DiMaggio Was Better Than Mickey

[LouGehrig]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

nan:


These sorts of comments have almost no value at all. It requires hundreds and hundreds of games and the compiling of stats to detect superiority among players. "Having seen them both"...big wow.

Know what the difference is between a .300 hitter and a .275 hitter over 600 at bats is? The .300 hitter had 180 hits, the .275 hitter had 165 hits.

Fifteen hits spread out over six months, that is less than one more hit a week for the .300 hitter. If you watched every game all year, but did not keep track of the stats, you would not be able to distinguish the .300 hitter from the .275 hitter. I'm going to guess that you didn't watch every game.

Consequently, while you may believe that having seen them play now and again qualifies you as a judge, you are badly fooling yourself. The proper way to go about this evaluation is to do what WilsonC did, examine the numbers in a clinical way, accounting for the differing standards of the era. Employing this methodology, Mantle emerges as the superior player. This methodology has some actual merit. "I saw both of them play" does not.

Right. Variables that statistics cannot control should merely be ignored. I agree.

[LouGehrig]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

nan:


These sorts of comments have almost no value at all. It requires hundreds and hundreds of games and the compiling of stats to detect superiority among players. "Having seen them both"...big wow.

Know what the difference is between a .300 hitter and a .275 hitter over 600 at bats is? The .300 hitter had 180 hits, the .275 hitter had 165 hits.

Fifteen hits spread out over six months, that is less than one more hit a week for the .300 hitter. If you watched every game all year, but did not keep track of the stats, you would not be able to distinguish the .300 hitter from the .275 hitter. I'm going to guess that you didn't watch every game.

Consequently, while you may believe that having seen them play now and again qualifies you as a judge, you are badly fooling yourself. The proper way to go about this evaluation is to do what WilsonC did, examine the numbers in a clinical way, accounting for the differing standards of the era. Employing this methodology, Mantle emerges as the superior player. This methodology has some actual merit. "I saw both of them play" does not.

How many times did Tom Greenwade have to SEE Mantle play to know his talent? How about Paul Krichell seeing Lou Gehrig? How did these scouts measure talent. They didn't have sophisticated statistics. They had their eyes and their instincts.

[LouGehrig]

Originally Posted by Triad

If it's true that DiMaggio was still trying to regularly hit long fly balls in Yankee Stadium to left-center field, then that would make him an unintelligent player, not an unlucky player. You can't pretend that the pitcher would have responded the same way in another stadium. Knowing the dimensions of Yankee Stadium, the pitcher probably wanted him to try to hit fly balls to left-center, so doing so would only play into the hands of the defensive team.

With the passage of time, there is a tendency to rate players from the recent past higher than those from the distant pass, possibly because fewer and fewer individuals who saw them play are around to corroborate their greatness.
Is that why Ruth, Cobb, Wagner, and W. Johnson are widely considered as the best or second best at their positions all-time?

Also, his theory just doesn't wash, because Ted Williams came from the same era, and he's regarded much more highly than DiMaggio.

Few hitters can direct the ball, and right center field was not much better than left center in Yankee Stadium. DiMaggio was NOT a pull hitter.

Yes, Ruth, Cobb and Johnson are the tops, but there is a great tendency, especially among younger fans, to rank modern players -- A-Rod, Pujols, Bonds, Clemens, Ryan -- as good or better. Now they ARE great, but there are, sadly, some questions with respect to modern players.

Williams ranked DiMaggio as the best player of his era.

[WilsonC]

Originally Posted by LouGehrig

Few hitters can direct the ball, and right center field was not much better than left center in Yankee Stadium. DiMaggio was NOT a pull hitter.

Yes, Ruth, Cobb and Johnson are the tops, but there is a great tendency, especially among younger fans, to rank modern players -- A-Rod, Pujols, Bonds, Clemens, Ryan -- as good or better. Now they ARE great, but there are, sadly, some questions with respect to modern players.

Williams ranked DiMaggio as the best player of his era.

I think the real tendency is for people to overrate players who relate strongly to their own perspective of the game. That can be a timeline bias (overrating players whose style of play is congruent with the era in which a particular person learned the game, or in their favorite era) an era bias (overrating players who played in favorable conditions for their style) or a methodology bias (overrating players who are rated overly well due to flaws in whichever method of player evaluation is being used).

[nanwynnfan]

Originally Posted by LouGehrig

Few hitters can direct the ball, and right center field was not much better than left center in Yankee Stadium.

