Who is more dominant in their sport: Ohtani, McDavid or Mahomes?

[Cas]

Well technically Ohtani is...Ruth never pitched and hit in the same game, it was one or the other. Ohtani is doing both in a game.

Ruth hit in every single game he ever pitched (well, maybe not the Ernie Shore game).

 

[McFlash97]

These guys are clueless. We'd be better off not responding.

The fact that some of you compare hitting and pitching ad a comparable to playing forward and goaltending is pretty far fetched. Just because Ohtani is a unique player who is pretty good at pitching while being a great hitter doesnt take away the fact that he is nowhere near as dominant as McDavid at one single aspect. McDavid has been dominating the big leagues since he was 19. Where was Ohtani ? McDavid has 2 not 1 , seasons where he would have gotten over 150. He has over 14 trophies in his arsenal at the tender age of 26 and led the nearest player in the league not on his team by nearly 40 points.

Just because he plays hockey where it technically isn't feasible for the same player to play goaltending and forward in the same game, hockey fans can turn around and tell you Ohtani can't skate 40 kph stick handling at warp speed changing directions on a dime while processing the game at the same speed as McDavid you would laugh.

Ohtani has a lot of awards and accolades to win before he can be classified as more dominant than 97. American fans Def voting Ohtani around here just like to represent the borefest that is baseball.

Wake me up when the World series is on. The way some of yall talk about Ohtani, you would have thought he was a multiple time MLB champion

 

[Voodoo Child]

The answer is Shohei. McDavid is a nudge ahead of Mahomes. If Ohtani just bat he’d he third but he doesn’t.

Edited for being honest…just.

 

[x Tame Impala]

McDavid would have to be scoring 130-150pts as a defenseman to equal what Ohtani is doing in their respective leagues today.

 

[MrazeksVengeance]

Ohtani/Haaland

HAALAND? ARE YOU SERIOUS?

 

[Coffees]

I know there considered tainted, but Bonds even prior to the Juice had a couple years above 200 OPS+. And, in the 2000's when he was cheating in a league filled with cheaters was past 250+, with a peak Albert Pujols behind him by like 80 points.

Unrelated but Bob Gibson is maybe the most underrated athlete of all time.

 

[Conspiracy Theorist]

‘Who are Ohtani and Mahomes?’

TikTok and YouTube have turned you into a bunch of morons.

The answer is Shohei. McDavid is a nudge ahead of Mahomes. If Ohtani just bat he’d he third but he doesn’t.

Lol, nope. They're not globally played sports like tennis and basketball are for example.

 

[TheStatican]

You are not using OPS+ correctly here. It is based around 100 being the league average. Meaning Ruth's career is 106% better than league average, while Ohtani is 82% better this season. You can't divide them like you did since you can have a negative OPS+

Fair enough, but even considering that he's now at 188 which is 83% of 206 - would say that is figure approaching 90%. Yes to be sure that's Ruth career average, Ohtani isn't touching Ruth top seasons, but he isn't playing in a pre-integration era either. The fact of the matter is Ruth's stats are inflated considering he wasn't playing against all the best available players where as Ohtani is. There's no way of knowing by what amount Ruth stats should be adjusted by, but does anyone think he'd have a 1.379 OPS playing in the league this exact seasons? Was his genetic ability that much greater than everyone else that he would dominate the sport today in the same way he did in 1921? Even with the proper training an fitness regime ofc I very much highly doubt it.

I'm not saying Ruth > Ohtani. I'm saying Ruth was both a good pitcher and a great power hitter, which refutes the claim that Ohtani is the only player in the long history of baseball to do both.

Ruth never did what Ohtani is doing in the same season.

Ohtani is on pace for well over 50 home runs, 59 to be precise. Ruth hit 50 or more home runs an impressive 4 times. But what was the total amount of innings he pitched in those 4 seasons? NINE. And he was garbage in them, allowing 9 runs in those 9 innings. Ohtani meanwhile has pitched 95 innings this year so far while being a cy young contender.

Exactly. Ohtani isn’t even the best at either position.

Have you looked at the stats lately? Without question he's easily the top offensive player in the league this year and he's also simultaneously and ridiculously the most unhittable pitcher as well.

 

[MAB1]

Lol, nope. They're not globally played sports like tennis and basketball are for example.

If tennis is considered a global sport then pretty much every sport is...

