Mickey Mantle is known primarily as a home run hitter: twice over 50 in a season, the 1961 home run race with teammate Roger Maris and 536 career home runs (third all time when he retired in 1968). Also, legendary long balls. But Mantle also hit for high Batting Average (BA): in his 1956 triple crown (lead league in BA, HR, RBI) season and even higher in 1957; career .298; career peak: cumulative .316 through 1957, .302 through 1967. 1956 was the only year he led in BA or RBI.
Ted Williams is known for high BA: last man to hit .400 in a season: .406 in 1941 without the Sacrifice Fly rule. Career: .344. Led the league six times in BA. But Williams also had TWO triple crowns (1942 and 1947) and almost a third (1949; lost BA by less than one point):
Williams led the league in home runs four times, same as Mantle. Career: 521 home runs (third all time when he retired in 1960) in only 7,706 At Bats (AB). Mantle had 8,106 AB for his 536 homers.
In 1956 and 1957 Mantle and Williams battled for the American League (AL) lead in BA, which was a very big deal back then. Williams almost cost Mantle his 1956 triple crown. The primary focus of this post are seasons 1956, 1957 and 1958. The seasons 1955 and 1959 are added for additional context.
Walked at least 100 times in a seasons:
Williams: 11; led AL 8
Mantle: 10; led AL 5
The table below has the top ten in AL BA for those five seasons. Above and below their individual BA is the AL BA for the entire league. Below are the percent differences above the league for those ranked number one and ten. Then the percent difference for #1 above #10. Then for the years when they played enough to qualify for BA lead, the percent difference from the previous year for Mantle (all four following years and two for Williams. My comments are below the table.
The AL BA is remarkably steady.
By far the two highest BA for Mantle are in 1956 and 1957. His 1956 is is 35.8% above AL but that's only the third best among the five AL BA leaders in these five seasons.
Mantle beats Williams in 1956 and then increases his BA by 3.4% to his career high .365 but Williams at age 38 increases 12.5% from 1956 to 1957 and blows Mantle away. Williams .388 is second only in his career to his .406 in 1941. In 1957 Williams was a whopping 52.2% above the AL BA. In 1941 Williams was 52.6% above. Mantle in 1957 was 43.14% above the league.
But then Williams drops 18.3% in 1958 but still leads the AL and is 9.3% above #10 and 1.9% above #2, teammate Pete Runnels. Williams was "only" 29.1% above AL BA, lowest among AL leaders in these five years..
In 1958 Mantle drops 16.6% down to .304, which is really much closer what he hit for his career. His next highest full season BA:
1962 .321
1961 .317
1952 .311
In 1959 Harvey Kuenn had basically the same BA as Mantle had in 1956 but the AL BA had dropped from .260 to .253 and Kuenn was 39.5% above while Mantle was 35.8% above in 1956. Kuenn was top 10 in 4 of 5 years.
Mantle led AL in HR in 1955 (and triples), 1956, 1958.
There's other good stuff scattered in there, including:
Al Kaline is in the top ten in all five years, starting with his leading the league at the youngest age ever, breaking the record of fellow Tiger legend Ty Cobb.
Nellie Fox is in the top ten in four of the five seasons.
Mantle just missed in 1959 when his .285 was a bit lower than the .285 of Bob Cerv.
Minnie Minoso: top 10 in 4 of 5 years.
In 1956 #10 Mickey Vernon is 19.2% above AL BA, highest for a #10 in these 5 years.
Comparing BA leaders Bill Terry (.401 in 1930) and Carl Yastrzemski (.301 in 1968). Monday, December 27, 2021
Maybe we'll take a look at BA leaders for the last 100 years against their league BA in a future post. That might be especially interesting for .400 hitters.
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2 comments:
Here's something I'd like to mention. When a batter puts the ball in play, historically, he'll have a hit somewhere between 3 in 10 and 1 in 3 at bats. I call this contact average.
It's interesting for a number of reasons. We see that some players today are hitting for historically high averages when they make contact, but the number of strikeouts brings them to sub-.300.
Take two players...say Hornsby and Kent. Both right handed second basemen. Take the percentage of contact each made and substitution it for the other;s, taking into account the differences in the percentage each struck out. You can do the same with extra base hits based on the percentage of at bats. What you come up with is that Kent and Hornsby were pretty close to being the same guy.
It may not prove anything, but it's an interesting way to make comparisons between players from such distant eras and I think may lend perspective to some of those amazing averages back when and the amazing home run totals of today in comparison.
This might give us some insights especially into who deserves to be in the hall of fame.
Thanks for the comment, Vinnie.
Are you thinking of Batting Average on balls in play? BAbip career:
Hornsby .365
Kent: .311
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