Better hitter, Mantle or Foxx?

[willshad]

I know that Mantle will come ahead on here, but I just want to say that i think Foxx was the better hitter. To me they are similar enough that one can call Foxx the earlier version of Mantle.

They both started young and set an amazing pace, especially in home run hitting.

They both ended their careers at a young age due to off the field behavior.

They both were known for their long distance hitting.

They both won a triple crown.

They both had an amazing 2 season early career peak, that they couldn't really match again, except for one season later in their careers.

They both were great athletes, and blazingly fast, except Mantle played center (no doubt Foxx could have as well).

I think, as good as Mantle's peak was, Foxx's best years were even better, and i think he had more great seasons. Mantle is somewhat overrated due to playing on the Yankees, and due to playing in a league without may star players.

[pheasant]

Once again, I choose the Mick, mainly due to era and relative stats. I give a heavier penalty than most for the 1930s and the 1940s war-raided era. If we assume similar league quality, then Foxx has good case.

Foxx was in the running for 3 triple crowns. He barely missed in avg in 1932(3 points off). Of course, he won it in 1933. And in 1938, he had a monstrous season with league-leading .349 avg and 175 RBI. But his 50 HRs that year didn't cut it.

here is Foxx's best 10 year run vs Mick's(averages per 162 games played)

Mantle: 128 runs, 44 HR, 113 RBI, 129 BB, .314/.443/.614 188 OPS+
J Foxx: 137 runs, 46 HR, 155 RBI, 112 BB, .336/.440/.652 173 OPS+

Foxx still walked a ton and managed to drive in a boatload of runs. Mick's league was much more competitive and lower scoring. Believe it or not, I have Mick ahead by a big margin. I think a good comp for the Mick in hitting is Lou Gehrig.

[9RoyHobbsRF]

so a hitter is someone who walks?

I thought hitting the ball would preclude walking

better offensive player? better player? or hitter?

[willshad]

Once again, I choose the Mick, mainly due to era and relative stats. I give a heavier penalty than most for the 1930s and the 1940s war-raided era. If we assume similar league quality, then Foxx has good case.

Foxx was in the running for 3 triple crowns. He barely missed in avg in 1932(3 points off). Of course, he won it in 1933. And in 1938, he had a monstrous season with league-leading .349 avg and 175 RBI. But his 50 HRs that year didn't cut it.

here is Foxx's best 10 year run vs Mick's(averages per 162 games played)

Mantle: 128 runs, 44 HR, 113 RBI, 129 BB, .314/.443/.614 188 OPS+
J Foxx: 137 runs, 46 HR, 155 RBI, 112 BB, .336/.440/.652 173 OPS+

Foxx still walked a ton and managed to drive in a boatload of runs. Mick's league was much more competitive and lower scoring. Believe it or not, I have Mick ahead by a big margin. I think a good comp for the Mick in hitting is Lou Gehrig.

I think 'competitive' and 'lower scoring' do not necessarily go together. I think it is very possible that the 1930s were more competitive than the 1950s and 1960s .

I do not see Mantle batting .344, or even .325 for his career in any era...he just was not that type of hitter. Gehrig was much more adept at getting extra base hits. Hank Greenberg might be a better match for Mantle with the bat...but even he hit many more doubles than Mantle did.

[leecemark]

so a hitter is someone who walks?

I thought hitting the ball would preclude walking

better offensive player? better player? or hitter?

most people take "better hitter" to mean "better offensive player"

[9RoyHobbsRF]

most people take "better hitter" to mean "better offensive player"

ok just wanted to make sure

does better hitter include base running?

[Jackaroo Dave]

They both ended their careers at a young age due to off field behavior.

Intriguing comparison, willshad. It's too bad their defensive positions were so different. It seems like first base would be the last place for a player with Foxx's tools. (Well, maybe catcher.) I wonder why he wound up there.

In fairness to Mantle, it should be noted that he played with osteomyelitis that was bad enough to keep him out of the draft when they were making a real effort to induct ballplayers. People said, "If he was a ribbon clerk, they would have taken him," but a ribbon clerk with osteo like Mantle's wouldn't have got out of bed.

Now this is completely anecdotal, third-hand, and I regret that it involves a comparison with diMaggio, but a doctor who treated both is said to have said that Mantle's pain threshold was an order of magnitude higher than the Clipper's. (Whether it happened or not, the MD shouldn't have spoken, so never mind.)

