Free Agent Relief Pitcher Adam Ottavino Says He Would Strike Out Babe Ruth Every Time
(The Score) – Free-agent right-hander Adam Ottavino isn’t short on confidence as he looks for work this winter.
“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.”
Correct. I know not everyone is super familiar with Adam Ottavino’s work on the bump, including the person writing this blog, so here’s a quick sampling of what he does against current MLB competition.
Now that we’re all caught up to speed: The Babe’s got no answers for that. Not today, mostly because he’s wicked dead, but also not if this were some sort of Ted Williams reanimation situation and we were able to bring George Herman back to modern day. Honestly Ottavino should be lauded for saying Ruth would hit eight home runs against modern pitching. That’s giving a guy a whole heap of credit right there.
And while this feels like a great way to market himself as he enters free agency after a year where he racked up 112 strikeouts over 77.2 innings pitched, it absolutely makes me want the Red Sox to stay far away. I’ve seen Pedro Martinez, arguably the greatest pitcher in the history of spheres and dirt, talk shit on Babe Ruth and it come back to bite him in the ass repeatedly. So while I don’t respect really any baseball prior to World War II, I certainly respect ghosts and their curses. That man can curse with the best of them regardless of the eras he haunted and he’s proven that time and time again. Don’t let one little broken curse fool you. You start poking that bear and you end up regretting it for the better part of eight decades. My advice to Adam is to stay in the NL and continue striking out pitchers and pinch hitters for as long as he can. Coming East to Fenway or Yankee Stadium would be certain doom for his career after these remarks.