If you believe Ohtani is the GOAT, can you actually prove it?

[fabiani12333]

I've seen a lot of people claim lately that Shohei Ohtani is the GOAT of MLB -- that is, the greatest player of all time. Obviously, people say things for different reasons. For example, they may make bold claims about a baseball player whose trading cards they've invested a lot of money in in hopes of boosting their perceived values. Whatever the reason for why people are claiming Ohtani is the GOAT, the question I want answered is, can you prove it?

As someone who strives to find truth through objective facts, I can't see the supporting evidence. Ohtani only has a career bWAR of 51.5 -- good for 297th all-time: https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...R_career.shtml

He's only led his league in WAR three seasons -- Willie Mays led it ten times. Heck, even his former teammate, Mike Trout, led it five times before the age of 25.

How about home runs? He's currently ranked 202 all-time: https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...R_career.shtml

OPS+ (OPS adjusted for league and ball park)? 19th all-time, behind Aaron Judge and the aforementioned Trout: https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...s_career.shtml

Let's ignore all those stats and just narrow down Ohtani's career to his five best seasons -- how does he stack up all-time? From 2021 through 2025, Ohtani had a combined bWAR of 45.4 -- an average of 9.08 per season. That is really awesome. But it's not even close to the five best seasons of all time (post-integration):

Willie Mays: 53.8 bWAR (10.76 season average)

Mickey Mantle: 51.3 bWAR (10.26 season average)

Mike Trout: 49.2 bWAR (9.84 season average)

Barry Bonds (pre-1999): 46.5 (9.3 season average)


But I can just see the responses from Ohtani fanbois now -- "But how many innings did those players pitch?" None, of course. But Ohtani's WAR factors in his pitching. And anyway, he's only thrown 528.2 regular season innings in the eight years he's been in MLB -- an average of 66 per season. He's predominately been a designated hitter. A designated hitter doesn't play the field unless they pitch. That means the 12 Gold Glove Awards that Willie Mays won aren't even a consideration. Not unless Ohtani wins them pitching. But pitching as little as he has takes him out of the race for the award.

So, knowing all that, can you actually prove Ohtani is indeed the GOAT? Or is it just your opinion?

[atk825]

You have fun with that.

[finfangfan]

Prob don’t need another Ohtani thread

[al3xmac10]

Originally Posted by fabiani12333

I've seen a lot of people claim lately that Shohei Ohtani is the GOAT of MLB -- that is, the greatest player of all time. Obviously, people say things for different reasons. For example, they may make bold claims about a baseball player whose trading cards they've invested a lot of money in in hopes of boosting their perceived values. Whatever the reason for why people are claiming Ohtani is the GOAT, the question I want answered is, can you prove?

As someone who strives to find truth through objective facts, I can't see the supporting evidence. Ohtani only has a career bWAR of 51.5 -- good for 297th all-time: https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...R_career.shtml

He's only led his league in WAR three seasons -- Willie Mays led it ten times. Heck, even his former teammate, Mike Trout, led it five times before the age of 25.

How about home runs? He's currently ranked 202 all-time: https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...R_career.shtml

OPS+ (OPS adjusted for league and ball park)? 19th all-time, behind Aaron Judge and the aforementioned Trout: https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...s_career.shtml

Let's ignore all those stats and just narrow down Ohtani's career to his five best seasons -- how does he stack up all-time? From 2021 through 2025, Ohtani had a combined bWAR of 45.4 -- an average of 9.08 per season. That is really awesome. But it's not even close to the five best seasons of all time (post-integration):

Willie Mays: 53.8 bWAR (10.76 season average)

Mickey Mantle: 51.3 bWAR (10.26 season average)

Mike Trout: 49.2 bWAR (9.84 season average)

Barry Bonds (pre-1999): 46.5 (9.3 season average)


But I can just see the responses from Ohtani fanbois now -- "But how many innings did those players pitch?" None, of course. But Ohtani's WAR factors in his pitching. And anyway, he's only thrown 528.2 regular season innings in the eight years he's been in MLB -- an average of 66 per season. He's predominately been a designated hitter. A designated hitter doesn't play the field unless they pitch. That means the 12 Gold Glove Awards that Willie Mays won aren't even a consideration. Not unless Ohtani wins them pitching. But pitching as little as he has takes him out of the race for the award.

So, knowing all that, can you actually prove Ohtani is indeed the GOAT? Or is it just your opinion?

