There’s a large divide between those who tout the greatness of players from generations past and those who think players like Babe Ruth were physically laughable by today’s standards who benefited from playing in an era before integration, and before the invention of the slider.
Among those who don’t think Babe Ruth would stand a chance in today’s MLB is Rockies reliever Adam Ottavino, who recently made the case that he would dominate Ruth during an appearance on MLB’s Statcast podcast.
Ottavino was confident the would have no problem sitting down the Bambino:
“I had an argument with a coach in Triple-A about Babe Ruth’s effectiveness in today’s game. I said, ‘Babe Ruth, with that swing, swinging that bat, I got him hitting .140 with eight homers.’
He was like, ‘Are you nuts? Babe Ruth would hit .370 with 60 homers,’ and I’m like, ‘I would strike Babe Ruth out every time.’”
Ottavino isn’t exactly Cy Young either, he’s a serviceable reliever who appeared in 75 games last season with a 6-4 record and a 2.43 ERA. This take will have some baseball purists clutching their pearls, but he’s not alone in thinking Ruth would be a meatball in 2018.
The quote starts at around 35 seconds: