It’s the Winter Meetings and every free agent is trying to sell themselves. We have had a couple good sales pitches already. Craig Kimbrel’s agent already came out and said that he is the greatest closer of all-time. Scott Boras just gave teams a 118-page handbook about Bryce Harper. Adam Ottavino is going a different route trying to sell himself. After spending 3 full days at the MLB Network studios doing analyst work, Ottavino came out with a line about Babe Ruth.
“I had an argument with a coach in Triple-A about Babe Ruth’s effectiveness in today’s game,” Ottavino told Mike Petriello on MLB.com’s Statcast Podcast. “… I said, ‘Babe Ruth, with that swing, swinging that bat, I got him hitting .140 with eight homers.'”
“He was like, ‘are you nuts? Babe Ruth would hit .370 with 60 homers,’ and I’m like, ‘I would strike Babe Ruth out every time.’ I’m not trying to disrespect him, you know, rest in peace, you know, shout out to Babe Ruth. But, it was a different game, I mean the guy ate hot dogs and drank beer and did whatever he did. It was just a different game.”
By the way, Ottavio’s is right. Babe Ruth couldn’t hit him because he is dead. He’s been dead for a long time. He’s not swinging a bat from the grave. But… he’s also right if Ruth was alive today. Pitchers couldn’t even hit 80 on the radar gun when Ruth played. He played during a time when they used the same ball for the entire game. Ruth wouldn’t make it out of AA if he was playing.
The sad thing is, some things are better left unsaid. I wish Ottavino could just speak his mind but that’s not the world we live in. His comments eliminated the Red Sox from signing him. The Red Sox had to deal with the Babe Ruth curse for way too long. The Sox can’t sign Ottavino. That is bound to backfire if that comes to fruition.