The only true global sports are soccer and basketball. Pretty much due to how cheap and accessible it is to play.

 

[tsujimoto74]

He's the best hitter in baseball and an all-star level pitcher... it would be like if McDavid played Goalie for the 3rd period and shut them down

In the month of June 2023, sure. At any point in time before that? No. Going forward? Probably also no.

If the poll question were "which of these players' accomplishments is more impressive?", I'd vote Ohtani in a heartbeat, but it's not. It's "who is more dominant?", and McDavid is the best player in hockey every single year.

 

[MAB1]

In the month of June 2023, sure. At any point in time before that? No. Going forward? Probably also no.

If the poll question were "which of these players' accomplishments is more impressive?", I'd vote Ohtani in a heartbeat, but it's not. It's "who is more dominant?", and McDavid is the best player in hockey every single year.

LOL what are you talking about?

2021: MVP (1st full season)
2022: 2nd in MVP voting, 4th in Cy young voting
2023: Favourite for MVP, Favourite for Cy young

MLB award voting is different from NHL award voting too. The Angels are shit which impacts where he places. If Ohtani was on the Dodgers or Astros he'd get a bump just due to playing on a good team.

That 3-year stretch torches anything McDavid has done or will do.

McDavid is lucky the financial barrier of hockey removes the athletes that the NBA, NFL and MLB get. The "elite athletes" that the NHL has would look like JV dudes next to the elite athletes those 3 leagues get.

 

[tsujimoto74]

LOL what are you talking about?

2021: MVP (1st full season)
2022: 2nd in MVP voting, 4th in Cy young voting
2023: Favourite for MVP, Favourite for Cy young

MLB award voting is different from NHL award voting too. The Angels are shit which impacts where he places. If Ohtani was on the Dodgers or Astros he'd get a bump just due to playing on a good team.

That 3-year stretch torches anything McDavid has done or will do.

McDavid is lucky the financial barrier of hockey removes the athletes that the NBA, NFL and MLB get. The "elite athletes" that the NHL has would look like JV dudes next to the elite athletes those 3 leagues get.

Please feel free to post the stats that you think support the claim that Ohtani is the “best hitter” in baseball for any period of time preceding last month. Or keep moving the goalposts and fighting straw men if that makes you feel better.

 

[MAB1]

Please feel free to post the stats that you think support the claim that Ohtani is the “best hitter” in baseball for any period of time preceding last month. Or keep moving the goalposts and fighting straw men if that makes you feel better.

So you have zero clue what you're talking about...

 

[tsujimoto74]

So you have zero clue what you're talking about...

Wow, what a compelling argument.

 

[amnesiac]

Ohtani fairly easily

Only athletes who could compare were Jordan, Brady, maybe Tiger at their peak

 

[amnesiac]

LOL what are you talking about?

2021: MVP (1st full season)
2022: 2nd in MVP voting, 4th in Cy young voting
2023: Favourite for MVP, Favourite for Cy young

MLB award voting is different from NHL award voting too. The Angels are shit which impacts where he places. If Ohtani was on the Dodgers or Astros he'd get a bump just due to playing on a good team.

That 3-year stretch torches anything McDavid has done or will do.

McDavid is lucky the financial barrier of hockey removes the athletes that the NBA, NFL and MLB get. The "elite athletes" that the NHL has would look like JV dudes next to the elite athletes those 3 leagues get.

Eovaldi and Valdez are just ahead for th CY right now

 

[TheStatican]

Please feel free to post the stats that you think support the claim that Ohtani is the “best hitter” in baseball for any period of time preceding last month.

One - If you know anything about baseball you'd know that players are far less consistent statistically on a month to month basis compared to hockey or any sport. It's not uncommon for the best overall hitter in the league to not be the best hitter even once in any single particular month of a season.

Two - June 2021. Ohtani was undoubtably the most dangerous and best hitter in mlb that month and it was also likewise the best month anyone had that season. And that was the month Schwarber had his torrid homerun streak. Yet Ohtani easily bested him in nearly every relevant offensive category other than homeruns and nearly had more total bases despite having about 20 less at-bats/plate appearances;

He likewise is once again having the best single month of the entire season so far. Actually that's an understatement... he basically just had the best single month of anyone offensively since the end of the freaking 'roids era. Heck he even has an argument for having produced the greatest single month of anyone offensively alone outside of the pre-integration and 'roids era(s).
https://www.statmuse.com/mlb/ask/who-has-the-highest-ops-in-a-month-1900-to-2023-minimum-100-pa And the cherry on top of that is having started 5 games pitching in over 30 innings in the same month.


