Who is the greatest right handed hitter of all time?

[packs]

I really do think there is a case for DiMaggio over Mays and Aaron. Sure, short career and not even 500 homers, but there are very few players better than him. His overall slugging, OPS and OPS+ figures are very close to Mays and Aaron. I do realize Mays and Aaron's longevity are pretty much unsurpassed except for each other. But what a player DiMaggio was behind the raw numbers.

[Gorditadogg]

Originally Posted by packs

I really do think there is a case for DiMaggio over Mays and Aaron. Sure, short career and not even 500 homers, but there are very few players better than him. His overall slugging, OPS and OPS+ figures are very close to Mays and Aaron. I do realize Mays and Aaron's longevity are pretty much unsurpassed except for each other. But what a player DiMaggio was behind the raw numbers.

I think OPS+ does a pretty good job of measuring relative performance, at least over the last 100 years. The top right handers in the modern era, by OPS+, are:

1.Trout
2.Hornsby
3.Suttles
T4.Foxx
T4.Judge

The next five, ignoring juicers, are:

6.Greenberg
T7.Allen
T7.Thomas
T9.Aaron
T9.Dimaggio
T9.Mays

Trout and Judge will probably drop some as they get towards the end of their careers, but still they are in select company surrounding Hornsby and Foxx. Dick Allen had an amazing career in the era of cavernous parks and high mounds. Frank Thomas's achievements get overlooked because he played in the Selig/Reinsdorf PED-approved years.

[rats60]

Originally Posted by Gorditadogg

I think OPS+ does a pretty good job of measuring relative performance, at least over the last 100 years. The top right handers in the modern era, by OPS+, are:

1.Trout
2.Hornsby
3.Suttles
T4.Foxx
T4.Judge

The next five, ignoring juicers, are:

6.Greenberg
T7.Allen
T7.Thomas
T9.Aaron
T9.Dimaggio
T9.Mays

Trout and Judge will probably drop some as they get towards the end of their careers, but still they are in select company surrounding Hornsby and Foxx. Dick Allen had an amazing career in the era of cavernous parks and high mounds. Frank Thomas's achievements get overlooked because he played in the Selig/Reinsdorf PED-approved years.

OPS+ does a poor job of adjusting for home parks. Yankee Stadium was a completely different park for righties and lefties. Left handed hitters could hit cheap HRs into the short porch in right while who knows how many HRs DiMaggio lost hitting into the cavernous left center field of Yankee Stadium. Joe only hit 148 HRs at home vs 213 on the road.

Compare that to Jimmie Foxx, playing in hitters parks, who hit 299 at home and 235 on the road. On the road, DiMaggio hit a HR one in every 16.25 AB, Foxx one in every 18.08. They both hit .325, but Foxx's 30 point advantage in SLG is more than offset by their difference home parks. Joe was the better power hitter, even missing 3 prime years serving in WWII. I have DiMaggio as a slightly better hitter overall than Foxx.

[molenick]

I don't know if it does a good job or a poor job...but supposedly OPS+ does adjust for ballparks.

[packs]

Joe also won three MVP awards. His second MVP two seasons before he left and his third MVP two seasons after he came back. You can't assume an MVP award, but if he had played those three extra seasons and won another, he'd be the only player other than Bonds with 4 or more MVPs.

[Gorditadogg]

Originally Posted by rats60

OPS+ does a poor job of adjusting for home parks. Yankee Stadium was a completely different park for righties and lefties. Left handed hitters could hit cheap HRs into the short porch in right while who knows how many HRs DiMaggio lost hitting into the cavernous left center field of Yankee Stadium. Joe only hit 148 HRs at home vs 213 on the road.



Compare that to Jimmie Foxx, playing in hitters parks, who hit 299 at home and 235 on the road. On the road, DiMaggio hit a HR one in every 16.25 AB, Foxx one in every 18.08. They both hit .325, but Foxx's 30 point advantage in SLG is more than offset by their difference home parks. Joe was the better power hitter, even missing 3 prime years serving in WWII. I have DiMaggio as a slightly better hitter overall than Foxx.

OPS+ does fine adjusting for parks. It just has a problem adjusting for right-hand hitters in Yankee Stadium. Your points there are valid.

Still, Dick Allen had it worse. He played his home games at Connie Mack, Comiskey, Veterans, Chavez Ravine, and Busch Memorial. All big parks, most with high walls and lots of room in foul territory.