Be that as may be, there's no doubt in my mind that Mantle's painful illness shortened and diminished his career, both directly and through his alcoholic self-medication. This has little or nothing to do with Foxx, but it didn't come up in the DiMaggio comparison, so I thought I should read it into the record early here.

I was a Dodger fan in the fifties, and of course I loathed Mantle and spent most of my time arguing with my friends that he wasn't all that great. So now, of course, I have quite a bit of affection and admiration for him, and one of the reasons is that you would never have guessed that he was in chronic pain. One doesn't tend to think of the beaver-shooting partying Mantle in terms of strength of character, but he had it.

[brett]

I think 'competitive' and 'lower scoring' do not necessarily go together. I think it is very possible that the 1930s were more competitive than the 1950s and 1960s .

I agree that scoring level and competitiveness do not correspond necessarily to each other, but I think there was a big drop in competitive balance when the live ball went in, because the majors were not full of guys who could take advantage of the new asset, and it didn't contain pitchers who had been raised getting the big sluggers out with the least damage. Some of the low K rates for pitchers were due to a different batting approach of course, but the AVERAGE hitter simply got a miniscule share of home runs and a disproportionately low share of walks, and this characteristic did not fade away until the 50s. It IS quite possible though that the American League still did not reach a balance until the late 50s and soon afterwards it expanded, so I don't think Mantle's AL was that much above Foxx' AL which was the stonger league when he played.

As for Mantle hitting .325 in that era, consider this:

In 1917, .273 of all non home runs in play went for hits.
In 1932, .292 of all non home runs put in play went for hits.
In 1960, .276 of all non home runs in play went for hits.

this is in spite of the fact that more players were swinging big in 1960.

If Mantle had had similarly greater BABIP his career average would have been .311. That is not the same as boosting Mantle by the league rate which would put him at .333, which also assumes that his Ks would have decreased in 1932 because there were fewer K guys, but as I mentioned, also a different approach, but it is more a sign that fielders were not picking off as many balls in play in the early live ball period. I think at least .311 is reasonable.

That would also raise his slugging and on-base percentages to .570 and .432 which Foxx still beats. I think it might also be reasonble then to say that while league balance may have been greater when Mantle played, part of the equation is that pitching was way behind when Foxx played, but hitters may have, as a group progressed faster with the live ball approach. Then again, if pitching was behind when Foxx played, it would have elevated HIS stats.

[willshad]

I agree that scoring level and competitiveness do not correspond necessarily to each other, but I think there was a big drop in competitive balance when the live ball went in, because the majors were not full of guys who could take advantage of the new asset, and it didn't contain pitchers who had been raised getting the big sluggers out with the least damage. Some of the low K rates for pitchers were due to a different batting approach of course, but the AVERAGE hitter simply got a miniscule share of home runs and a disproportionately low share of walks, and this characteristic did not fade away until the 50s. It IS quite possible though that the American League still did not reach a balance until the late 50s and soon afterwards it expanded, so I don't think Mantle's AL was that much above Foxx' AL which was the stonger league when he played.

As for Mantle hitting .325 in that era, consider this:

In 1917, .273 of all non home runs in play went for hits.
In 1932, .292 of all non home runs put in play went for hits.
In 1960, .276 of all non home runs in play went for hits.

this is in spite of the fact that more players were swinging big in 1960.

If Mantle had had similarly greater BABIP his career average would have been .311. That is not the same as boosting Mantle by the league rate which would put him at .333, which also assumes that his Ks would have decreased in 1932 because there were fewer K guys, but as I mentioned, also a different approach, but it is more a sign that fielders were not picking off as many balls in play in the early live ball period. I think at least .311 is reasonable.

That would also raise his slugging and on-base percentages to .570 and .432 which Foxx still beats. I think it might also be reasonble then to say that while league balance may have been greater when Mantle played, part of the equation is that pitching was way behind when Foxx played, but hitters may have, as a group progressed faster with the live ball approach. Then again, if pitching was behind when Foxx played, it would have elevated HIS stats.

Makes sense, but it seems to me that some may be 'penalizing' guys like Gehrig and Foxx for putting up numbers when the run scoring was at a high level...and ALSO penalizing them because others had not taken advantage of the 'live ball' style. To me, you can penalize them for one or the other, but not both. Sure, a lot of players still played the old style...but it was obviously working, since so many runs were being scored...lots of doubles and triples, and high batting averages. I don't see how it makes it any easier to stand out.

