Wednesday, April 30, 2025

Mantle, Mays, Aaron Righty/Lefty splits don't add up.

This was originally intended as a normal comparison of the three players but more was added to show that, even for great post WWII players, there is data missing.

This link contains their data. The most relevant is repeated below. The splits and career data is simply copied from Baseball Reference. Below that I did the split sum and split difference.

MantleSplitGPAABRH2B3BHRRBISBCSBBSOBAOBPSLGOPSTB
Mantlevs RHP1,9796,6135,2971,1121,492207423731,012124301,2631,264.282.419.548.9672,902
Mantlevs LHP1,2063,2532,771557913136281634942810462447.330.424.575.9991,594
MaysSplitGPAABRH2B3BHRRBISBCSBBSOBAOBPSLGOPSTB
Maysvs RHP2,5108,8067,7941,4122,338370934481,361253689131,117.300.373.544.9174,238
Maysvs LHP1,2913,5332,947618900145432075227433538400.305.412.5951.0061,752
AaronSplitGPAABRH2B3BHRRBISBCSBBSOBAOBPSLGOPSTB
Aaronvs RHP2,84410,1219,0731,5532,718434735271,665211639211,076.300.362.538.9004,879
Aaronvs LHP1,3843,5843,079581980174232205942510459282.318.405.6041.0091,860
GPAABRH2B3BHRRBISBCSBBSOBAOBPSLGOPSTB
Mantlecareer2,4019,9078,1011,6752,415344725361,509153401,7331,718.298.421.557.9774,511
Mayscareer2,99212,49610,8812,0603,2835231406601,9033381021,4671,527.302.384.558.9426,066
Aaroncareer3,29813,94112,3642,1753,771624987552,297240731,4031,381.305.374.555.9296,856
GPAABRH2B3BHRRBISBCSBBSOBAOBPSLGOPSTB
MantleSplit Sum9,8668,0681,6692,405343705361,506152401,7251,711.298.5574,496
MaysSplit Sum12,33910,7412,0303,2385151366551,8833271011,4511,517.301.5585,990
AaronSplit Sum13,70512,1522,1343,698608967472,259236731,3801,358.304.5556,739
GPAABRH2B3BHRRBISBCSBBSOBAOBPSLGOPSTB
MantleSplit Dif-41-33-6-10-1-20-3-10-8-7.00009.00026-15
MaysSplit Dif-157-140-30-45-8-4-5-20-11-1-16-10-.00054-.00032-76
AaronSplit Dif-236-212-41-73-16-2-8-38-40-23-23-.00069-.00044-117

Look at Home Runs. Mantle's splits add up but Mays and Aaron are off by 5 and 8 respectively.

Games are not added because they batted both (vs RHP) and (vs LHP) in many games.

I didn't try to do OBP (On Base Percentage - really average) because it gets a little hairy with no Sacrifice Flies (SF) before 1954. This also negates OPS (On base Plus Slugging).

I'm working on Righty/Lefty splits for batters with at least 250 HR (vs RHP) and at least 100 HR (vs LHP). There will be discrepancies. How should they be handled? For instance, Mantle's HR add up but his AB do not. That impacts his AB/HR rate. Not much but some. Most of the careers of Mantle, Mays and Aaron have full data. But for Babe Ruth, whose entire career has play by play data missing, his HR splits are 488+210=698. Not 714. The Babe has 12 homers missing. See:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=ruthba01&year=Career&t=b 

Data Coverage: https://www.baseball-reference.com/about/coverage.shtml

The end.

Friday, April 25, 2025

Righty/Lefty batter splits OPS >+ 1.000 same year: Mike Trout conspicuous by his absence.

Mike Trout led the American League (AL) in OPS+ in 2012, 2015-2019. But Trout has not led in anything since 2019.

Righty/Lefty batters 1950-2024 OPS >+ 1.000 (vs RHP) and (vs LHP) same year.  Thursday, April 24, 2025

64 in those 75 seasons.

This link contains a lot of the data.

Plate Appearances (PA) requirement varies each year depending on the amount of pitching by righty and lefty pitchers as described in recent previous posts. Both batter splits must have OPS >= 1.000.

____________________

My yearly PA split requirements during the Trout years; percentages are for outs recorded:

YearLefty%Righty%PAleftyPArighty

201229.93%70.07%150350
201328.81%71.19%144356
201426.62%73.38%133367
201526.90%73.10%135365
201625.95%74.05%130370
201725.70%74.30%129371
201828.39%71.61%142358
201927.58%72.42%138362
202026.77%73.23%134366
202129.62%70.38%148352
202227.19%72.81%136364
202326.37%73.63%132368
202426.84%73.16%134366
YearLefty%Righty%PAleftyPArighty

Here are Trout's splits in seasons that might qualify (pa is the requirement in the table above:

SplitGPAOPSsOPS+ABHRBAOBPSLGpa
2012vs RHP127468.99917341323.346.410.588350
2012vs LHP63171.8621381467.267.368.493150
SplitGPAOPSsOPS+ABHRBAOBPSLGpa
2013vs RHP1505231.00017843721.327.428.572356
2013vs LHP82193.9541691526.309.440.513144
SplitGPAOPSsOPS+ABHRBAOBPSLGpa
2014vs RHP148529.94816945327.291.374.574367
2014vs LHP74176.9101561499.275.386.524133
SplitGPAOPSsOPS+ABHRBAOBPSLGpa
2015vs RHP155507.97816843131.295.391.587365
2015vs LHP671751.03218614410.313.434.597135
SplitGPAOPSsOPS+ABHRBAOBPSLGpa
2016vs RHP156525.99617042222.313.442.555370
2016vs LHP63156.9711641277.323.436.535130
SplitGPAOPSsOPS+ABHRBAOBPSLGpa
2017vs RHP1114011.11319332030.313.441.672371
2017vs LHP43106.907146823.281.443.463129
SplitGPAOPSsOPS+ABHRBAOBPSLGpa
2018vs RHP1354621.11820535833.318.462.656358
2018vs LHP61146.9921771136.292.452.540142
SplitGPAOPSsOPS+ABHRBAOBPSLGpa
2019vs RHP1294161.12419532735.303.442.682362
2019vs LHP76184.98915814310.266.429.559138
SplitGPAOPSsOPS+ABHRBAOBPSLGpa
2022vs RHP116361.97617232231.273.349.627364
2022vs LHP591381.0581931169.310.420.638136

One of the splits in two seasons do not meet the minimum: 2017 and 2022. That leaves 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019. That's 7 seasons. The five in bold are ridiculously close to having OPS >= 1.000 in both splits.

In the seasons that qualified, righty batting Trout has higher OPS vs LHP in only one: 2015.

sOPS+ >= 200 (twice league average): 205 in 2018 vs RHP. That's it. only once.

What the heck?