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[rats60]

Originally Posted by Gorditadogg

OPS+ does fine adjusting for parks. It just has a problem adjusting for right-hand hitters in Yankee Stadium. Your points there are valid.

Still, Dick Allen had it worse. He played his home games at Connie Mack, Comiskey, Veterans, Chavez Ravine, and Busch Memorial. All big parks, most with high walls and lots of room in foul territory.

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It does a good job if you are willing to accept a 10+% error rate and that two players within 20-25 points may be equal hitters.

[HistoricNewspapers]

Originally Posted by rats60

It does a good job if you are willing to accept a 10+% error rate and that two players within 20-25 points may be equal hitters.

There is some truth to that statement. 20-25 may be a tad high though.

Dick Allen was brought up above and how he played in pitchers parks.

Here is the dilemma. Was Allen really hurt by his parks?

Allen's lifetime Home OPS was .932
Allen's lifetime road OPS was .892

Players generally have a littler better hitting in their home park(independent of park factors), but here Allen has more than a little better hitting at home.

So the question is, was Allen really hurt by his home parks being that he did much better at home, or were his home parks suppressing that .932 and it really would have been .950 if his parks weren't so tough....but if it were to be .950 in a neutral park, then why was it only .892 when he did hit in all the rest of the parks? A dilemma.

Park factors do exist. Nailing them down to 100% accuracy is impossible. They are certainly pieces to the puzzle though.

On the flip side, Larry Walker hit at home waaaay better than what the park adjustments show. He may have been helped MORE than the park factors are already 'deducting' when they take Coors into account.

Same with Wade Boggs at Fenway. He was a completely different hitter outside of Fenway. Fenway factor deducts this a little, but it is possible it should deduct it even more for Boggs.

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by HistoricNewspapers

There is some truth to that statement. 20-25 may be a tad high though.

Dick Allen was brought up above and how he played in pitchers parks.

Here is the dilemma. Was Allen really hurt by his parks?

Allen's lifetime Home OPS was .932
Allen's lifetime road OPS was .892

Players generally have a littler better hitting in their home park(independent of park factors), but here Allen has more than a little better hitting at home.

So the question is, was Allen really hurt by his home parks being that he did much better at home, or were his home parks suppressing that .932 and it really would have been .950 if his parks weren't so tough....but if it were to be .950 in a neutral park, then why was it only .892 when he did hit in all the rest of the parks? A dilemma.

Park factors do exist. Nailing them down to 100% accuracy is impossible. They are certainly pieces to the puzzle though.

On the flip side, Larry Walker hit at home waaaay better than what the park adjustments show. He may have been helped MORE than the park factors are already 'deducting' when they take Coors into account.

Same with Wade Boggs at Fenway. He was a completely different hitter outside of Fenway. Fenway factor deducts this a little, but it is possible it should deduct it even more for Boggs.

Really talented hitters are able to take advantage of their surroundings more effectively than others. Players like Boggs, Walker, Mel Ott were better at taking advantage of their home parks than other players on their team. Ultimately, OPS+ needs to adjust a player's home field advantage evenly across players.

Not sure if anyone on this board knows the inner workings of OPS+, but I'd be interested to know how OPS+ accounts for batting right handed at Fenway vs. being a left-handed hitter. Either way, should Boggs be penalized because he was better at hitting doubles off of the Green Monster than his right handed contemporaries?

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by HistoricNewspapers

There is some truth to that statement. 20-25 may be a tad high though.

Dick Allen was brought up above and how he played in pitchers parks.

Here is the dilemma. Was Allen really hurt by his parks?

Allen's lifetime Home OPS was .932
Allen's lifetime road OPS was .892

It's a little misleading to just go with home/road splits for Allen since he played for 5 teams during his career. Instead, let's go with his "home parks" and his "road parks" - that is, the 5 parks he called home at any time and then the rest of the parks he played in.

Doing it this way, his "home parks" result in an OPS of .934 and his "road parks" result in an OPS of .887. Actually, not all that far off your numbers now that I look at it

His numbers are significantly boosted by his Chicago numbers where Allen put up a 1.026 OPS during his career.

So, was Allen hurt by playing in pitchers' parks? No.

