Sunday, May 22, 2011
Williams v. DiMaggio on the road against the six other teams.
I just started comparing Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio year by year from 1939 through 1951. The main thing I want to look at is their numbers on road against the six other teams...
Basically, I'm taking their road data and subtracting their data against each other's team on the road. That leaves road stats against the other six teams. For instance for DiMaggio, it's his road data minus his data in Fenway Park. For Williams, it's his road data minus his data in Yankees Stadium.
This seemed like the most objective way to compare their batting: against the same teams in the same parks. I thought DiMaggio would generally have an advantage batting against Boston because I thought that Yankee pitching would usually be better than Boston's since the Yankees won more often. So I eliminated how they batted against each other's pitching and I eliminated their home parks where Williams would have an advantage.
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Sunday, May 22, 2011
Williams v. DiMaggio on the road against the six other teams, Part 2.
In my devilishly clever comparison, I isolated batting stats, eliminating the need for ball park factor. Williams and DiMaggio are compared season by season by their road numbers in the six other American League parks. On Base Plus Slugging (OPS) is sufficient. No need for OPS+, which takes into account park and season.
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I think this is a valid method to compare two batters who played in the same league during many seasons. For Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams there was a large sample size of plate appearances (PA): 2,435 and 2,759.
For the 2012 American Conference (AC) MVP leaders, Miguel Cabrera and Mike Trout, there are some problems in using this method but it might be fun to take a look.
1. It's only one season. DiMaggio and Williams shared PA on the road against the six other teams in ten seasons: 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949 (DiMaggio was injured and had only 146 PA), 1950, 1951 (DiMaggio's last with only 171 PA).
2. Except during WWI (1918-1919) from 1903 through 1960 both the American and National Leagues had delightfully consistent and fair schedules: 22 games against the other seven teams, 11 home, 11 road. In some seasons not all games were played and there were ties but that was the schedule. In recent seasons the Major Baseball League (MBL) has made a dysfunctional, inconsistent, unfair mess of the regular season schedule.
Trout's Angels played these National Conference (NC) West teams on the road: Colorado 3, LA Dodgers 3, San Diego 3; the Angels played Arizona and San Francisco at home.
Cabrera's Tigers played these NC Central teams on the road: Chicago Cubs 3, Cincinnati 3, Pittsburgh 3; also St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Colorado at home. Colorado? What the heck? Pittsburgh home AND road. What?
For all 2012 road batting:
BA OBP SLG OPS
Trout .332 .407 .544 .951
Cabrera .327 .384 .529 .913
Wow, Trout sweeps.
Click this link to see data per common park. In his short career Mike Trout has never played in Tampa.
Cabrera and Trout both played in these eleven parks with very different numbers of PA. However, here are their total PA: Tout 261, Cabrera 289. Here are their OPS:
Trout Cabrera
BAL-Camden Yards 1 1.367
BOS-Fenway Pk 0.958 0.922
CHW-US Cellular 0.872 0.841
CLE-Progressive 0.771 0.96
KCR-KauffmanStad 0.607 0.960
MIN-Target Field 1.306 1.101
NYY-Yankee Stad 1.319 1.189
OAK-Coliseum 0.634 1.056
SEA-Safeco Fld 0.771 0
TEX-Rangers Bpk 1.237 1.042
TOR-Rogers Ctr 0.982 1.117
Trout wins 6, Cabrera 5. Cabrera was 0 for 13 in Seattle. Zero for 3 against Felix Herdandez, in case you were wondering.
OPS weighted by PA:
Trout: .925
Cabrera: .968
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