This is not accurate.

1, Here's how the dimensions looked at Yankee Stadium during Joe DiMaggio's career:

-LF, down the line from home plate, 301'
-Left-Center, 402'
-Dead L-C, 457'
-Center Field, near the momuments area, 461'
-Dead Right-Center, CF, 407'
-RC, CF side of bullpen, 367'
-RC, RF side of bullpen, 344'
-RF, down the line, 296'

During the rumors/speculations of a Williams-for-DiMaggio trade, the buzz always reverted to Teddy's HR numbers with those inviting RF dimensions. Conversely, DiMaggio was seen as blasting the wall at Fenway or launching shots over it, rather than facing 400' outs at the Stadium. Since DiMaggio pulled to left-center, Fenway was seen as inviting to him as well.

The left-right side dimension bias was considerable, as the arc from the CF side of the visitors' bullpen arched out to 457' with ar arc flattening toward dead CF @ 461.' The RCF depth of 407' dropped sharply as one entered the bullpen area at 367' - 344' and 296' down the line.

The L-C to CF dimensions at Yankee Stadium was known as "the place where triples go to die," an allusion to the Johnson Family films from Africa, some in search of the elephant graveyard.

Originally Posted by LouGehrig

DiMaggio was NOT a pull hitter.

DiMaggio was a pull hitter, but not so defined a "dead pull" hitter as TSW.

[Triad]

Originally Posted by LouGehrig

Few hitters can direct the ball, and right center field was not much better than left center in Yankee Stadium. DiMaggio was NOT a pull hitter.

But that's not what I'm getting at. Trying to frequently hit fly balls at all in such a park would be ill-advised for most any right-handed batter. A batter would be wiser to go more for line drives in such conditions. Thus, if hypothetically DiMaggio was hitting 420-foot outs into Death Valley with any regularity there, he would be stupid, not unlucky. It's funny to hear this claim, because you don't generally hear people say that Willie Mays would have been a better batter if a lot of his drives in the Polo Grounds hadn't died as 420-foot fly outs, yet it's the same argument which is attempted on DiMaggio's behalf.

[nanwynnfan]

Originally Posted by Triad

But that's not what I'm getting at. Trying to frequently hit fly balls at all in such a park would be ill-advised for most any right-handed batter. A batter would be wiser to go more for line drives in such conditions. Thus, if hypothetically DiMaggio was hitting 420-foot outs into Death Valley with any regularity there, he would be stupid, not unlucky. .

Very competent batters reach the MLB level and subsequently thrive there because they have managed to incorporate all their batting skills into a winning package.

For Joe DiMaggio, this "package" was comprised of a very wide stance, very good eye, extremely good contact skills and a 35-38 degree upward arc in his batting swing. This was his groove; and this was his pattern of hitting, almost consistently from 1936 to the end of his career.

Like Ted Williams DiMaggio was quite outspoken about NOT tampering with his timing, stance, or swing - the old "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy.

When you have a cavernous 450" or so area out in LC [over a wide expanse] you have tailor-made ec=xtra base potential territory, so long as you are not seduced into trying to pull everything toward that 301' LF foul pole, with a 3' 4' high fence to scale. Dead pulling to within 40 feet or so of the foul line might produce a HR of 350' feet or less; but if it screwed up your stroke it was not worth the tinkering.

There is nothing stupid about hitting to your strengths. If DiMaggio hit many 375' - 435' outs to LF, LC, CF, it wasn't because he was trying to display his power to overcome the odds, but to use his timing and skills to shoot the gaps. Those long outs happened when things didn't work out in his favor.

DiMaggio was primarily a line drive hitter, but his bat speed and upward cut combined to hit long rising drives that could be long outs at the Stadium. He hit HR's; but he was not predominantly a HR hitter, like Foxx or Greenberg.

[Triad]

Originally Posted by nanwynnfan

There is nothing stupid about hitting to your strengths. If DiMaggio hit many 375' - 435' outs to LF, LC, CF, it wasn't because he was trying to display his power to overcome the odds, but to use his timing and skills to shoot the gaps. Those long outs happened when things didn't work out in his favor.

I agree with this. It's the people who say that DiMaggio's stats weren't as good as they could've been due to Yankee Stadium's dimensions who I disagree with. While it caused him to hit fewer home runs, it didn't make him fly out more, and so there's no evidence of their claim that it hurt his stats to any significant degree.