Quote:
Originally Posted by JTysver
On the surface that is correct. But stats alone do not quantify that. Tony Lazzeri hitting in front of the Babe scores a lot more runs than he would if he were hitting in front of John Milner who was cleanup often on the '73 Mets. He also drives in more runs because people pitch to him instead of Ruth whereas they could pitch to Milner if they chose.
Also, the object of productive outs is not really quantified. A guy getting 25 of his RBIs on sacrifice flies matters. A guy hitting a groundball to second with less than two outs and a guy on third matters. A guy pushing a runner up from first to second or from second to third matters as well. A guy moving a runner over by a base on ball matters.
Setting the table for scoring all matters. Likewise so does defense.
When Mays played, guys were not prone to start running on a gapper. They would take a few steps and freeze to make sure the ball wasn't caught. Pretty much the same way a guy freezes on a line drive. Hence, on a double in the gap and a man on first, the guy on first just might not have scored as often if Mays were manning centerfield. All of those things are not quantified.
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The sabermetric formulas referred to above have beyond a shadow of a doubt been proven to be highly accurate run production indicators. James' formulas, when placing various factors into a rather intuitive (or minimally, a very reasonable) equation, have proven astonishingly accurate in predicting the number of runs teams scored. Hence, the application of the same factors/formulas to individual players. The events you mention, in contrast to the mathematical factors taking into account many thousands of at bats, usually vary from season to season, and are not significant in any rational discussion of players regarding their relative run-producing abilities. As well as having played in two different summer leagues every year, high school, more recently in over 30 fast pitch hardball in my early '40's, and studiously and devotedly watched literally thousands of games (much to the wife's chagrin), I watched Mays and Mantle play in their primes, and the significant differences in the game that have taken place since then are these: greater emphasis on pitch counts and accordingly, relief specialists; five man starting rotations rather than four; pitchers figuring out that one grip (two seam) produces a sinking fastball, while another (four seam) a fastball that does not sink; emphasis on the "circle change," which produces a screwball type of movement but without the stress on the elbow; development of the split-finger fastball; various changes in the strike zone (with the biggest coming into effect in 1969); and the number of pitchers versus bench players carried on the roster.
As I said, if you like Mays better, that's fine--just don't claim he was a better hitter during the time both he and Mantle were each playing because ALL of the evidence is to the contrary. You wouldn't think that this would take three times, but once more,
Case closed,
Larry