Shohei Ohtani vs Babe Ruth: 6 unbiased stats that point to baseball's best player 

Shohei Ohtani broke a huge barrier that has sat in place for a century when he arrived as a two-way player. However, what makes Ohtani truly brilliant isn’t the fact that he pitches and hits, but that he does both extraordinarily well. This year, he is on the cusp of completing yet another historic season, only this time without stepping foot on the mound. This season, Ohtani founded the 50-50 club; 50+ homers, 50+ steals.

But after his record achievement, several comparisons to the Great Bambino started to surface including one from Dodgers’ manager Dave Roberts, most of which suggesting he was better than baseball’s greatest hitter. But before we entangle ourselves in a debate of Ohtani vs Babe Ruth, let’s go over some historical background.

Babe Ruth embarked on his career in 1914, during the middle of the Dead Ball Era. At that time, the rules made it tough for hitters. The balls were made soft. Each ball had to last an entire game which meant even home runs needed to be thrown back on the field. By the end, the balls were literally falling apart. The ballparks were very deep making it even harder to hit home runs. Hitters were taught to hit the ball into the ground and play small ball in order to get on base and push runs across. On the pitching side, hurlers were allowed to scuff the ball, spit on the ball, and dump tobacco juice on it. There was no stadium lighting until the thirties, so ballparks were often poorly lit. As games crawled towards the evening hours and hitters had vision trouble, the dark resin in the tobacco juice further hampered the hitters’ ability to see the ball.

From 1914 to 1917, Ruth was mainly a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and had very few at-bats. However, in 1918, Ruth began establishing himself as a slugger. In just 317 at-bats, the budding Bambino hit 11 home runs, leading the MLB in long balls. The next year, in 1919, he hit 29, again leading the MLB. While these totals don’t sound like much in today’s game, it was immense for the Dead Ball Era. His 29-home run year was a first in baseball history, eclipsing Ned Williamson’s record of 27 from 1884.

When the Live Ball Era started in 1920, Ruth began putting up numbers no one thought was possible. Ruth surmounted 40 home runs eleven times, 50 home runs four times, and topped out at 60 home runs once. The Sultan of Swat also hit for a .300+ batting average 15 times (with a qualifying amount of plate appearances), topping .370 six times reaching as high as .393 in 1923.

In his 22-year career, Ruth led the MLB in home runs 11 times (led the AL 12 times) as well as leading it in several other stats numerous times. His 714 career home runs were an MLB record from 1935 until 1974 when Hank Aaron hit number 715. Ruth still leads the MLB in career WAR, SLG, OPS, and OPS+. Making his career numbers even more astounding is the fact that an intestinal problem hampered his production for a while during his prime.

As a pitcher, Ruth finished his career with a 2.28 ERA having won an ERA title in 1916 with a 1.75 ERA throwing an AL best 9 shutouts that year. But bear in mind, most of his innings came in the Dead Ball Era. Ruth pitched only 31 innings in the Live Ball Era to less than ideal results.

With the historical context out of the way, we return to Shohei Ohtani. Ohtani is currently in his seventh year in the majors after arriving from Japan. He hasn’t played as long as Ruth, but his accomplishments are quite astonishing. Ohtani led/is currently leading his league in home runs for two years straight while also leading in OBP, SLG (led MLB in 2023), OPS as well as OPS+ (led MLB in 2023), and total bases (leads MLB in 2024 thus far). He also leads the NL in RBIs this season and leads the MLB in runs. But does he match or beat Ruth?

Ohtani’s career high OPS is 1.066 which he posted last year. Ruth’s is a mammoth 1.379. Ohtani only topped 50 home runs once. Ruth did it four times. Ohtani hit for an average over .300 twice including this year. Ruth did it fifteen times.

Again, this comes down to the fact that Ruth played a lot longer than Ohtani. But Ohtani’s career best .310 average this year comes nowhere near Ruth’s .393. The only stat where Ohtani significantly tops the Bambino is stolen bases. Ruth was subpar on the basepaths. Here’s a look at some career stats:

On the surface, it looks like Ruth is unmatched. But this comparison is a little unfair to Ohtani. In Ruth’s era, numerous players hit .400+. The last player to hit over .400 was Ted Williams in 1941. Very few attempts at a .400 batting average ended within striking distance of that lost number.