[obcbobd]

Originally Posted by packs

I really do think there is a case for DiMaggio over Mays and Aaron. Sure, short career and not even 500 homers, but there are very few players better than him. His overall slugging, OPS and OPS+ figures are very close to Mays and Aaron. I do realize Mays and Aaron's longevity are pretty much unsurpassed except for each other. But what a player DiMaggio was behind the raw numbers.

Interesting that all three have the same OPS+. According to OPS+ the winner is Mike Trout, but keep in mind he is still in his prime and his OPS+ could go down. Also the 1960s were a low scoring era. The 30's were higher. I believe one year the NL averaged over 300. For that reason I would go with Aaron. He did it much longer, almost twice as many plate appearances as DiMaggio.

Rank Player (yrs, age) Adjusted OPS+ PA Bats
7 Mike Trout (12, 30) 176 6159 R
8 Rogers Hornsby+ (23) 175 9481 R
Mule Suttles+ (21) 172 3649 R
14 Pete Browning (13) 163 5315 R
Jimmie Foxx+ (20) 163 9677 R
Aaron Judge (7, 30) 163 3161 R
Mark McGwire (16) 163 7660 R
18 Dave Orr (8) 162 3411 R
19 Hank Greenberg+ (13) 159 6098 R
23 Dick Allen (15) 156 7315 R
Frank Thomas+ (19) 156 10075 R
25 Henry Aaron+ (23) 155 13941 R
Joe DiMaggio+ (13) 155 7672 R
Willie Mays+ (23) 155 12545 R

[packs]

DiMaggio missed 3 ultra prime seasons. He was never going to get to 755 home runs but I think it was likely he was going to put up monster numbers for those seasons and probably would have finished with better OPS figures than we're looking at now. He missed his age 28 to 30 seasons, which are typically peak seasons for a player.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by packs

DiMaggio missed 3 ultra prime seasons. He was never going to get to 755 home runs but I think it was likely he was going to put up monster numbers for those seasons and probably would have finished with better OPS figures than we're looking at now. He missed his age 28 to 30 seasons, which are typically peak seasons for a player.

Based on what? He hit 21 homers the year before his military service and then 25 & 20 after.

[packs]

Originally Posted by Tabe

Based on what? He hit 21 homers the year before his military service and then 25 & 20 after.

He had a 147 OPS+ and then didn't play baseball for three years and had a 142 OPS+ upon his return. I’m also basing it on the fact that he won 2 MVPs before he left and another two seasons after he returned.

[Peter_Spaeth]

If you go by offensive WAR, it's Mays and Aaron.

[tjenkins]

For me it's a tough call between Aaron or Mays but I am leaning a bit towards Hammerin Hank since the post says best hitter and not best all around player.

[Gorditadogg]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

If you go by offensive WAR, it's Mays and Aaron.

Those two were great hitters for a long time.

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[Tabe]

Originally Posted by packs

He had a 147 OPS+ and then didn't play baseball for three years and had a 142 OPS+ upon his return. I’m also basing it on the fact that he won 2 MVPs before he left and another two seasons after he returned.

But the three seasons surrounding his military service were not "monster" seasons. I'm not saying he'd have had bad seasons - just that the evidence suggests they would not have been "monster" seasons.

Dimaggio's MVP in 1947 is a joke and shouldn't be used to make a case for anything. Ted Williams CRUSHED him in everything that year, winning the Triple Crown.

[RCMcKenzie]

There's a bartender in CenLa that swears it's Manny Ramirez.

I told my brother to ask Chatgpt who was better at 2nd base, Horsnby or Altuve, and it equivocated, talking about different eras. I told him to ask it to compare Hornsby and Jose Oquendo, and it begrudgingly admitted that Hornsby was better.

I would say Aaron, although I did not see him in his prime. I saw Kingman hit a homerun in the Astrodome that was unreal. I'd say Kingman or Madlock.

[packs]

Originally Posted by Tabe

But the three seasons surrounding his military service were not "monster" seasons. I'm not saying he'd have had bad seasons - just that the evidence suggests they would not have been "monster" seasons.

Dimaggio's MVP in 1947 is a joke and shouldn't be used to make a case for anything. Ted Williams CRUSHED him in everything that year, winning the Triple Crown.

If you say so. He won the MVP, finished with a 147 OPS+ the next year and then joined the military. He comes back from the military to put up a 142 OPS and wins the MVP the following season.

His career OPS+ is exactly the same as Aaron and Mays so I do believe with three prime seasons he would have surpassed their OPS+.