FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: August 9, 2025

My favourite baseball questions are those that require each quantitative information and subjective evaluation to reply. Who’s the best baseball participant of all time? Effectively, I might pull up the profession WAR leaderboards, say Babe Ruth, and name it a day, however that wouldn’t a satisfying solution to attain a conclusion. All of us know that the essence of Ruth — his huge accomplishments and legend — can’t be encapsulated by what number of Wins Above Alternative he was value.

What about Barry Bonds? He ranks second with 164.4 WAR, lower than three wins behind Ruth (167.0), whereas taking part in towards higher competitors; in spite of everything, Bonds wouldn’t have been allowed to play throughout Ruth’s profession. Good level, however there’s the entire steroids factor clouding his legacy. For some time, Mike Trout seemed like a worthy reply due to how a lot better he was than everyone else at a time when sabermetrics have been changing into extra mainstream. We might use the info to quantify his excellence after which, each time the numbers alone weren’t convincing, we might say one thing in regards to the superior expertise stage within the sport at present. Now, after all, the overwhelming majority of us would in all probability reply Shohei Ohtani due to his two-way exploits. We might cite his statistics, however we’d have to incorporate so many {qualifications}, most of which might relate to the truth that he’s pitching and hitting.

I’m not going to disclose my reply on this week’s mailbag as a result of none of you requested for it. As a substitute, I deliver this up as a result of it pertains to a unique query {that a} reader named Derek submitted, which we’ll get to in a second. However earlier than we do, I’d prefer to remind all of you that whereas anybody can submit a query, this mailbag is unique to FanGraphs Members. If you happen to aren’t but a Member and want to maintain studying, you’ll be able to join a Membership right here. It’s the easiest way to each expertise the positioning and help our employees, and it comes with a bunch of different nice advantages. Additionally, if you happen to’d prefer to ask a query for an upcoming mailbag, ship me an e mail at mailbag@fangraphs.com.