As pitchers developed new offerings and started lighting up the radar gun, though they pitch less innings, it became much harder to hit. The cumulative MLB batting average has been dropping in recent years. Currently, the cumulative MLB batting average is .243, tied for fifth lowest in MLB history going back to 1871, tied with 2022 and slightly worse than 2021. Today’s game relies more on power which is now thriving more than it used to. So, how can we fairly compare Ruth and Ohtani?

There are a few advanced stats that compares players to their peers in a specific year which we can then use to compare to players across different eras. We’ll test Ruth and Ohtani against each other using some important offensive/position player stats then pitching stats. The 2024 season isn’t over yet, Ohtani can raise the bar on his legendary season, but comparing the two this close before the season ends is still fair. In Ruth’s time, baseball clubs only played 152 to 154 games a year compared to today’s 162-game season (Ohtani played 135 games in 2023). With that out of the way, it’s time cut through the sea of opinions in search of the facts. (All advanced offensive stats from FanGraphs, pitching stats from Baseball Reference)

For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work on The Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot, our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop between now and the MLB offseason

1. WAR

WAR, or Wins Above Replacement, assesses how many wins a player would earn their team over a replacement player. The replacement player refers to a player from that year. Since Ohtani has only been around for a short time, we will use the top two years for both players in this particular stat. But before we venture into the WAR stats of these two titans, it is fair to note that Ohtani is at a disadvantage. The WAR stats do not include pitching, just offense and defense. For most of his career, Ruth was an outfielder. But this will give us a general idea of who was more valuable during their best years before we get into pitching. It would, after all, be unfair to Babe Ruth if we didn’t go over the general WAR stat.

Babe Ruth: 14.7 (1923), 13.7 (1921)

Shohei Ohtani: 8.6 (2024), 6.5 (2023)

So, as expected, Ohtani didn’t outperform Ruth in WAR. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t better than Ruth. We won’t determine that until we assess both as pitchers. The WAR stats given above come from years where Ruth did not pitch. Ohtani hasn’t pitched this year either, but his WAR total is significantly higher than in 2023 when he was both a pitcher and a DH. Unfortunately, an arm injury that required Tommy John derailed a part of his 2023 season. Had that not happened, Ohtani would have had the chance to add on to his WAR total.

In any case, it seems that Ohtani’s best offensive year is the one where he did not take the mound. But before we get around to any pitching stats, we need to do a little fine tuning on the offensive stats. This will tell us if Ohtani did something better than Ruth from an offensive standpoint.

2. Offensive runs above average

Off is short for offensive runs above average. This stat measures how many runs a player is worth compared to the average for that year taking into account runs produced from both hitting and baserunning (where Ohtani excels compared to Ruth). Like with WAR, we will use the years with the highest Off for each player rather than the cumulative total to find how each player matches each other at their best.

Babe Ruth: 117.1 (1921), 116.8 (1923)

Shohei Ohtani: 79.9 (2024), 59.5 (2023)

Two points: Ruth. This year, Ohtani is having his best offensive season since joining the MLB. His 76.6 Off is second only to Aaron Judge this season. But matching Babe Ruth at his best is a very hard thing to do.  Judge, the best hitter this year according to Off, who is also hitting for the best Off value of his career, also trails Ruth’s best numbers by a very wide margin.

Still, the offensive battle is not over. There are a few more stats that can conclusively determine Ruth the offensive victor or prove Ohtani has an edge over the MLB’s premier slugger.

3. wRC+

wRC, or weighted Runs Created, is built on wOBA (weighted On-Base Average). wOBA accounts for every offensive feat of a player combining aspects like on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and batting average. wRC+ is an advanced form of wRC that adjusts for factors like era and ballpark. The average wRC+ is set at 100. Any value above 100 is above league average and, likewise, everything below 100 is below average. Again, we’ll use both Ohtani and Ruth’s top two years in this statistic.

Babe Ruth: 234 (1920), 225 (1923)

Shohei Ohtani: 182 (2024), 180 (2023)

Ohtani is 82% better than average this year. Ruth was 134% better than average in 1920. Once more, Ruth tops Ohtani. But wRC+ may be a bit confusing because of its roots in wOBA. Different outcomes are weighted differently every year and the ratios are also very confusing. Different ratios are multiplied to each outcome (single, double, triple, home run) in ways that might seem disproportionate to each other. wOBA is mainly an attempt to replace the slash line with one stat to rule them all using advanced statistics.

While most advanced stats are controversial, there is one in particular that is rooted in a more traditional, but still controversial, stat that accomplishes a similar result. So, before we give up, let’s try this much simpler stat.

