sidney lanier:

wisblue:

I love some of these old pictures. Wouldn't it be fun to see the entire session where they shoot some of these things to get these gimmick pictures?

Some of those old baseball trick guys/clowns were really good. Too bad the state of the art has sunk to guys like that batting stance guy they feature on FSN Wisconsin, who is neither funny nor accurate.

Ugh, Batting stance guy sucks. All of the FSN channels have given into his crap. They'll try anything to amuse a few idiots. What I'd really like to see is Pitching guy throw a beanball at Batting stace guy's head.

sidney lanier:

I'm all for actual analysis, but these era-vs-era discussions are always far from scientific. If you can prove to me with "actual analysis" that Mike Cameron in his prime was a better athlete than Vada Pinson in his prime, I will bow to your superior knowledge.

Funny you should mention Pinson vs. Cam, because both are about as close of cross-era comps as you could find. 

Check this out:

Pinson (career): 10403 PA, .286/.327/.442, 256 HR, 305 SB (110 OPS+); 1393 RC (1260 estimated runs (2*R*RBI)/(R+RBI)); 5.1 RC/G

Cameron (career): 7174 PA, .251/.341/.448, 255 HR, 293 SB (107 OPS+); 1014 RC (937 estimated runs (2*R*RBI)/(R+RBI); 5.5 RC/G

Pinson's career environment: .265/.331/.396

Cameron's career environment: .266/.335/.426

Both are/were slightly above average outfielders with solid power/speed attributes. In the power/speed department, Cameron gets extra points for stealing bases at a better clip (by 7% over Pinson, 78% to 71%), while Pinson's .442 SLG is way more impressive than Cam's .448 SLG, given their eras.

On defense, none of the advanced metrics seem to be available for Pinson, so I'm not going to comment on them in that regard, except for two notes:

(1) Cameron's range is indeed further above average than Pinson's, in CF. I'm not going to say that either was a better or worse CF, but Cam did indeed make put outs and assists at a higher frequency than Pinson, and a higher frequency verses his peers.

(2) Take it for what it's worth, but Cam plays a higher percentage of his games at CF than Pinson did.

Even their primes, from roughly 24-31, are very comparable:

Pinson (1963-1970): 5148 PA, .285/.325/.453 (!!!), 140 HR, 128 SB; 114 OPS+

Cameron (1997-2004): 4615 PA, .249/.342/.442, 160 HR, 216 SB; 105 OPS+

Note that Pinson was notably more valuable in his prime, and I'm especially impressed by his .453 SLG recorded from 1963-1970. This probably gives a mark in Pinson's favor when considering them, somewhat, although their careers are markedly similar.

***

As for cross-era comparison in general, it can very easily be done. Read tons and tons about the history of the game, learn about what was actually going on behind the eras (what kind of ball did they use? Did they play lots of night games? Travel across the continent? How advanced were their steroids? What kind of amphetamines did they take? What were ballparks like? Which fielding positions were hitters' positions? etc.) ; then use value stats, like OPS+, VORP, etc., stats that compare a player to their environment.

A 3.66 ERA is not the same in 1968 as it is in 2009, which makes it somewhat difficult to just glance at normal rate and counting stats. I always disagree with people who say that they can basically look at a particular stat and know that that player was good "for all time." That would take some kind of acumen; but, we can compare players across eras by comparing them within their eras.

Probably not scientific, but certainly fun.

Great post, radio. Thanks for doing the digging and analysis on this. I just picked V. Pinson off the top of my head as sort of an above-average journeyman, which I see Cameron to be as well. Funny that their numbers track so closely.

I know that badger80 resists the idea of comparing player vs. player as support or refutation of his premise that modern players are better athletes than the baggy flannel wearers, but your cross-era comparison methodology seems well thought out to me. I suppose you could make the case that, if Era A features uniformly better players, hitting stats in that era would be suppressed by the better pitching in the same era, thus making inferior Era B hitters look better in comparison. But that would take the fun away.

One point that's always raised, as it was yesterday, is the idea that players in the baggy flannel era were drawn from a smaller population pool so must be inferior to the modern player. I was thinking about this last night, and it made me wonder about the Dominican Republic. Why does this poor country with 10 million people produce so many MLB players? Because they're baseball crazy.

So was the USA in the 40s and 50s. Eisenhower-era USA probably had more baseball boy-hours/year than does Obama-era USA. Everybody played; the best athletes aspired to the Major Leagues (not the NBA or NFL); kids didn't squander critical hand-eye coordination development years kicking a soccer ball.

Another way to look at it: In 1949 there were 59 minor leagues with 450 teams. In 2007, there were 15 leagues with 175 teams that charged admission. In 1949, these 450 teams fed 16 MLB teams. Now fewer than half as many teams feed twice as many Big League clubs. Our overall population may be larger, but the universe of competent baseball players is much smaller.

sidney lanier:

One point that's always raised, as it was yesterday, is the idea that players in the baggy flannel era were drawn from a smaller population pool so must be inferior to the modern player. I was thinking about this last night, and it made me wonder about the Dominican Republic. Why does this poor country with 10 million people produce so many MLB players? Because they're baseball crazy.

Great point.  Why are some high school programs better than others?  It's all about the motivation to play the sport.  Down in Texas and Florida the best athletes almost always play Football 12 months a year, and that's why Texas and Florida are easily the best recruiting states for College Football.  I think in the 40s and 50s, baseball had no competition from other sports so it probably attracted almost 100% of the best athletes in America.

sidney lanier:

So was the USA in the 40s and 50s. Eisenhower-era USA probably had more baseball boy-hours/year than does Obama-era USA.

Another great point.  I'm sure in the 40s and 50s there were fewer outlets for boys to have fun, and fewer sports to compete with.  There were no video games, there was no internet, there wasn't even TV for most of that period or other things likely to distract a boy from his baseball playing.