Best right-handed hitters of all time?

[SHOELESSJOE3]

From what I can find, Jim Lemon (1956) and Rocky Colavito (1961) also did it. Joe did it first though (1950). He was actually the first player with a 3 home run game at Griffith, left or right, apparently.

Stranger still: Those three guys appear to be the only ones to do it at Griffith, and they're all righties.

Joe and Rocky of the three were the only visitors to hit three.
Joe also had a double in that game.
Some day for Rocky for Aug.27, 1961, Rocky RH at Griffith all told on that day four home runs, double header. One in first game and three in the second game.

[Sultan_1895-1948]

Still looking for his career totals at Fenway!!!! Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Keep your eye out for Jenkinson's next book

[SHOELESSJOE3]

Here are Dimaggio's road numbers, which give us a rough idea of how he would have done playing his career in a neutral home park:

Can you imagine had he played his career on the Red Sox? With that park configuration and his style? His rate stats would've been some of the best ever put up.

Still looking for his career totals at Fenway!!!! Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Don't have any real numbers at Fenway but here are the most home runs hit by a visitor at Fenway as of 1996.

Ruth--------38
Mantle------38
Killebrew----37
Kaline------30
Dimaggio---29

Ok lets just put Babe aside, he's all alone on top and besides the only LH hitter in a park that favors RH batters, Mantle no splits RH or LH.

But look at the three right handed batters. Joe is 8 behind Killebrew and one behind Kaline in the history of Fenway.

Career at bats no break down we can get home/away but not parks. I don't have that info.
Joe---------------6721
Harmon-----------8147
Al---------------10,116

Plus those were three prime seasons missed in the service. Now Joe is not going to hit them out at the rate Killebrew will but he is third all time for RH hitters at Fenway with less at bats.

[mdb]

So, if the group concurs that Joe D is one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) righty hitter ever, and we add that with his defense, how does this affect his spot in the all-time rankings?

I personally have him top 10, and I believe he is underrated by most.

[Proctor, CF]

So, if the group concurs that Joe D is one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) righty hitter ever, and we add that with his defense, how does this affect his spot in the all-time rankings?

I personally have him top 10, and I believe he is underrated by most.

He is one of the greatest ballplayers that ever lived. In the Pantheon. At his peak, the best player of his day - better than Williams. Longevity is the only strike against him. He was stellar at the plate, in the field, and on the bases. And he got you golden ring - year after year after year.

If we're talking peak, he's a definite top ten player (more like top five) - which is why he was so universally praised by everybody - from Cobb to Ruth to Williams to Musial to Mays - to every [unbiased] authority and fan who ever saw him at his best. As Hemingway reaffirmed, even as his career was in its final innings, he was "The Great DiMaggio". There have been only a handful of ballplayers in his class.

[csh19792001]

So, if the group concurs that Joe D is one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) righty hitter ever, and we add that with his defense, how does this affect his spot in the all-time rankings?

I personally have him top 10, and I believe he is underrated by most.

I personally have him top 10 as well. I've studied his career quite a bit and think I've gained more appreciation and perspective than most who just see his naked numbers.

He's incredibly underrated by sabermetricians in general. Internet sites today are dominated by the sabermetrically oriented. Ergo, he's generally underrated here.

There's also the significant and omnipresent anti-Yankee bias, and people also despise Dimaggio's ego and ineffable reputation. This plays a signficant part in him being unfairly downgraded for what he did (and was able to do) on the field.

Incredible ego that needed to be soothed and grandiose reputation....image mongering.....actually sounds just like Willie Mays. Yet, Mays gets lauded by all, deemed "charismatic".

[SHOELESSJOE3]

I personally have him top 10 as well. I've studied his career quite a bit and think I've gained more appreciation and perspective than most who just see his naked numbers.

He's incredibly underrated by sabermetricians in general. Internet sites today are dominated by the sabermetrically oriented. Ergo, he's generally underrated here.