And, really how many players in Mantles leagues were really successful at swinging for the fences? He was the best player in the league for 10 years running, and this can be seen as a sign of his greatness...or a sign that those around him were not all that good.

[Jackaroo Dave]

I think there was a big drop in competitive balance when the live ball went in, because the majors were not full of guys who could take advantage of the new asset, and . . . .the AVERAGE hitter simply got a miniscule share of home runs and a disproportionately low share of walks. .

If Mantle had had similarly greater BABIP his career average would have been .311. That is not the same as boosting Mantle by the league rate which would put him at .333, which also assumes that his Ks would have decreased in 1932 because there were fewer K guys, but as I mentioned, also a different approach, but it is more a sign that fielders were not picking off as many balls in play in the early live ball period. I think at least .311 is reasonable. . . .

I think it might also be reasonble then to say that while league balance may have been greater when Mantle played, part of the equation is that pitching was way behind when Foxx played, but hitters may have, as a group progressed faster with the live ball approach. Then again, if pitching was behind when Foxx played, it would have elevated HIS stats.

I suppose most significant innovations increase the performance standard deviation ( or lower the competitive balance), because the better can take advantage of changes that buffalo the worse. Could you spell out a couple of points for me?

I'm not clear on why you choose BABIP for recalculating Mantle's baseline. I can see that it would eliminate noise due to associated changes in K and BB rates, and it is more nearly pitcher-independent than other measures.

Also I'm not clear on how this relates to the LQ issue. If I understand at all, you suggest that not only is pitching behind in the obvious sense that ERA's and offensive stats skyrocketed, but also that batters may have in fact moved ahead of pitchers. This seems plausible: It 's probably easier to takeadvantage of an innovation than to avoid being taken advantage of by one. But how does one tell? How do you tease apart the quantity of offensive increase due to the juiced ball from that due to batters becoming relatively better than pitchers?

(I realize you devoted your post to explaining exactly this, but I don't quite get it.)

[Dude Paskert]

Intriguing comparison, willshad. It's too bad their defensive positions were so different. It seems like first base would be the last place for a player with Foxx's tools. (Well, maybe catcher.) I wonder why he wound up there.

In fairness to Mantle, it should be noted that he played with osteomyelitis that was bad enough to keep him out of the draft when they were making a real effort to induct ballplayers. People said, "If he was a ribbon clerk, they would have taken him," but a ribbon clerk with osteo like Mantle's wouldn't have got out of bed.

Now this is completely anecdotal, third-hand, and I regret that it involves a comparison with diMaggio, but a doctor who treated both is said to have said that Mantle's pain threshold was an order of magnitude higher than the Clipper's. (Whether it happened or not, the MD shouldn't have spoken, so never mind.)

Be that as may be, there's no doubt in my mind that Mantle's painful illness shortened and diminished his career, both directly and through his alcoholic self-medication. This has little or nothing to do with Foxx, but it didn't come up in the DiMaggio comparison, so I thought I should read it into the record early here.

I was a Dodger fan in the fifties, and of course I loathed Mantle and spent most of my time arguing with my friends that he wasn't all that great. So now, of course, I have quite a bit of affection and admiration for him, and one of the reasons is that you would never have guessed that he was in chronic pain. One doesn't tend to think of the beaver-shooting partying Mantle in terms of strength of character, but he had it.

This probably isn't fair to Foxx, but I do wonder if he was a 100% effort kind of guy on defense...Billy Werber told a story about Foxx using a lack of speed as a reason for not getting doubles on balls off The Wall, but then beating Billy (and everybody else) in a 100 yard dash at a field day. I get the feeling that Connie Mack just decided to put Jimmie at 1st despite his physical tools and enjoy the booming bat, although the Bosox did try Foxx back at C again later.

When I watch video of Mantle trotting out HRs, I honestly feel like the guy looked like he might collapse on the bases...it is well documented that Mickey played through great pain very often and drew a lot of respect from his teammates as a result. There were a lot of reasons for the pain, some his fault and some not...the childhood medical issues, the '51 knee destruction, his partying ways, even getting run over by a golf cart driven by Billy Martin. It's pure speculation, but maybe this had something to do with his poor 2B/3B totals...perhaps there were times when he didn't turn on the jets when he could have either because the pain was too much or the team told him to ease up to save himself. Jim Bouton wrote that the Yanks would often ask/force Mickey to play when the medical staff said he shouldn't, and he also must not have looked at Mantle as a loafer because he had no qualms about saying Maris fit that bill in no uncertain terms.