I think it is an opinion.
You can have your GOAT, I can have my UNICORN.

[MiamiMarlinsFan]

He’s definitely the GOAT of this century. Just look how many threads he has here!

[ThoseBackPages]

because i say so!

[imbluestreak23]

GOAT argument focused exclusively on WAR is the most disingenuous way to have a GOAT argument while not acknowledging the flaws of WAR.

Case in point: let me create my own artificial "good" scale of baseball player using some artificial scoring system ranging from 0-100. Hypothetically, the OP is a tremendous fan of some old boomer player who played during the 30s. Fantastic. Using my fictitious scoring system, let's analyze the 30s.

1930s Average Player ranking using ficticious scoring system: 35
1930s OPs Favorite GOAT Boomer player using fictitious scoring system: 70

GREAT! GOAT level player is quite literally woth DOUBLE the average player, or put another is way "twice as good" as the average layer. AMAZING! Fast forward to modern day times.

2025 Average Player ranking using fictitious scoring system: 60
2025 My Favorite GOAT player using fictitious scoring system: 90

Aww, my player is only 50% more valuable than modern competition. While the old boomer GOAT candidate is 100% more valuable than average competition! But, per my ficticious scoring system, my modern day GOAT player is still "better" than the boomer 30's candidate.

In short, standard WAR measures value relative to contemporaries, so a player's raw talent might be higher today, but their relative dominance over their peers (and thus their WAR) might be lower than a past star who was in a less competitive environment. This is entirely logical and has been discussed on sports card message boards since Trout popularized WAR use

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by imbluestreak23

GOAT argument focused exclusively on WAR is the most disingenuous way to have a GOAT argument while not acknowledging the flaws of WAR.

Case in point: let me create my own artificial "good" scale of baseball player using some artificial scoring system ranging from 0-100. Hypothetically, the OP is a tremendous fan of some old boomer player who played during the 30s. Fantastic. Using my fictitious scoring system, let's analyze the 30s.

1930s Average Player ranking using ficticious scoring system: 35
1930s OPs Favorite GOAT Boomer player using fictitious scoring system: 70

GREAT! GOAT level player is quite literally woth DOUBLE the average player, or put another is way "twice as good" as the average layer. AMAZING! Fast forward to modern day times.

2025 Average Player ranking using fictitious scoring system: 60
2025 My Favorite GOAT player using fictitious scoring system: 90

Aww, my player is only 50% more valuable than modern competition. While the old boomer GOAT candidate is 100% more valuable than average competition! But, per my ficticious scoring system, my modern day GOAT player is still "better" than the boomer 30's candidate.

In short, standard WAR measures value relative to contemporaries, so a player's raw talent might be higher today, but their relative dominance over their peers (and thus their WAR) might be lower than a past star who was in a less competitive environment. This is entirely logical and has been discussed on sports card message boards since Trout popularized WAR use

Well, for starters, boomers were born after the 1930s. Secondly, I listed only post-integration players. Thirdly, baseball was more popular during the post-integration boomer era of the 1950s and 1960s -- a high percentage of the all-time greats played during that era. It was a golden era of baseball, with a lot of depth of talent.

[TBTC Baseball]

Year Zero is a hell of a drug.

[PLB9eight]

Can we just make a perennial Fabs thread and keep all the bad takes and such in one place?


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[Bosoxfan5990]

I knew we needed another Ohtani thread!

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by PLB9eight

Can we just make a perennial Fabs thread and keep all the bad takes and such in one place?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

What is my bad take? I'm asking for proof of someone else's take. All I did was provide some statistics.

[atk825]

Originally Posted by fabiani12333

What is my bad take? I'm asking for proof of someone else's take. All I did was provide some statistics.

I love that you post a stat that controls for era as your main argument and then choose to exclude Steroids Era Bonds.

[seanrs1]

All time NBA scoring leaders

Karl Malone must be a better player than Michael Jordan...he scored more total points.



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[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by atk825

I love that you post a stat that controls for era as your main argument and then choose to exclude Steroids Era Bonds.

I don't want to muddle the discussion and give people a reason to dispute the numbers. Everyone knows 2000s Bonds was in god mode, in large part because of steroid use. A lot of players were using, but some were not -- it's hard to know how inflated the numbers were. I just want to keep it simple.