There's also the significant and omnipresent anti-Yankee bias, and people also despise Dimaggio's ego and ineffable reputation. This plays a signficant part in him being unfairly downgraded for what he did (and was able to do) on the field.

Incredible ego that needed to be soothed and grandiose reputation....image mongering.....actually sounds just like Willie Mays. Yet, Mays gets lauded by all, deemed "charismatic".

How true it is and how many times have I said the same, expect some feedback for this one. Believe it or not some come forth and admit how much they don't like him and then proceed to downgrade him..............and expect others not to connect the two thoughts.

Great hitter one of the best RH hitters going back to the 1930s, great in the outfield, far better than average base runner, his slides a thing of beauty. I posted about a dozen of his slides on another thread, you wonder how he got past the tag.

The main knock short career 13 seasons. I went back and checked some of the higher RH batting averages since 1930, where they stood after their first 13 seasons.

Total career 3 highest batting averages RH hitters since 1930.

Dimaggio---.325
Medwick--.324-----First 13 full seasons .324
Foxx-----.323------First 13 full seasons .334

All were close between 46 and 49 points over the league.
Missed 3 prime seasons, playing at Yankee Stadium, looks great to me.
If some others would just judge Joe the ball player, not what they think of him, separate the two.

[mdb]

I have also found the universal Mays love mysterious...DiMaggio was his equal, at least nearly, in the field, and his superior at the plate...Willie had a longer career though...

What I don't get, regarding Joe D, is how people rank him below Mantle. I think that is going too far, but I know there are a lot of Mantle supporters here.

[csh19792001]

What I don't get, regarding Joe D, is how people rank him below Mantle. I think that is going too far, but I know there are a lot of Mantle supporters here.

Nice segue...here's my treatise....

There's an ongoing schism on this site. It's the old "value vs. greatness" (or "skill vs. value") debate. Underneath, it's really a clash of people's worldviews and perceptions. Most of the polls we have here are merely ongoing exercises in highlighting the different value systems.

There are the those I call the Gestaltists.

Gestaltism

The theory in psychology that the objects of mind come as complete forms or configurations which cannot be split into parts; e.g., a square is perceived as such rather than as four discrete lines.

Individuals espousing this view- as applied to baseball- feel the player with the most composite value in their career, during their peak, or per game is the greatest player. What this really means is that the guy with the better bottom line numbers is automatically greater (every time).

For the Gestaltists, it doesn't matter if the guy couldn't run, hit for a decent average, throw, field, and struck out 175 times a year- if a player hits a ton of homers and draws lots of walks, and his statistical composite value is equal to the guy who helps his team in many ways, but isn't great at hitting homers and drawing walks, the two players are equal.

In other words, someone who isn't exemplary in the skills sabermetricians value, but does everything well isn't given any extra credit for well-roundedness.

In addition to balance of skills, the Gestaltists don't consider things such as a player's uniqueness, excitement, potential to adapt (i.e., how great they player would be in any era).

The other group, call them the Traditionalists or the "Purists", look at the components which comprise a player, and tend to consider the aformentioned factors when assessing a player's greatness. They tend to favor "old-fashioned" measures of player worth: particularly, placing more importance on batting average, the ability to steal bases, and low strikeout totals. Skills are considered, not just value.

To better explain this.... here's a real-life illustration:

Adam Dunn has had roughly the same sabermetric value on a per season basis as Jose Reyes, since Reyes has developed into a fulltime player. Dunn's value, though, is almost entirely predicated on one thing- home runs and their natural corollaries. Because Dunn plays in a fantastic era and park for homers, he can (more or less) do little else but swing from the heels, regardless of the situation. He takes a ton of walks, in large part out of the omnipresent fear of the home run, and also because he can be walked and disposed of once on the basepaths. He's slow and awkward as a baserunner.

