Plus – today’s minor league system and advent overseas players means the pool of players to choose from is greater now than at any time in baseball history. Quality of players is continually on the rise, even to this day.

Again, same comparison – do we say Chuck Yeager ‘s a bum because modern day pilots would fly rings around him?

But still – what is the point of the that comparison, it is completely bogus in my mind. Everything is better now – what, Sir Isaac Newton is a hack because he had to do long division by hand and didn’t have today’s benefits of a computer or scientific calculator?

So to rephrase – if you gave the inseminated egg of Hornsby all the modern amenities and training tools today’s players get, he would be the best second basemen in the game.

At the same time, to go back to your comparison, if you took Chase Utley and truly transported his 30 year old body and put him play in the 1920′s, he wouldn’t last a season. Chopping wood to stay in shape, no comfy airplanes, no training equipment, horrible owners, plus prohibition. Hell, life expectancy was 20+ years fewer. He might crack under the pressure of no sportscenter.

Anyway, I think the only way to compare players is to compare them to their peers.

It’s incredibly annoying how blind people are to the progress made in the field of athletics. Willie Mays might well dominate today, if he took advantage of modern training techniques!

“But someone who was a talented enough hitter to hit 50+ HR in the 1950’s is not going to significantly regress. . . ”

And you have evidence for this, how? You have analyzed whether pitchers were throwing as hard, or the same type of pitches? You took into account mound height? You may be right, but I’m not going to take your word for it.

If you really think the great players from history would play at a high school level, you are insane or know nothing about the game. Modern pitchers throw harder, but what makes you think someone like Mays wouldn’t be able to adjust? People have better natural visions/coordination these days???

The difference in training techniques has its only significant impact in strength (thus, more home runs) and conditioning (thus, more longevity). Both of these are already taken into account by the statistics; that’s why seasonal homerun totals have steadily increased with or without steroids. But someone who was a talented enough hitter to hit 50+ HR in the 1950′s is not going to significantly regress, even if you deny him modern training techniques. If you can hit, you can hit. Willie Mays was an incredibly athlete who clearly had a lack of neither strength nor longevity; you are taking the fact that modern training has made the league average better and assuming it means individual players are exponentially better, which isn’t true. Willie Mays was a better athlete than anyone playing then, and would be better than probably anyone playing today…

I think you’re completely wrong. People are bigger, stronger, and healthier today due to significantly better environmental (yes, really), nutritional, and medical standards. An adult Rogers Hornsby would see a limited benefit from anything other than modern weight/cardiovascular training.

Maybe you meant to say “if Rogers Hornsby was teleported here as a fetus, so he could have the benefit of modern advancements.” If that were the case, I might change my position. Then again, Hornsby dealt with a pool of potential players about 5% the size of what we have now.

Basically, bygone eras that are looked upon as halcyon, golden days, typically were played at what we’d now consider a high school, collegiate, or low minor league level.

THe 1960s post: http://razzball.com/fantasy-baseball-the-1960s/

Alas, we’ll never know. Where’s Darwin when you need him?

As for baseball being about hand/eye coordination, I agree this is an important component. As for “natural athletic ability,” I think the old chestnut that strength/muscle doesn’t help you “hit a baseball” has been systematically disproven over the last ten to twenty years. Tiger Woods is now disproving it in the golf world, as well.

If you took a pitcher from the ’30s and plopped him against the modern Red Sox lineup, he’d be wondering why his 85 mph fastball wasn’t as effective as it had been against players who were on average 3-6 inches shorter and 45-60 pounds lighter.

Interesting study done by Washington University (St Louis) comparing Babe Ruth and Albert Pujols. Read it here and you may change your mind:

http://news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/7535.html