Greater career -- Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani?

No Cody Bellinger option?

Great question...Will have to think about this. So many things to factor in.

Judge would seem to be the easier of the two to predict. He's 32, probably has 6-7 seasons left; if he gets in 140 games, he generally has a 6-7 WAR season. (There's the one drastic outlier, 2022.) If he tails off some, and makes up for that a bit with one more season like 2017 (8.0 WAR), he'll end up somewhere between 70-80 for his career. Maybe he DHs and plays into his 40s and you can edge that up, 75-85.

With Shohei, the one huge variable--pitching--makes it much harder to estimate, plus he's three years younger.

one interesting stat in baseball reference is bWAR per 162 games.

Ohtani (if you combine pitching and batting) is at 10.9(!), which is probably an imperfect measure since we have to account for his pitching injuries, and yet we can also take into account the fact he's a much better hitter now than he was a few years ago. just on hitting alone he's on track for a 10.3 bWAR this season.

other current career 162 game averages --

Trout is at 9.2
Betts is at 8.4
Judge is at 8.0
Harper is at 5.0

other notable names historically -- Babe Ruth at 10.5, Bonds at 8.8, Pujols at 5.3 (idk if my math formula was otm but i think he averaged just a smidge under 8.0 w/STL and maybe 1.7 with the Angels....)

ohtani easily

judge is older than bryce harper and has worse career numbers. he's not in the top tier of this generation's sluggers unless he has some more seasons comparable to his 2022

Ohtani is currently Fast. Judge is maybe 2-3 seasons away from being unplayable in the field imo

he's not in the top tier of this generation's sluggers unless he has some more seasons comparable to his 2022

I'm not sure what you mean by this. He's first among active players in career SLG and second in OPS+ (behind Trout).

His 164 Adj OPS+ is actually 14th all-time, most players over 150 are inner circle HOFers.

fair enough re: the active players but you can't make the all-time comparison unless you cut off all the other players at age 31

im just skeptical that hes gonna reach big career WAR numbers like ohtani still can, or betts who already has at the same age, and the prompt was framed by WAR

Depends what where you set the bar for "big." He won't get near 100, no--but he should make 70 easily, which is a HOF career.

(I was the guy who, early on, was really skeptical about him--hence the Bellinger joke--but I was wildly wrong; he's a great, great player.)

This debate truly demonstrates that our statistical understanding of baseball never left the shitter. *WAR has dramatically compresses the variance to the point where it looks sensible to compare the two, when it’s clearly not. I suppose this is good news for Judge’s agent.

They're such different players that it wouldn't be fair to compare them based on, say, hitting alone.

fair enough re: the active players but you can't make the all-time comparison unless you cut off all the other players at age 31

I agree but even taking into account his decline he can easily finish above 150 which would be elite among HOF hitters.

I think it's going to be hard to keep him out of the Hall of Fame unless he turns into decline phase Chris Davis after this season. He's just so damn good. With the injuries and the unignorable statistical accomplishments, he might have a slight comparison to someone like Larry Walker, who never got the counting stats up to a point to be included among the all-time greats but was clearly an all-time great talent, and did enough to get into the Hall.

To underscore how relatively unique Judge is, his top Similarity Score through age-31 is Brian Giles at 899.6--nobody over 900, which means nobody really similar. (Shohei has two lists, one as a batter and one as a pitcher, so his uniqueness-to-the-nth-power can't be quantified through Similarity Score.)

George is now 6 for 7 with five doubles and a home run over the last two games

George! *Judge

2-3 tonight; he's ahead of Soto in OPS now.

lads

judge is a great player, and i dispute jimmy mod's claim that he'll be unplayable in the outfield shortly -- he's been perfectly fine in *center* this year at 32; barring further injuries he can totally play a corner spot for a good while. but also he's likely too old to reach serious counting stats; he 'only' has 268 homers

ohtani finished fourth in AL cy voting in 2022 then led the majors in slugging and OPS the following year. that is shit that has simply never been done before and will not be done again. he's not even 30 yet and he's an absolute legend

The question specifically refers to bWAR, though. If Ohtani comes back and pitches effectively, easy call. But if doesn't, I'd say it's an interesting question and not a sure thing one way or the other.

if you want to ask 'Most career bWAR -- Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani' that's one thing. but if you ask 'greater career*' and define the asterisk below as one reductive stat, that's a bad question

where, i ask, is your love for the narrative? i mean i'll even grant that judge holds the american league single-season home-run crown . . . <3

I'm not arguing with you that Shohei wins narrative, I'm just responding to the question asked: "Based on bWAR...who will have the greater career?"

Ohtani is currently Fast. Judge is maybe 2-3 seasons away from being unplayable in the field imo

― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Thursday, May 16, 2024 10:52 AM (eleven hours ago)

ah yes "unplayable in the field"... let's take a little gander at some fielding stats shall we?

Judge has played 746 MLB games as an outfielder

Paragon-of-health Ohtani has clocked 8 1/3 MLB *INNINGS* as a fielder (spread across 6 games only in the 2021 season). He obvs will not pitch in 2024 but is rumored to be starting a throwing regiment sometime this season depending whether his UCL "speed bridge" brace takes or not.

Speed Bridge by Arthrex (not IKEA!):
https://i.imgur.com/piAO5ma.png

i have already addressed the 'unplayable' claim, steve shasta

and judge has clocked 0 MLB *INNINGS* as a pitcher, let alone as a high-level starter

is this your version of choosing a side or have i misread your googly-eyed cuff-repair jpg?

and judge has clocked 0 MLB *INNINGS* as a pitcher

Every building same height
Every street a straight line
Team color's yellow and blue~

https://i.imgur.com/4bC8xad.png

wow such di2respect wearing the captain's number

Again, I chose bWAR as the metric in order to compare two very different players -- precisely because statements like "Judge has 0 IP in the majors but Ohtani was 4th in CY one year!" aren't helpful.