[9RoyHobbsRF]

Jim Bouton wrote that the Yanks would often ask/force Mickey to play when the medical staff said he shouldn't

this was basically in 1965 for some games when Johnny Keane took over and the Yanks were collapsing and Bouton more than anything was embellishing a story of how Keane and the Yankees were not a good fit

I would not consider that over an 18 year career "often" if it actually happened at all

[CTaka]

Once again, I choose the Mick, mainly due to era and relative stats. I give a heavier penalty than most for the 1930s and the 1940s war-raided era. If we assume similar league quality, then Foxx has good case.

Just wondering how big of an era adjustment should be given in Mantle's favor. Assuming that the 10 year peak for Mantle is 1955-1964, that gives him 4 of the 10 years in which the AL expanded to 10 teams; expansion typically dilutes overall talent. While the color line was broken in 1947, the AL was clearly well behind the NL in including African-American talent during Mantle's peak years. Both the NBA and NFL were far less popular and developed in Mantle's era making it much more lucrative for top athletes to go into baseball during Foxx's era. In fact, there was no NFL in Foxx's period. It seems to me that a league adjustment would be a bigger factor if a) Mantle played in the NL instead of the AL or if Mantle's peak were 10+ years later.

[brett]

a) Makes sense, but it seems to me that some may be 'penalizing' guys like Gehrig and Foxx for putting up numbers when the run scoring was at a high level...and ALSO penalizing them because others had not taken advantage of the 'live ball' style. To me, you can penalize them for one or the other, but not both.

b) And, really how many players in Mantle's leagues were really successful at swinging for the fences?

a) You mentioned yourself that run scoring and competitive balance don't necessarily correspond. If we rubberized baseballs and they started getting hit a lot harder and further, everyone's offense would go up, but there would be a few who had the skills to specifically benefit the most from the change, giving them a relative boost in an increasing offensive setting.

b) In Mantle's time, I am looking more at league rates. Even though offense was something like 20% lower, there were 40% more home runs being hit. That suggests to me that more players were using the home run to produce a share of their value. Scoring was down from about 5.2 runs a game to 4.4 runs per game, or at about 83% of 1932 levels, but Home run rates had grown from 0.6 per game per team to about 0.9 per game per team, or 50% more.

Also, again Ks had risen from about 3.3 per game to 4.9 per game. Some of it due to style of play. Ultimately when I talk about hitters using a deadball approach, you are right that they benefitted from the live ball, but the average guy got roughly the same boost in batting average proportionately to the stars, while the average guy only got about 75% of a proportionate boost in walks, and about half the boost in home runs.

[brett]

I suppose most significant innovations increase the performance standard deviation ( or lower the competitive balance), because the better can take advantage of changes that buffalo the worse. Could you spell out a couple of points for me?

I'm not clear on why you choose BABIP for recalculating Mantle's baseline. I can see that it would eliminate noise due to associated changes in K and BB rates, and it is more nearly pitcher-independent than other measures.

Also I'm not clear on how this relates to the LQ issue. If I understand at all, you suggest that not only is pitching behind in the obvious sense that ERA's and offensive stats skyrocketed, but also that batters may have in fact moved ahead of pitchers. This seems plausible: It 's probably easier to takeadvantage of an innovation than to avoid being taken advantage of by one. But how does one tell? How do you tease apart the quantity of offensive increase due to the juiced ball from that due to batters becoming relatively better than pitchers?

(I realize you devoted your post to explaining exactly this, but I don't quite get it.)

You understood the key points then and I surely don't know all the answers to the questions, but the BABIP issue to me, by eliminating strikeouts, and home runs, is removing 2 things that are highly pitcher dependent (ie DIPS things). The concusion is then that BABIP rose because of an interaction of batted balls, and fielders. The fact that balls in play became hits more often and then slipped back down to previous levels may show an adjustment in fielding levels. Even if the adjustment back down was due to better gloves, better gloves/equipment tends to be something that balances performances. The more diverse the conditions the more players can take specific advantage of the variation. The more uniform the conditions, the less variation there is to take advantage of. For example if gloves became "perfect" so that no one ever dropped a ball, variations in performance between players would shrink.

I guess what I am saying is that while its not the only explanation, BABIP rising with the deadball and then gradually working back down to per liveball levels is consistent with the idea that there was an adjustment period where the liveball created an imbalance where fielders were not making plays on as many batted balls. This I couple with the concept that changes in the physical characteristics of the game allow for the best suited players to separate.