If Bo Jackson concentrated on baseball, he might/might not have been another Mickey Mantle

5.4 career ypc is overrated lol.
 
How many yards per season? There are players that hit 750 each year in MLB too. But how many hits?
 
Foster said:
How many yards per season? There are players that hit 750 each year in MLB too. But how many hits?
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554 in 7 games.
580 in 10 games.
950 in 11 games.
698 in 10 games.

Widely, widely regarded as a generational player, yet your can ass knows better rofl.
 
Cant argue that metric.
 
Transcendent talent you can.

 
It was put to rest when a linebacker ran him down from behind to end another 650 yard 3 td season.
 
I think Bo would have made a better football player than baseball player. He was good at baseball but he wasn't Mickey Mantle.

But I loved the fact he played two sports at a very high level. In my mind he is the great athlete of his generation.
 
kintana said:
I think Bo would have made a better football player than baseball player. He was good at baseball but he wasn't Mickey Mantle.

But I loved the fact he played two sports at a very high level. In my mind he is the great athlete of his generation.
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I don't think he would have ever reached Mantle's level. For one thing, Mantle was a natural righty like Jackson but Mantle learned to switch hit giving him an advantage against righty pitchers and an extra step on the way to first base.
But Jackson had both speed and a great throwing arm and should have been able to be a center fielder rather than a left fielder with training. The big issue is whether he could have gotten better strike zone judgment and improved his absolutely horrible strikeout/walk ratio. Mantle was great at drawing walks and sometimes had an OBA around 500 whereas Jackson never even got close to breaking 400.
 
platypus44 said:
I don't think he would have ever reached Mantle's level. For one thing, Mantle was a natural righty like Jackson but Mantle learned to switch hit giving him an advantage against righty pitchers and an extra step on the way to first base.
But Jackson had both speed and a great throwing arm and should have been able to be a center fielder rather than a left fielder with training. The big issue is whether he could have gotten better strike zone judgment and improved his absolutely horrible strikeout/walk ratio. Mantle was great at drawing walks and sometimes had an OBA around 500 whereas Jackson never even got close to breaking 400.
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I do not think Bo would have had good plate discipline. He seemed to be a player that relied a lot on natural ability.

Looking at his ESPN 30 for 30 he didn't seem to take training very seriously. Which is why I think he is the greatest athlete of his generation. The man was a freak physically. He just showed up to play.

Now being a former baseball scout I can say for certain physical ability in that sport does not make a player great. Like you said strikezone knowledge and being patience at the plate is important. Bo seemed to play more with passion and seemed to want to hit a home run every time.

Again I say Bo to me is still the greatest athlete.
 
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Foster said:
He should have stuck to baseball since he sucked in the NFL. His avg season was less then 700 rushing yards, less then 100 receiving yards, less then 5 td's per season.
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He didn't play full seasons and he was running with Marcus Allen with the Raiders. If he played full time he would have in the least had a career like Terrell Davis. His draw as in his highlights. He would occasionally show glimpses of things that he could do that you didn't know could be done. And he was as a part time player, player better than 0.01% of the population, in two sports.

I don't know a lot about baseball but I believe it is one of those things that is learned. No picks up a bat and bats .300 in the pros without a lot of practice. Deion had the same issue with being a part time player, his batting suffered.
 
Prefect said:
He didn't play full seasons and he was running with Marcus Allen with the Raiders. If he played full time he would have in the least had a career like Terrell Davis. His draw as in his highlights. He would occasionally show glimpses of things that he could do that you didn't know could be done. And he was as a part time player, player better than 0.01% of the population, in two sports.

I don't know a lot about baseball but I believe it is one of those things that is learned. No picks up a bat and bats .300 in the pros without a lot of practice. Deion had the same issue with being a part time player, his batting suffered.
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Baseball takes work. And strike zone judgment and patience takes experience with pitchers and how various umpires call strike zones. There are cases of major league players who came up swinging at bad pitches and then developed great strike zone judgment (my uncle told me this was true of Duke Snider and the stats seem to bear this out). Bo would have had to become obsesed with his baseball career and really work at it. On the other hand, his strikeout to walk ratio was so horrible that I would imagine that a reasonable amount of coaching and effort could have improved it a lot - not to anything like Mantle's level - but a significant amount.
 
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