4. OPS+

OPS is a combination of slugging and on-base percentage where the exact equation is SLG + OBP. OPS+, like with wRC+, adjusts for era and ballpark where a score of 100 is average. While OPS is somewhat controversial as many statisticians will argue because both slugging percentage and on-base percentage are equally weighted (which is why we have wOBA and wRC), it is commonly used to compare hitters and their value at the plate making it a solid choice as our last offensive metric.

Babe Ruth: 255 (1920), 239 (1921 and 1923)

Shohei Ohtani:  191 (2024), 185 (2023)

So, it appears Ruth was undisputedly better at the plate. The Bambino was otherworldly during his career both at the plate and on the mound, which leads us into the next part of our discussion.

The whole argument behind whether Ohtani is better than Ruth rests on his ability to pitch. But, as it so happens, Ruth was one the games’ top pitchers for a while. One could easily make the assertion that Ohtani is a better pitcher since he can throw harder than any pitcher from Ruth’s era and he has some nastier stuff when compared to Ruth’s century old repertoire that might get him chased from any ballgame in the first inning if he were to pitch today. Still, we need to go by the results even though we know Ohtani has more pitching talent than what was available to Ruth at the time.

5. Pitching WAR

This is practically the same as our first criteria only this time, we are assessing pitching results only. This will give us an idea of how both players stack up to pitchers of their generation. Like with our other metrics we’ll use two years of data since Ruth pitched nearly twice as many games as Ohtani (163 games to Ohtani’s 86).

Babe Ruth: 8.8 (1916), 6.6 (1918) 

Shohei Ohtani: 6.2 (2022), 4.1 (2021) 

It would seem that Ruth outshined his peers a little more in those two consecutive Dead Ball Era years than Ohtani in his modern years. Still, if we were to expand our miniature standings just a little, we would see Ohtani’s third-highest pitching WAR value is higher than Ruth’s. Ruth’s pitching career was rather short. When his power at the plate was discovered, he was yanked off the mound and thrown on the field. The few innings he pitched after the beginning of the Live Ball Era were not very successful.

However, this doesn’t dilute the fact that, during his pitching prime, Ruth had achieved better results. But WAR doesn’t always give us the full story. That is why we need to dig a little deeper.

6. ERA+

Every baseball fan is well acquainted with the metric ERA, or Earned Run Average. ERA is the stat by which all pitchers are judged, calculated by dividing earned runs by innings pitched then multiplying by nine to match the number of innings in a single game. So, pitching one inning and giving up one earned run results in an ERA of 9.00.

ERA+ is adjusted to the league average for both era and ballpark. For context, Babe Ruth owns three yearly ERA figures lower than Ohtani’s best ERA. As it stands, Ruth’s career ERA is just a tad lower than Ohtani’s best ERA. But we must remember, Ruth did this in the Dead Ball Era. So, using ERA+ will render us comparable numbers. Still, Ruth won an ERA title in 1916. Ohtani hasn’t. Ruth’s 1916 year is going to be hard to beat.

Babe Ruth: 158 (1916), 128 (1917)

Shohei Ohtani: 172 (2022), 142 (2021)

Ohtani is now on the scoreboard. His 2.33 ERA performance in 2022 was enough to edge Ruth’s 1.75 in 1916. While Ruth’s 323.2 innings pitched in 1916 seem like they are taken for granted when compared to Ohtani’s 166 in 2022, it was common for pitchers to throw an excessive number of innings during his time. In today’s game with 90+ mph fastballs and deceptive arm angles, pitching that many innings just isn’t feasible any more since it can cause fatigue and injury. As we can observe, Ohtani has proven to be an exceptional pitcher in this era.

Conclusion

When we remove era from our perspective, Ohtani rivals Ruth both offensively and from a pitching standpoint. Ohtani is one of the best hitters and pitchers in the game. Still, it doesn’t appear as though he bests Ruth by any stretch. To overtake Ruth, Ohtani would need to be the best, at least offensively.

It is important to note that Ohtani is only in his seventh year. Any comparison to Ruth is premature. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t better than Ruth, it’s just too early to say. Ruth was an amazing hitter for a long stretch and a great pitcher for a short stretch, but he didn’t do much of both at the same time. If Ohtani can keep up his excellent production at the plate and pitch to his usual high standard further down the road, then he might inherit the crown that belongs to Ruth. But today, that crown still sits atop the head of the Bambino.