Platoon Leveraging Data Dump (Starting Pitcher Leveraging, Part 6)
Hi and welcome back yet again to THT’s series on starting pitcher leverage. This is the paragraph those of you familiar with the series can skip. (Actually, you can skip the next one, too). For the rest of you: Starting pitcher leverage is when a team intentionally uses a pitcher against a rival club. In modern times, with a firmly regimented five-man rotation, it no longer exists, but it was common from the Gilded Age until the 1960s. For example, long time fans can recall how Casey Stengel intentionally started Whitey Ford as often as possible against the Yankees’ main rivals, the White Sox and Indians.
After looking at starters with the best and worst careers, single seasons, figuring out how much impact leveraging had on hurlers’ runs allowed, and answering one critic of this project, the most recent article focused on platoon leveraging. As the term implies, platoon leveraging existed when managers used their lefties against the most left-leaning lineups, or righties against the appropriate offenses. The first two articles on leveraging revealed that platoon leveraging was a crucial component in this phenomenon. To quantify this specific type of leveraging, I invented a stat, L#. Scroll to the very bottom of this article for a full description of it. Briefly, L# investigates how southpaws were used against a team, not by a team. A score of 100 means the team saw as many lefties as it should have, higher means it saw lefties more often, and lower indicates it saw less them often.
Last article, I showed only the highest L#s ever. In this one I’ll give you the 20 lowest. Then, since there’s no point just sitting on this info, the heart of this article will be a data dump: I’ll provide the L# for every team from 1892-1969 except (for reasons discussed last article) the Federal League.
Lowest L#s Ever
These are the teams that saw far fewer lefties than they should have. As mentioned in the previous article, none of this is based on a complete sample size. It looks only at lefties for whom I computed Average Opponent Winning Percentage, but since I AOWPd two-thirds of all starts from 1876-1969, that’s a large enough body to produce conclusions.
Year Team L# 1. 1957 Dodgers 11 2. 1955 Dodgers 13 3. 1941 Reds 17 4. 1947 Pirates 26 5. 1909 Indians 31 6. 1957 A's 32 7. 1915 Reds 33 8. 1929 Reds 34 9. 1909 Yankees 35 10. 1907 A's 37 11. 1956 Dodgers 38 12. 1910 Reds 40 12. 1943 Reds 40 12. 1946 Reds 40 12. 1949 Pirates 40 16. 1908 Indians 41 17. 1948 Pirates 42 17. 1936 Red Sox 42 19. 1946 Philies 43 20. 1940 Red Sox 44 20. 1941 Philies 44 20. 1942 Reds 44
Duke Snider had to wait several years to get into the Hall of Fame because the writers thought he unduly benefited from the lineup around him. As the only dangerous lefty in a very dangerous lineup, he almost never had to face hurlers at a platoon disadvantage. (Look back up at the list.) Score one for the writers. Here are the Dodgers’ L#s from 1950-1962:
Year L# 1950 104 1951 89 1952 55 1953 55 1954 52 1955 13 1956 38 1957 11 1958 71 1959 63 1960 59 1961 62 1962 116
Teams were a little slow pulling their lefties against the Dodgers. Dem Bums led the league in runs scoring in 1950 with only a young Snider and an injured Gene Hermanski swinging from the reverse side of the plate. Brooklyn traded Hermanski in mid-’51, leading to the first big downward step. As for their second, and more historic, drop between 1954/55, it’s a bit stranger. The Dodgers essentially had the same lineup in ’55 as they had in ’54. Actually, they added a lefty with the offensive middling Sandy Amoros. So why the heck the giant downturn?
My hunch is that the secret rests in the first month of 1955. Anyone over the age of 30 reading this can recall how the 1984 Tigers wrapped up the pennant race in April by spurting out to a 25-5 start. Brooklyn mocks those puny Tigers. The Dodgers began the year 22-2. They scored at least six runs in 15 of those games. Heck, even when they lost their third game, they scored eight runs. The rest of the league couldn’t help but notice how fearsome this unit really was.
