundits wish to erase, reduce, or throw out all MLB stats before 1947

which isn't fair to those players, they didn't create or cause the integration

lastly, one other factor is easy to see.....it the Negro League players were so much better than MLB, than why didn't pitchers whose careers bridge both pre and post integration see an increase (worse) in their stats after Negro League hitters entered ?.....same thing with the hitters whose careers bridged same gap (musial, williams, for example), their stats didn't get worse after facing negro league pitchers

lifetime Dodger fan, and ultra proud their franchise broke the color barrier, and of Jackie (as all of us are, for sure)

however, Negro Leaguers being overall better is pure conjecture at best, and completely without supporting data or examples at worst

it's one thing to support Negro League players, and to give them respect and recognition (that many didn't get in their day), it's another to allow sentiment to replace common sense IMHO

I'm not trying to diminish the greatness of Gibson and Paige, but as mentioned above, historians regard the Negro Leagues somewhere between AAA and the majors, which is why it doesn't make sense to include those stats.

Take Frank Thomas. If you put Thomas in a black and white photograph in a Negro League uniform, people would say that guy would've hit 700 home runs in the majors. He probably would've hit 700 in the Negro Leagues. And he was a great player, a surefire HOFer. But Frank Thomas didn't come close to 700 home runs.

The Negro major leagues were in operation from 1920-1948 (29 years). How much top talent was kept out of the AL & NL during that time? The NEXT 29 years (1949-1977), of the top 40 players by position player WAR, more than half would have been excluded from MLB prior to integration. Incredible when you consider how many more white players there were in absolute terms, especially for the first half or so of that period when teams still excluded dark-skinned players via informal quotas.

https://twitter.com/baseballtwit/status ... 6193507338

It's true that pitchers didn't fare as well coming from the Negro Leagues. The best theory I've read on that is from Eric Chalek (co-signed by Scott Simkus in the comments):

1. The Negro Leagues favored guile and trickiness in their pitchers.
2. Negro Leagues pitchers fared worse than hitters in OB [organized baseball].
3. The only guys who pitched well in MLB had great fastballs and pitched conventionally.
4. Negro Leagues teams took balls out of play much less frequently than in OB.
5. The mix of Negro Leagues parks may have tamped down offense due to big dimensions....

Now putting all that together, here’s what happened, in my opinion.

A hitter goes into organized baseball and discovers less of an imbalance against him. Many of the parks are smaller. The balls are replaced more often. Pitchers can’t get away with trick pitches and ball doctoring, and they throw more fastballs. And the batters rejoiced.

A pitcher goes into organized baseball and discovers the deck stacked against him. He can’t throw his tricky pitches or doctor the ball. If he tries to get by with breaking stuff and falls behind, he has to come in with his iffy fastball and gets hit hard. The parks are less forgiving. As he tires, he no longer has the luxury of relying on the mushy ball to keep hitters in the yard. Tough going for the moundsmen, and their performance sags while the batters’ goes up.

Anyway the Negro Leagues that are considered majors now weren't any worse than the Federal League or American Association which had already been recognized as majors. Certainly not worse than any leagues that are still considered minors. There are a couple years where Chalek/Simkus even have the NNL as stronger than the NL (1936 and 1940). Spreadsheet (relevant tab is "QOP rating") / methodology

push the button Max (The Great Race, 1965)

excellent analysis and commentary

i view the hitters now slightly better (Negro hitters) and the pitching I now have more reasons/facts to support what I already knew (from the record books)

while the WAR #s you noted might prove the greatness of the Negro league hitters, they didn't put up as crazy (good) stats playing in MLB as they did in Negro Leagues, a testament to the better pitching (in MLB at the time), and also some proof that the hitting stats in Negro leagues were inflated.....thus, while I understand including them in MLB all time records, it's almost as if they should have an asterisk next to them, a la Maris (or Bonds lol), denoting there were other factors at play

it will never be an exact science and a shame that we even have to conjecturize (haha) hypothetical scenarios

at least the recognition they were denied during the playing years (and lives, as almost all must be passed away or near so by now), is increased along with the deserved respect, etc.

good stuff Max, thanks

Big Fred Whitfield wrote:at least the recognition they were denied during the playing years (and lives, as almost all must be passed away or near so by now), is increased along with the deserved respect, etc.

Amen to that! Here's a great piece from the Athletic talking about what the occasion means to the descendants of those men, only three of whom are still with us (Willie Mays being one of them).

When [high school teacher Vanessa Rose, granddaughter of Turkey Stearnes] walked into her first class Wednesday, a sophomore said: “Miss Rose! Turkey Stearnes!” He gave her a high five. Other kids had questions, naturally, and before Rose knew it the class was discussing OPS.

“The students who play baseball were like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe these are your granddad’s stats. He’s not just a baseball player. He’s a legend,’” Rose recalled. “I’m like, ‘I tried to tell you!’”

Rose was more emotional seeing Stearnes’ official stats than she had been at his induction ceremony in Cooperstown.

“Back then, it was validating for me to hear and see that Granddad was amongst these baseball legends and was part of a story of what made baseball so great,” she said. “But I still felt he was hidden, and that there was a little star next to his name, like: He didn’t really play in the major leagues. How many people feel like this truly counts? How many people will really know who he is after the induction ceremony is over?

“Today was totally different.”

Rose thought back to her class. Her students were mentioning Turkey Stearnes in the same breath as Babe Ruth, and he belonged.

“That’s what I walked away with most,” she said. “OK, now he’s really in. Now people really get what his legacy was about, and how it compares to the other greats.”

MaxPower wrote:

Big Fred Whitfield wrote:at least the recognition they were denied during the playing years (and lives, as almost all must be passed away or near so by now), is increased along with the deserved respect, etc.

Amen to that! Here's a great piece from the Athletic talking about what the occasion means to the descendants of those men, only three of whom are still with us (Willie Mays being one of them).

When [high school teacher Vanessa Rose, granddaughter of Turkey Stearnes] walked into her first class Wednesday, a sophomore said: “Miss Rose! Turkey Stearnes!” He gave her a high five. Other kids had questions, naturally, and before Rose knew it the class was discussing OPS.

“The students who play baseball were like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe these are your granddad’s stats. He’s not just a baseball player. He’s a legend,’” Rose recalled. “I’m like, ‘I tried to tell you!’”

Rose was more emotional seeing Stearnes’ official stats than she had been at his induction ceremony in Cooperstown.

“Back then, it was validating for me to hear and see that Granddad was amongst these baseball legends and was part of a story of what made baseball so great,” she said. “But I still felt he was hidden, and that there was a little star next to his name, like: He didn’t really play in the major leagues. How many people feel like this truly counts? How many people will really know who he is after the induction ceremony is over?

“Today was totally different.”

Rose thought back to her class. Her students were mentioning Turkey Stearnes in the same breath as Babe Ruth, and he belonged.

“That’s what I walked away with most,” she said. “OK, now he’s really in. Now people really get what his legacy was about, and how it compares to the other greats.”

What a great story about Stearnes. I think the level of the league talk takes a little away from what it means for these people. I get why we do it on forums like this and when examining it in a historical context. To me it’s more about the recognition that these players deserve. I think we all think him Gibson , Paige etc were big league quality players and that they’d all have tremendous success in the big leagues at that time. We can all question who was better and debate if this one would have been better than that one if they both played in the same league but we’ll never truly know. I’m just happy they’re doing this now.