That said I wouldn't say that he 'torches anything' McDavid has done. By all rights McDavid had an incredible year of his own and their last 3 seasons have been remarkably similar when you look at the mvp voting(correction, will be if Ohtani keeps this up), he certainly should be given his due. I don't think the gap between them is as large as the poll results may suggest and if we take in the entirety of their careers I agree that McDavid is ahead by virtue of the fact that Ohtani has only been offensively dominate while also being a full time pitcher for 3 years while McDavid has 7 full seasons of high level production with 5 scoring titles and 3 mvp's. Though if it wasn't for Judge having a freak'in historic year of his own last season Ohtani would have been well on his way to 3 consecutive mvps now.

But the fact that Ohtani has 2 and half more votes than McDavid, who himself has two and a half more votes than Mahomes on a hockey site, should tell people something.

 

[Nadal On Clay]

Clearly Ohtani. McDavid and Mahomes are close, but I’ve got Mahomes since he’s more impactful to his team’s success.

 

[Breakfast of Champs]

Lol, nope. They're not globally played sports like tennis and basketball are for example.

Maybe not, but baseball is a lot more global than some people realize. It is far and away the most popular sport in Japan, and it's also quite big in Korea. Add in Cuba, DR, etc and it's certainly not just an American game.

It's obvious not Baske or tennis, but it's a lot bigger than hockey, for example

 

[Breakfast of Champs]

If tennis is considered a global sport then pretty much every sport is...

The only true global sports are soccer and basketball. Pretty much due to how cheap and accessible it is to play.

I dunno go look at the top tennis players, they're usually from a cast variety of countries.

Federer , Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, etc are all from different countries, USA and Canada are big on tennis too, and it's popularity is at least moderate in a ton of countries. While it might not be #1 anywhere, it's at least somewhat popular almost everywhere outside of Africa and India.

 

[IWantSakicAsMyGM]

Ruth never did what Ohtani is doing in the same season.

Ohtani is on pace for well over 50 home runs, 59 to be precise. Ruth hit 50 or more home runs an impressive 4 times. But what was the total amount of innings he pitched in those 4 seasons? NINE. And he was garbage in them, allowing 9 runs in those 9 innings. Ohtani meanwhile has pitched 95 innings this year so far while being a cy young contender.

Again, Ruth never had the DH position so he could still get to hit on the days he wasn't pitching, so that's a bad argument. And Ruth pitched 107 complete games, compared to zero for Ohtani. And had 2 seasons where he pitched over 320 innings, compared to Ohtani's career best of 166.

And, Ruth led the league in HR in both 1918 and 1919, while pitching a combined 299 innings and going 22-12 with a 2.55 ERA. So, yes, he absolutely did do it in the same seasons.

 

[Ambisextrous]

Baseball before the 50s was just a drunken white man league so Ruth doesn't count.
Ohtani all the way for this

 

[TheStatican]

Again, Ruth never had the DH position so he could still get to hit on the days he wasn't pitching, so that's a bad argument. And Ruth pitched 107 complete games, compared to zero for Ohtani. And had 2 seasons where he pitched over 320 innings, compared to Ohtani's career best of 166.

First off, complete games? That's a silly argument and you know it, the whole league had just 36 complete games last year. It's an entirely different game today, because 1) pitchers back in the early days weren't asked or expected to max out for Every. Single. Pitch. they throw and 2) everyone in every sport is stronger and faster, more dynamic today than yesterday; why would pitchers be any different? Considering those circumstances its unreasonable and entirely expected that players are not going to pitch as many innings as they used to.

Furthermore tell me how many at bats did Ruth have those two seasons where he pitched 320 innings? Let me answer that for you - 136 and 123. If you consider Ruth a two-way superstar based on those seasons than you might as well call Madison Bumgarner one as well. Clearly he was only a full time pitcher then.

And, Ruth led the league in HR in both 1918 and 1919, while pitching a combined 299 innings and going 22-12 with a 2.55 ERA. So, yes, he absolutely did do it in the same seseasons.

