Ted Williams vs. Left-handed Pitchers

[Sultan_1895-1948]

Matt, digglahhh I figured you two out to have more class than your showing.

I believe they do Joe. This is just a touchy subject for whatever reason. Part of it might be because it involves a favorite player, or more likely, it involves numbers that mean something to some and not to others. All you can do is present information. That alone doesn't signify bias, especially when you've been pretty evenhanded in your posts. You're always one of the more fair posters on here. So are they though. Just hit a button. No worries.

[Sultan_1895-1948]

For overall appraisals...use overall numbers...and those numberes are unimpeachably brilliant.

I tried to make that point when I posted....

Then again, if he did that poorly against lefties and still put up the career numbers he did, then that's pretty impressive.

Let's say that a golfer was a horrible putter but still won tournaments. Overall he was a great golfer because of the results but in examing his actual game, the putting would be a weakness. His results are still the same though, and in reality, are probably more impressive considering the weakness. That is the angle I'm approaching this from. Not attacking what he did in his career, just a specific part of his game.

[SABR Matt]

SHOLESSJOE didn't hit a button...csh is the main source of frustration mouthing off at me as though I'm the one ignoring "facts" when he's the poster using extremely limited data to support a hypothesis that's utterly indefensible (that Williams should be considered in lower regard because hit lefties a little worse than righties).

He hasn't changed one bit. This militant anti-science position is really growing tiresome.

[SABR Matt]

Fair enough Sultan...if you want to claim that Williams was a great hitter in spite of his "problems" against lefties, I don't have a problem with that aside from the fact that I don't think he had any problems hitting lefties (other than perhaps not being as prolific a power hitter)...it's probable that Williams had a platoon split...he probably hit 80-100 OPS points worse against lefties overall...that's not abnormal.

[Sultan_1895-1948]

SHOLESSJOE didn't hit a button...csh is the main source of frustration mouthing off at me as though I'm the one ignoring "facts" when he's the poster using extremely limited data to support a hypothesis that's utterly indefensible (that Williams should be considered in lower regard because hit lefties a little worse than righties).

He hasn't changed one bit. This militant anti-science position is really growing tiresome.

I honestly don't think you two fully understand where eachother is coming from in general. Maybe you don't care to. :noidea The sensitivity level seems to be on code-red no matter what with you guys. Oh well, that's not my business.

[Ubiquitous]

I'll take your word for it but can you show examples? Also could you include BA, not just OPS? Remember this is Teddy friekin' Ballgame here, not just some schlub. So the better the players the better examples obviously.

Take a look at:
Jim Thome
Barry Bonds
Larry Walker
Jason Giambi
Carlos Delgado
Ken Griffey Jr.
Jim Edmonds
or basically any left handed hitter who ever played.

Even Tony Gwynn has a 20 point difference in batting average and a 62 point difference in OPS.

[SABR Matt]

I'm away from my PBP database for a couple more days, but Tango's book "THE BOOK: Playing the Percentages in Baseball" has a whole section on platoon splits...the average platoon split is 15-20% according to work he did using 1999-2002 data (correct me if I'm wrong on those years and percentages, Tom!) though there are types of hitters who defy that (Ichiro for example has a reverse split, which makes sense because lefty pitchers are only a disadvantage for lefty hitters if their game involves trying to get in front of the ball...Ichiro can play pepper aaaaaaalllllll day against those lefties!).

Examples abound...

Here's Barry Bonds:

.304/.457/.628 vs righties (1.084)
.290/.415/.571 vs lefties (.986)

Here's Ken Griffey Jr:

.297/.386/.575 (.961) RHP
.277/.347/.520 (.867) LHP

Carlos Delgado:

.291/.406/.596 (1.002) RHP
.262/.351/.465 (.816) LHP

I could keep going if you'd like. Those are the first three "big name" lefty sluggers that popped into my head.

[SABR Matt]

Here's a guy you might not expect to have a split:

Bobby Abreu -
.312/.426/.549 (.975) RHP
.277/.376/.399 (.776) LHP

[Ubiquitous]

A couple of things on Teddy we do know.

From 1957 on he had 350 PA against lefties. 209 PA away. 141 at home. He faced 42 left handed pitchers. He faced Billy Pierce 46 times, Bud Daley 31 times, and Dan Mossi 30 times. He got into 171 games against lefties. In 86 of those games he got one PA.

[Tango Tiger]

I posted an analysis of the Teddy data on my site:

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/how_did_ted_williams_do_against_lefties/

[Ubiquitous]

TAngo you are right in that Ted did face significantly less lefties at home then on the road. I posted that data just above your last post. Also and i think this is important at least for the data at the end is that a big chunk of his PA against lefties was of the one PA variety. I believe in your own book PH tend not to fare as well as starters, do they not?

[Ubiquitous]

Ted has 141 PA at Fenway against lefties in 75 games. 41 of those games he got one PA.

He faced Billy Pierce 12 times, Bud Daley 11 times, Dan Mossi, Herb Score, Dick Tomanek, and Chuck Stobbs 8 times. He got 30 hits and 26 walks.

He got 209 PA against lefites in 96 away games. 45 of those were one PA games.

He faced Billy Pierce 34 times, Dan Mossi 22 times, Bud DAley 20 times, Bobby Shantz 16 times, and Billy O'Dell 11 times. He got 40 hits and 34 walks.

I believe his avg at home against lefties was .268 and in away games it was .234. Though he hit 8 of his 9 homers off lefties in away games, but hit 7 of his 11 doubles at home.

[Tango Tiger]

There is a huge PH penalty.

Here is Andy's analysis for 2005:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=5404

In that year, they lost 28 points on their BA and 59 points on their SLG. In "wOBA speak", that's around a 27 point drop in performance, enough to turn an average hitter into an almost replacement-level hitter.

[csh19792001]

For overall appraisals...use overall numbers...and those numberes are unimpeachably brilliant.

Matt:

We're using all of the (available) overall numbers. And they show that, in more than half of Ted's career PA's, he significantly less productive against left handed pitching than against right handers. He had an obvious weakness against left handed pitching, and we're talking about that in the context of people summarily labeling him "the greatest hitter who ever lived".

It is clearly germane to his case.

I'll again refer you back to Hitchedtoaspark's original post with the data, if you missed it.

[SABR Matt]

I of course did NOT miss the post, csh. But thanks for assuming I can't read.

More important to reply to is your assertion that a lefty (gasp!) not hitting lefties quite as well as righties (who'd have thought!!) could not possibly be among the three or four greatest hitters of all time. I ask you...why the heck not? If he'd never collected a single hit against a left but still got to the same career numbers he has, I would still consider him the second most talented hitter (by production rate) and the fourth greatest hitter of all time.