In other words, the confluence of contextual factors have conspired to allow him to take the HR/BB/K approach. Were the conditions that of the deadball era, he would be marginalized. Cavernous parks, deadened/blackened/mutilated baseballs, trick pitches, using one ball per game......these things made homers basically impossible to hit. The vast majority were earned- they were inside the park jobs where the hitter nailed one over the OFers heads and had to outrun the relay(s) home.

Realize, Dunn's abilities and skills would be the same with vastly different conditions, but instead of hitting 40 homers and drawing 100+ walks to give him a great OBP, he'd be hitting incessant flyouts and would still be striking out a ton- perhaps moreso. Without much natural footspeed, or great smallball skills, he wouldn't be a very valuable teammate anymore. That is, unless he were somehow miraculously able to adapt and revamp his entire game.

Now, you have a guy like Reyes. On paper, bottom line, he's roughly as valuable as Adam Dunn. He does everything well, though doesn't produce a ton at the plate (at least yet). He's a sparkplug, creates his own runs on the basepaths, pulls off things no one else can, and adapts to the situation (he's NOT swinging from the heels going for the HR glory on every pitch in the zone).

He'd be great in ANY era, irrespective of whether it was today's HR based game or the inside game of the deadball era. He's extremely adaptable, he's somewhat unique, and incredibly exciting to watch (well, this is subjective, but you see where I'm going).

For those reasons, to me, Reyes is a greater baseball player than Adam Dunn.

If you look just as sabermetrics, Mantle is greater/more valuable than Dimaggio on both a career and per season level.

There are some that make the automatic conclusion that because Mantle looks better by today's stats, that he must have been a greater baseball player.

I don't automatically make that assumption.

Call me a traditionalist.

Disclaimer: I realize these aren't really discrete groups and it isn't a black and white issue with two entirely partisan sides, but people tend to fall into one school of thought or the other.

P.S.- Rob Deer is a better example than Adam Dunn. The diametric opposite in the baseball universe might be Wee Willie Keeler.

[mdb]

Thanks for that.
Not sure where I stand on that issue. It is a sticky one, I usually take players on a case by case basis...I don't think you can lump all into a value, or a greatness, thing. I could be wrong.

[SABR Steve]

I've been doing a study of batting champs. There was something special about Jimmy Foxx. Foxx had this unique forward, back and forward swing, snapping his wrists as he made contact, much like Aaron and others. He was a great all-around athlete. I didn't see Ernie Lombardi's name above unless I missed it. Part of hitting I guess is the ability to beat the throw to first from time to time. Something he rarely if ever did. However, he was considered at the time one of the two or three best batters in the late 30's and early 40's.

[SHOELESSJOE3]

I've been doing a study of batting champs. There was something special about Jimmy Foxx. Foxx had this unique forward, back and forward swing, snapping his wrists as he made contact, much like Aaron and others. He was a great all-around athlete. I didn't see Ernie Lombardi's name above unless I missed it. Part of hitting I guess is the ability to beat the throw to first from time to time. Something he rarely if ever did. However, he was considered at the time one of the two or three best batters in the late 30's and early 40's.

Both leagues top 3 GIDP 1933-1945

I chose 1933-1945 because those were seasons where Ernie played a minimum of 100 games. He did play 118 games in 1932 but I don't have the numbers for GIDP's for 1932. Not that important 1933-1945 gives a good enough, big enough sample..

GIDP's 1933-1945 both leagues.

------------------GIDP's------------------At bats.
Lombardi----------249-----------------------5325
Medwick----------198-----------------------7283
Jurges------------187-----------------------5303

[mwiggins]

Great post, CSH. Very interesting to see you comparing Dunn and Reyes, since the newer comprehensive value stats do not see them as being equal - but rather see Reyes of '06-'08 as the more valuable player. In addition to being the more complete, well-rounded player who could thrive in any era.

[Myankee4life]

Jimmie Foxx, Rogers Hornsby, Joe Dimaggio.

Mantle would bat .400 for full seasons right handed.

[dominik]

have to mention mays