I also didn't want to include numbers from pre-integration, as nonwhites like Ohtani would not have been allowed to play in MLB during that era.

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by seanrs1

All time NBA scoring leaders

Karl Malone must be a better player than Michael Jordan...he scored more total points.



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Jordan is the GOAT not just because of his offense, but also because he was a great defender -- he was selected nine times to the all-defensive team and won DPOY in 1987. And most importantly, he was a 6-time NBA Finals MVP.

Regarding Karl Malone, he was a really efficient scorer for his era -- a higher eFG% than Jordan.

[YouTheManNick]

Find something better to do with your free time.

[jlzinck]

Good God make is stop

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by YouTheManNick

Find something better to do with your free time.

What? I can't ask a question of the forum?

I'm genuinely curious what evidence others can present to support the claim that Ohtani is the GOAT.

[FatboyWu]

Originally Posted by fabiani12333

I've seen a lot of people claim lately that Shohei Ohtani is the GOAT of MLB -- that is, the greatest player of all time. Obviously, people say things for different reasons. For example, they may make bold claims about a baseball player whose trading cards they've invested a lot of money in in hopes of boosting their perceived values. Whatever the reason for why people are claiming Ohtani is the GOAT, the question I want answered is, can you prove it?

As someone who strives to find truth through objective facts, I can't see the supporting evidence. Ohtani only has a career bWAR of 51.5 -- good for 297th all-time: https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...R_career.shtml

He's only led his league in WAR three seasons -- Willie Mays led it ten times. Heck, even his former teammate, Mike Trout, led it five times before the age of 25.

How about home runs? He's currently ranked 202 all-time: https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...R_career.shtml

OPS+ (OPS adjusted for league and ball park)? 19th all-time, behind Aaron Judge and the aforementioned Trout: https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...s_career.shtml

Let's ignore all those stats and just narrow down Ohtani's career to his five best seasons -- how does he stack up all-time? From 2021 through 2025, Ohtani had a combined bWAR of 45.4 -- an average of 9.08 per season. That is really awesome. But it's not even close to the five best seasons of all time (post-integration):

Willie Mays: 53.8 bWAR (10.76 season average)

Mickey Mantle: 51.3 bWAR (10.26 season average)

Mike Trout: 49.2 bWAR (9.84 season average)

Barry Bonds (pre-1999): 46.5 (9.3 season average)


But I can just see the responses from Ohtani fanbois now -- "But how many innings did those players pitch?" None, of course. But Ohtani's WAR factors in his pitching. And anyway, he's only thrown 528.2 regular season innings in the eight years he's been in MLB -- an average of 66 per season. He's predominately been a designated hitter. A designated hitter doesn't play the field unless they pitch. That means the 12 Gold Glove Awards that Willie Mays won aren't even a consideration. Not unless Ohtani wins them pitching. But pitching as little as he has takes him out of the race for the award.

So, knowing all that, can you actually prove Ohtani is indeed the GOAT? Or is it just your opinion?

Tell me you don't watch baseball without telling me you don't watch baseball. Lol.

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by FatboyWu

Tell me you don't watch baseball without telling me you don't watch baseball. Lol.

Can you explain what you mean? I've watched a countless number of MLB games over my life. I watched most of the Dodgers' postseason games this year. What am I missing?

[livfreely]

Originally Posted by fabiani12333

What? I can't ask a question of the forum?

I'm genuinely curious what evidence others can present to support the claim that Ohtani is the GOAT.

The evidence is currently in the “making”. Ohtani is the GOAT now. Doesn’t mean he is the all time GOAT rather he is on his way.

IF…IF he has a few more great seasons he will be the GOAT. He is the GOAT NOW…so let’s just watch the show….


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[BoSoxFan1999]

Originally Posted by YouTheManNick

Find something better to do with your free time.

Seriously, dude needs a life. Guess he thought his inane posts were getting ignored in the Ohtani thread.

[jhssketchcards]

The question I keep asking is IF he has another TJ and it causes him to no longer pitch, and he is strictly a hitter for the next 10-15 years, will that make a difference as far as all-time discussion?


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[Drudgep]

One thing that I think is also excluded from the WAR debate, is that Ohtani, when pitching, literally frees up a roster spot, you have a hitter/pitcher in one roster slot. That means you can add an extra bullpen arm or bat vs L or R. That flexibility is not included in his "WAR."

Also- the eye test, he can win a game by himself, pitching/hitting.