Thursday, August 11, 2022

Which players have had the best and worst platoon advantage since 1946?

Maybe someone has done this before but I wanted to do it myself.

I used Stathead to find all the right-handed batters who had 2,000+ PAs vs. right-handed pitchers and all the left-handed batters who 1,000+ PAs vs. left-handed pitchers from 1946-2021. There were 720 RHB and 257 LHB.

The table from the Stathead search shows how many PAs each guy had against the selected pitchers and their career total PAs. So then I calculated a percentage each batter had for the favorable handed pitchers (so, for example, what % did RHB have against LHP?).

Click here to see the search results for RHB.

Click here to see the search results for LHB.

There are four tables below that show the top and bottom 25 for both RHB and LHB.

I also uploaded two Excel files that have the percentage calculations for all the hitters in both groups that are also ranked. 

Click here to see the Excel file for RHB.

Click here to see the Excel file for LHB.

I noticed at Baseball Reference player pages when you choose the "Advanced Stats" option and look at the "Situational Batting" table, they have a column labeled Ptn%. 

For Hank Aaron, it shows he had the platoon advantage 26.1% of the time in his career (but for some reason I came up with 27.65% using the data from my Stathead search) and that the league average was 52.2%. Willie Mays had similar numbers while Stan Musial had about 64% and Willie McCovey had about 75%. 

So it looks like LHB do much better hear. It also seems like for most guys the league average was around 50% during their careers. Only 2 RHB even reached 50% of their PAs vs. LHP for their careers while all the LHB faced RHP at least 60% of the time. For all of the LHB combined, they had the platoon advantage 72.3% of the time. For RHB it was just 30.1% of the time.

This table has the top 25 for RHB

Rank

Player

% Vs. LHP

1

Manny Mota

50.72%

2

Lou Piniella

50.69%

3

Gary Redus

47.32%

4

Tom Paciorek

47.26%

5

Bill Robinson

46.53%

6

Tom Brookens

45.40%

7

Jerry Priddy

44.92%

8

Mike Heath

44.59%

9

Bob Kennedy

44.38%

10

Thurman Munson

44.08%

11

Cliff Johnson

43.84%

12

Hank Bauer

43.02%

13

Hoot Evers

42.72%

14

Sam Mele

42.65%

15

Rick Dempsey

42.65%

16

Larry Herndon

42.56%

17

Johnny Groth

42.50%

18

Dickie Thon

42.33%

19

Mickey Hatcher

42.14%

20

Rick Cerone

41.96%

21

Eddie Stanky

41.85%

22

Luis Salazar

41.61%

23

Wally Post

41.54%

24

Connie Ryan

41.53%

25

Mickey Stanley

41.48%

This table has the bottom 25 for RHB

Rank

Player

% Vs. LHP

696

Magglio Ordonez

23.59%

697

Kris Bryant

23.48%

698

José Abreu

23.41%

699

Vinny Castilla

23.39%

700

J.T. Realmuto

23.24%

701

Carlos Lee

23.19%

702

Mike Piazza

23.14%

703

Chuck Knoblauch

23.03%

704

Derrek Lee

23.01%

705

Raul Mondesí

22.91%

706

Starling Marte

22.78%

707

Richard Hidalgo

22.58%

708

Brad Ausmus

22.49%

709

Jason Kendall

22.45%

710

Aramis Ramirez

22.31%

711

Mike Lieberthal

22.19%

712

Earl Battey

22.08%

713

Gil Hodges

21.99%

714

John Flaherty

21.73%

715

Charles Johnson

21.23%

716

Vic Power

21.18%

717

Marcell Ozuna

20.71%

718

Dansby Swanson

20.22%

719

Roy Campanella

20.17%

720

Charlie Neal

19.66%

This table has the top 25 for LHB

Rank

Player

% Vs. RHP

1

Duke Snider

85.80%

2

Bill Bruton

84.72%

3

Matt Stairs

82.84%

4

Tito Francona

82.21%

5

Craig Counsell

81.39%

6

Todd Walker

79.98%

7

Del Unser

79.94%

8

Jim Spencer

79.90%

9

Tony Gonzalez

79.84%

10

Mike Scioscia

79.45%

11

Billy Goodman

79.23%

12

Bob Skinner

79.07%

13

Scott Hatteberg

79.06%

14

Adam Kennedy

78.88%

15

Ron Fairly

78.83%

16

Norm Cash

78.51%

17

Craig Reynolds

78.35%

18

Adam Lind

78.33%

19

Jacque Jones

78.05%

20

Tim McCarver

77.90%

21

Mickey Morandini

77.80%

22

Claudell Washington

77.74%

23

Ryan Klesko

77.63%

24

Darrell Porter

77.60%

25

Gene Woodling

77.55%

 

This table has the bottom 25 for LHB

Rank

Player

% Vs. RHP

234

Prince Fielder

67.61%

235

Will Clark

67.35%

236

Lloyd Moseby

67.13%

237

Barry Bonds

67.10%

238

Jason Kipnis

66.95%

239

George Brett

66.73%

240

Ted Kluszewski

66.72%

241

Chris Chambliss

66.64%

242

Johnny Mize

66.56%

243

Dale Mitchell

66.38%

244

Robinson Canó

66.30%

245

Dwayne Murphy

66.25%

246

Kyle Seager

66.15%

247

Stan Musial

65.92%

248

Darryl Strawberry

65.79%

249

Reggie Jackson

65.64%

250

Tony Gwynn

65.57%

251

Mickey Rivers

64.82%

252

Don Mattingly

64.67%

253

Keith Hernandez

63.71%

254

Larry Doby

63.12%

255

Steve Kemp

62.62%

256

Graig Nettles

62.19%

257

Bobby Murcer

61.95%

 

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like this quick study you did. I would have my LHB going against RHP as much as possible! For some reason i can't see the xlsx files on your website

Cyril Morong said...

Thanks for reading and commenting. Did you click on the links? They are Excel files and you have to download them

Anonymous said...

Yes i clicked the links and nothing happened. Also tried to go to your website and hit a search channel

Cyril Morong said...

Sorry about that. When I click on them a dialog box opens and it basically is asking me if I want to open or download the Excel file. I don't know what to do about it