A) Ruth went from 40 and 38 starts in a season down to 19. Ohtani meanwhile is right up there with the league leaders in games started and is on pace to end up with 31-32 starts. B) Ruth only appeared in 95 of 126 games on the offensive side(4 of those as a pinch hitter with just a single at bat so really only 91 of 126, 72%) Ohtani meanwhile has hit in 80 of 82, 98%.

Ruth was not quite a full time hitter and certainly not a full time pitcher, it's not comparable to Ohtani doing both full time and he had a WAR of 7 total for the year. Ohtani almost has that much already!

1919 was the first season Ruth really had a full year at the plate appearing in 130 of 138 games(5 as a pinch hitter but still over 90%) but he was again only a part time pitcher starting in just 15 games all year. It was the last year that he pitched any significant number of innings. To be sure Ruth was easily the best offensive player in the league just as Ohtani is, but his pitching numbers suffered.

His counting stats look good enough at first look; 9 wins 5 losses and a 2.97 ERA but they mask the underlying weaknesses in his pitching game. His sabermetric stats, which we now know and recognize as a more accurate measure of a pitchers ability, were average at best. His ERA+ was 102, essentially league average. Worse yet he had a very poor WHIP of 1.545 allowing 10 hits and 4 walks per 9 inning, while striking out just 2. Ohtani meanwhile is a top 10 pitcher in all of baseball with an ERA+ of 145 and his WHIP of 1.038 ranks even better at 6th overall. Lastely he's leading the MLB in both allowing the fewest hits per 9 at 5.7 and having the most strikeouts per 9 at 12.0

Clearly the stats prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that no one has ever been this good at hitting and pitching in the same season on a full time basis.

 

[Ghetty Green]

Ohtani. To pitch and bat at such a high level is insane.

Yup. I stopped watching baseball 20 years ago but what Ohtani is doing is legendary.

 

[IWantSakicAsMyGM]

First off, complete games? That's a silly argument and you know it, the whole league had just 36 complete games last year. It's an entirely different game today, because 1) pitchers back in the early days weren't asked or expected to max out for Every. Single. Pitch. they throw and 2) everyone in every sport is stronger and faster, more dynamic today than yesterday; why would pitchers be any different? Considering those circumstances its unreasonable and entirely expected that players are not going to pitch as many innings as they used to.

Furthermore tell me how many at bats did Ruth have those two seasons where he pitched 320 innings? Let me answer that for you - 136 and 123. If you consider Ruth a two-way superstar based on those seasons than you might as well call Madison Bumgarner one as well. Clearly he was only a full time pitcher then.


A) Ruth went from 40 and 38 starts in a season down to 19. Ohtani meanwhile is right up there with the league leaders in games started and is on pace to end up with 31-32 starts. B) Ruth only appeared in 95 of 126 games on the offensive side(4 of those as a pinch hitter with just a single at bat so really only 91 of 126, 72%) Ohtani meanwhile has hit in 80 of 82, 98%.

Ruth was not quite a full time hitter and certainly not a full time pitcher, it's not comparable to Ohtani doing both full time and he had a WAR of 7 total for the year. Ohtani almost has that much already!

1919 was the first season Ruth really had a full year at the plate appearing in 130 of 138 games(5 as a pinch hitter but still over 90%) but he was again only a part time pitcher starting in just 15 games all year. It was the last year that he pitched any significant number of innings. To be sure Ruth was easily the best offensive player in the league just as Ohtani is, but his pitching numbers suffered.

His counting stats look good enough at first look; 9 wins 5 losses and a 2.97 ERA but they mask the underlying weaknesses in his pitching game. His sabermetric stats, which we now know and recognize as a more accurate measure of a pitchers ability, were average at best. His ERA+ was 102, essentially league average. Worse yet he had a very poor WHIP of 1.545 allowing 10 hits and 4 walks per 9 inning, while striking out just 2. Ohtani meanwhile is a top 10 pitcher in all of baseball with an ERA+ of 145 and his WHIP of 1.038 ranks even better at 6th overall. Lastely he's leading the MLB in both allowing the fewest hits per 9 at 5.7 and having the most strikeouts per 9 at 12.0

Clearly the stats prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that no one has ever been this good at hitting and pitching in the same season on a full time basis.

Are you really claiming that my argument that the league has changed drastically since Ruth's day, allowing Ohtani opportunties that Ruth never could have had, is "silly" because it's an entirely different game today?