For the game: 6-for-6, three homers, two doubles, 10 RBI, two stolen bases. Since WW2, only one man has collected more than ten RBI in a game. (Mark Whiten. See below.)
For the season: first man ever to reach 50/50
And he’s also one of the game’s top pitchers.
The Dodgers seem to have gotten their money’s worth with this guy. He has a pretty reasonable case to be the GOAT – even if he never pitches again. I only wish the Rockies could have afforded him. I’d love to see what kind of seasons he could put up at Coors.
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Miscellaneous: the MLB record for RBI in a game is 12, held by Sunny Jim Bottomley and Mark Whiten.
Bottomley did it with a six-for-six day in 1924, with two homers, a double and three singles. He also holds another impressive MLB record – he’s the only man in history with a 40-20-30 season (forty doubles, twenty triples, thirty homers). He is in the Hall of Fame.
Whiten did it with four homers in a 4-for-5 game at Riverfront Stadium. That was a double-header and he also knocked in a run in the other game. His 13 RBI in a double-header is also tied for the highest of all time. He was one of those guys that never seemed to live up to his potential.
Crazy year for him. From the low of the gambling scandal to the high of a historic offensive season. And the year ain’t over.
Even if the Rockies owner was richer than Steve Cohen, they wouldn’t have much chance of signing Ohtani unless he was ready to give up pitching. Signing with the Rockies would mean pitching and hitting at Coors. Plus, it was pretty obvious he wanted to be on the West Coast. If all that mattered was money, Ohtani would be the Mets DH. Of course, if Ohtani wanted to break Bonds’ single-season homerun record, Coors would be the best place to try. If any home run hitter is going to break Bonds record, it would be Ohtani. But does anyone think he could hit 80 if he played 81 games at Coors?
PLAYOFFS WORLD SERIES THATS WHY
At least Ohtani didn’t have to cheat like Bonds did.
Why did they keep pitching to him?
Lets have him reach ten years before anointing him the best ever.
Ruth’s career OPS+ is the best ever at 206, and his ERA+ in 163 appearances was 122.
Ohtani’s career OPS+ is 153 and his ERA+ in 86 appearances is 142
Ruth pitched full time for three seasons and part-time for two. Ohtani’s really just pitched 3.25 seasons due to injuries, and has only made half as many appearances. There’s probably going to be an argument, which was inconceivable before Ohtani started, but it isn’t really there yet.
Agree. But he is starting to make his case.
If he were 25-26 now, I’d say it’s a good case, but he’s 30, this is the first year he’s ever topped 100 RBI, and his pitching is a question mark, so it’s difficult to predict any great lifetime stats.
But he is crazy good.
I’ll take any team that beats up the Marlins and as a Braves fan… I hate them fucking Marlins!
How much of an impact has changing the size of the bases made on stolen base stats?
Rough totals since the pandemic:
2021: 2200
2022: 2500
2023: 3500
2024: 3500
It’s really an overall effect, as the leaders aren’t that far out of line with what you’d see over the last decade or so (bar the pandemic year).
Limiting the number of times the pitcher throws to first from a billion to three probably had an effect
Now will someone please rescue Mike Trout? He’s going to end up the Ernie Banks of our era
Banks couldn’t leave in free agency. Trout made his own mess.
Plus if Ernie had been with any other team, he’d have been a second-stringer from 1963 on. It was good that the Cubs sucked, as that kept his place in the line-up, and it was good that Wrigley was a soft touch, as that kept his numbers respectable.
Check out his road stats from 1963 on.
In the 1963-71 period, his road OBP was .277, with a slugging average of .396. Those would have been awful numbers for a second-string catcher, let alone for a front-line first baseman. Had he not played half of his games in Wrigley Field (a respectable-looking .337 OBP and .484 SLG in that period), all of that would have been exposed.
Besides, who would have the heart to trade or release Mr. Cub, or let him become a free agent if that option had existed at the time. The Cubs didn’t even have the heart to bench him.
The sad part of the story is that the Cubs were pretty good from 1967-69, and might have won some pennants if they had a first baseman who could hit. Most people believe that Ernie was stuck on a weak club, but the fact of the matter is that in 1967-1969 he MADE it a weak club (or at least kept it from being a great one).
Acuna had 40 HRs and 70 sbs. Bonds and Ruth were dominant in their eras. Ohtani is one of the greats but he’s not the greatest. Let him win a World Series first and he can enter the conversation.
You know it’s a team game, right? You could be 50% better than the 2nd best player and not be able to drag your team to victory if the manager/other players aren’t pulling their weight
Among the players who never won a World Series: Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, Barry Bonds.
It’s a team game. Total World Series rings: Charlie Silvera 6, Ty Cobb 0.
And it becomes ever more difficult to win one as the number of teams and the number of playoff levels increases.
Plus, one guy can’t win a series by himself, no matter how well he plays. In 1982, Fred Lynn batted .611 for the Angels in the ALCS – and they lost to the Brewers.
It’s a team game. Absolutely. He can’t do it himself. However, inspiring and motivating your team is part of being a leader. Players like Jordan, Brady, and Jeter rose to the occasion when it counted. They made everyone else around them better. To be the GOAT, you need the hardware.
Post-season wins are basically a matter of luck. The shorter the series, the less the likelihood that the better team will win. The multiple levels of playoffs make it even less likely that the best team will win the World Series.
To illustrate. From 1947 to 1958, the Yankees had a post season record of 38-25. Result: they won eight World Series in ten post-seasons (80%).
From 1995 to 1999, with three #1 starters in their rotation, the Braves had a post-season record that was nearly identical to that (37-25). Result: they won one World Series in five post-seasons (20%).
That illustrates how much the playoff levels have added to the odds against winning it all – same performance in both cases. The fact that the Yankees were four times more likely to go from earning the post-season to winning the World Series was no fluke. The odds support it. In the old 16-team Yankee Dynasty days, the Yankees had about five chances in six of making the post season, and about one chance in two to win the post season series (that works out to a 42% chance to go from opening day to world champs). Employing the same likelihoods to the current playoff structure, the odds would be 5/6 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2, or about a 10.5% chance that the best team will win the World Series. In other words, it was about four times more likely in the old 16-team structure that a team as relatively strong as the 1947-64 Yankees would win the World Series. Give those great Yankee teams three layers of playoffs to go through, and maybe they win two or three championships instead of ten.
BUT – even if the World Series was always won by the best team … that still doesn’t mean that the best player was on that team.
Again, one non-pitcher just can’t make that much difference in baseball, as Ty Cobb, Ted Williams and Barry Bonds (and poor ol’ .600-hittin’ Fred Lynn) found out.
I could not agree more with everything you wrote. It’s a personal viewpoint for me. Winning, even if there is a large amount of luck involved, matters for GOAT contention in my humble opinion.
And then there’s the bye factor. In the current set-up, it has been more likely for the better team which has been inactive for a week to be upset when they play. The only reason I’m rooting for my Guardians to get one of them is to get Kwan and Cobb completely healed up.
You’d think a bye (or a long wait for another series to end) would give a team the advantage of being able to use their optimal pitching rotation, giving a guy like Chris Sale a chance to start three games in a seven-game series. From what you’re saying, the “rust” factor negates that.
(I guess that Sale example is not a good one, given that the Braves might not make the playoffs at all. That kinda shows how good Sale, Imanaga and Skubal have been this year, to post those gaudy records with mediocre teams.)