The Greatest of All Time: Babe Ruth

This is going to be the first in a running series going on with the blog about the greatest athlete of all time.  The list will begin with George Herman Ruth.

(Thanks to Fangraphs and Baseball Reference for all the statistics from this piece)

Many people know that Babe Ruth was quite good at baseball.  They know he called his own shot, drank a lot of beer, smoked a lot and hit a lot of home runs.  People have this mythological view when it comes to Babe Ruth as this larger than life figure who was basically a baseball god.  The craziest part is how close this is to the truth.  (Also since we’re talking about baseball here my piece is going to be extremely numbers heavy so be prepared.)

Let’s start out with the basics.  Babe Ruth holds a career batting line of .342/.474/.690, and he has hit 714 career homeruns.  Now let’s really look at everything.  His .342 Batting Average is good for 13^th all time, which is ok for someone who was most notably a power hitter.  His OBP of .474 is 2^nd all-time only behind Ted Williams.  His SLG of .690 is easily 1^st all time; Ted Williams who is 2^nd finished his career with a SLG of .634.  His homerun count makes him 3^rd all time.  Now here come the fun stats.  His OPS is first all time, his OPS+ ranks 1^st all time, he ranks 1^st all-time in wOBA, 1^st all-time in wRC+, and first all-time in both Fangraphs and Baseball Reference’s WAR for postion players.  So yes by almost every metric Babe Ruth dominated baseball more than anyone in history.  A WAR of 8 is considered MVP level, and he has  11 such seasons based on both tabulations.  Think about that in 11 of his 22 career seasons, Babe Ruth was playing at a level where me would have been a worthy MVP, that doesn’t even include seasons where he was just below that level.  So wow he was good.  Here is something scary, Babe Ruth’s career lasted from 1914-1935 from the years 1900 to 1950, he had 180 more home runs than 2^nd on the list during that same span. 

Thus far what I have shown you is the case that Babe Ruth is the best position player of all time, a compelling and quite strong case.  Obviously though there are parts of the argument that don’t make it as clear cut a possibility, and both Barry Bonds and Willie Mays He is only barely ahead of Bonds in terms of WAR and just a little higher than Willie Mays.  Taking into account the imperfections of WAR, especially defensive and baserunning metrics from the time, and that baseball was segregated during Ruth’s time there are clear arguments that Ruth wasn’t the best position player.  It’s a real discussion and one where I’d probably lean in Bond’s direction but again Bonds was not as dominant as Ruth, even though Bonds was quite dominant in his own right. 

There is an additional component to the argument though that I have failed to mention, Babe Ruth’s career didn’t begin as a hitter but as a pitcher.  Babe Ruth as a position player is practically tied with Barry Bonds and Willie Mays but as a baseball player it’s probably not close.  Ruth was a full or part time starting pitcher for parts of 5 seasons and came away with a career BRef WAR of 19.1, and a Fangraph’s WAR of 15.6.  So think about that basically Ruth’s career totals as a hitter are equal to any man’s totals in history.  Then on top of that he has basically what comes to 5 solid seasons of work as a starting pitcher, including two where he pitched at an elite level. 

Babe Ruth more than any other player in baseball history dominated the sport.  He was basically on another level when he played, this is a man for the majority of his career was what Barry Bonds was for the peak of his.  Throw in the fact that he started his career as a pitcher, meaning he lost out on some time to dominate as a hitter even if he was quite productive as one, it makes his career accomplishments ever more impressive.  The man has a serious case that he is the single most dominating athlete of any sport and really it would take an exceptional case to exceed his accomplishments.  Actually it would take more than an exceptional case it would take a genetic freak of nature to exceed his resume.  Barry Bonds was one of the best players in the history of baseball up until 1998 and then after “allegedly” began his steroid use put together arguably the greatest 4 year run of any player in baseball history.  Barry Bond’s career accomplishments still don’t exceed the “Great Bambino”.  Babe Ruth is the case of a man whose legend is actually backed up by his accomplishments. 

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