I agree with mookieproof that Ohtani has the more legendary career, unless Judge is the second coming of Mantle and Ohtani's production falls off a cliff. In the off-season,David Schoenfeld wrote a column asking whether Ohtani had already done enough to be a HOFer, and concluded that he had (even if played out the minimum ten years without adding much to his legacy). I wasn't entirely convinced, but if he puts up an 8 WAR season at the plate this year then I probably would be.

Judge is now leading the Yankees is bWAR and OPS+. And it's not like Soto's slumping--he's tailed off a bit but is .302/.378/.581 for the month.

Another girl, another planet--2-2, HR and double tonight.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Huge day in history--the verdict here will be arriving soon.

(I wonder if the casual fan realizes that Judge is seven years older than Juan Soto?)

ah yes "unplayable in the field"... let's take a little gander at some fielding stats shall we?

Judge has played 746 MLB games as an outfielder

Paragon-of-health Ohtani has clocked 8 1/3 MLB *INNINGS* as a fielder (spread across 6 games only in the 2021 season). He obvs will not pitch in 2024 but is rumored to be starting a throwing regiment sometime this season depending whether his UCL "speed bridge" brace takes or not.

Speed Bridge by Arthrex (not IKEA!):
https://i.imgur.com/piAO5ma.png

― Mrs. Ippei (Steve Shasta), Friday, May 17, 2024 1:20 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

ok this is my chance to get on my soapbox about how ohtani should be playing the field every day. dude is an insane athlete and assuming his arm is working there’s no chance he wouldn’t provide more value in the field than as a DH.

the lions reference…chefs kiss

anyway, I don’t think framing this as a WAR question is unfair or even uncouth — handicapping ohtani’s future as a 2-way player is basically what makes this question fun

but again… he should be a 3 way player. I’m moving to LA this summer I’ll tell him when I get there

How could anyone think it's Judge???? So many things have to go wrong foe that to be the case.

I expect absolutely nobody to be aware of this, just needs to be mentioned:

Ohtani was straight-up hobbled for most of his NPB career... and a large amount of his MLB career!

Games played (assuming 143 NPB/162 MLB) %:

NPB (2-way player: SP/OF)
2013: 86 (60%) - SPRAINED LEFT ANKLE, FRACTURED CHEEKBONE
2014: 87 (61%) - LEFT ANKLE SURGERY
2015: 71 (50%) - ANKLE RECOVERY
2016: 104 (73%) - only healthy season in NPB?
2017: 66 (46%) - RIGHT ANKLE SURGERY

MLB (2-way player: SP/DH)
2018: 114 (70%) - LEFT ANKLE SPRAIN, UCL TOMMY JOHN #1
2019: 106 (65%) - RECOVERY FROM TJ, RIGHT KNEE SURGERY
2020: 46* (77%) *60 game season - FLEXOR PRONATOR, SHUTDOWN FROM SP ROLE
2021: 158 (98%) - HEALTHY!
2022: 157 (97%) - HEALTHY!!!
2023: 135 (83%) *UCL TEAR #2, SPEED BRIDGE - removed from SP role
2024: 55 (95%) *DH ONLY played in 55 games of 58 LAD games to date

So while I see this unbridled enthusiasm for Ohtani based on recency bias from 2021->, as a GM there's no way I'm putting him in the OF... As I mentioned the Angels let him play a few times after he was taken off the mound as a SP but they still needed his bat in the lineup... but yeah that's only 8 1/3 innings across 6+ MLB seasons.

Yes, once upon a time I played video games and I know there's this mental suspension of actual human physiology... actual wear/tear on the body... but man, IRL if I signed a guy for $70M/yr while he's healing from some experimental surgery which may enable to pitch again, I'm like not counting on anything more than a DH from a guy who has only played 2 full MLB seasons at full-health.

Depends what you're comparing him too right? I'm being generous and just averaging his mlb time cause I know diddlt squat about the npb...but his mlb non-injured time averages out to 85.5%. I would be interested to know what the overall MLB average is, but that doesn't seem particularly shocking to me? Sure not all of that 85% has been two-way, but when he's an mvp challenging DH when not two-waying and he's been available so far 85% of the time for that at least??? I do play a lot of video games, but it doesn't seem crazy unreasonable that he's getting the 42mil bag (or whatever it averages out to)

my calc is 83.1% but the conversation is that more than half of that 83% was not as 3-way nor even a 2-way player, but as a mere 1-way player.

(I would absolutely hope the average DH plays 83%+ of all possible games!)

I just averaged out the percentages you gave. Okay but to judge him as a three way player goes beyond anything that was ever promised correct? Mrs. Ippei, you seem pretty low on your previous patron

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

The MLB average barrel rate this season is 7.2%

Shohei Ohtani sports a 19.1% barrel rate, 100th percentile on statcast. That’s insane.

Aaron Judge has a *29.3%* barrel rate. That’s over 10% higher than the guy listed as 100th percentile in that category

— Srechter (@Srechter7) June 2, 2024

aaron judge is a 110th percentile barreler

but coach always said to give 110%

judge is my answer here btw. will bookmark this post for future reference, but ohtani is already declaring himself as a guy who’s going to be injured all the time and if for whatever reason he or his team decides to have him sit on the bench for half the game, I’ll take the healthy guy who hits a lot of dingers

and plays the field

Prescient poll, but still missing a key part of the answer.