The Dodgers already had been a team you hid your lefties from, but this brought the intensity up. NL managers quickly developed a mantra: Put a southpaw on the mound on Ebbets Field only when you’re the beneficiary of the pitcher’s life insurance policy. Strangely, the only time Brooklyn saw a lefty in that opening stretch, it lost. No foolin’. Oh sure, the Dodgers still scored 10 runs that game . . .
Aside from the Boys of Summer, the McKechnie Reds from the 1940s also dominate the list. They won back-to-back pennants in 1939-40 so even though they weren’t known for their batting, teams looked for an extra edge. The Reds had no dangerous lefthanded hitters. More importantly, they had a great park for righthanded pitchers. The fence in right field was 50 feet farther than the one in left.
Crosley Field really was the key. The Reds make up one-third of the above list. Cincinnati was so inhospitable to lefties you’d think it was one big conclave for the John Birch Society. Even Crosley Field’s predecessor had a deep right field. From 1892-1946, the Reds had an average L# of 76. That’s incredibly low for a half-century. Then they reconfigured the stadium, and in 1948 had a mark of 147.
Also, the 1947-9 Pirates three-peated on the list. Unlike the other teams, these guys sucked. But they made the mistake of going with an entirely righthanded lineup in 1947. They also moved in the left field fence by 30 feet that year. Next year they picked up a couple of lefthanded southerners from Branch Rickey’s squad— 37-year-old Dixie Walker and 23-year-old Ed Stearns, but it didn’t change things much. Pitt benched both in 1949, but traded for Johnny Hopp mid-season. The Pirates retained really low L#s until 1952-3, when they were so pathetic there was no reason to play them for the edge.
Highs and Lows
So when was platoon leveraging the most common and when was it the least common? That’s a fun one. There’s a simple way to figure it: Find the difference from 100 for every L#, add those together, and divide by total number of teams. Here are the 10 biggest years for platoon leveraging:
Year Avg Dif 1. 1908 36.5 2. 1936 35.1 3. 1955 34.9 4. 1940 31.9 5. 1957 31.5 6. 1892 31.4 7. 1895 30.6 8. 1942 29.4 9. 1941 28.5 10. 1909 28.3 11. 1910 28.1
I threw in the 11th best to show that 1908-1910 are all up there. There’s a little of a lot of different eras here. The late 1930s and early 1940s show up the most. 1937 is 12th and 1939 comes right after it.
Here’s when it was least common through 1969:
Year Avg Dif 1. 1968 8.7 2. 1905 9.31 3. 1969 9.63 4. 1918 10.1 5. 1902 10.6 6. 1967 10.9 7. 1920 10.9 8. 1928 10.9 9. 1966 12.5 10. 1961 12.8
Lotta teams from the 1960s. Sure, as pitching became more standardized in general, you saw less leveraging. Makes sense. By 1969, the only way platoon leveraging survived was that teams kept lefties out of Fenway and put them in Yankee Stadium. There also are years around 1920 in there. Offensive platooning reached its zenith then, dissipating the need for pitcher platooning.
Data Dump
A few comments. Some of this might make more sense at the end of the list, but it’s going to be so long that most readers won’t scan down and read any bits on the far side of the moon. Again, none of this is based on a full sample size. I’ll list each team by what town it usually played in. The Browns/Orioles will be in the “StB” column. Exception: Minnesota. Calling that franchise Washington would be confusing because another Washington shows up in the AL in the 1960s.
One key note: In the late 1960s, the sample size becomes a smaller percentage. I AOWPd pitchers with at least 150 GS (or 85 win shares) from 1876-1969. Now that means everyone with 150 starts in his career through 1960 got listed, but some guys were only partway through their careers in 1969, and still shy of the cutoffs, but later reached them. Result: The numbers for those years are a little shakier. Getting a score of 120 is easier because as the sample size goes down, it means a team saw 25 lefties instead of 20, which can be explained largely by random variation. The fact that teams had trouble scoring that high by the late 1960s is a telling sign of how little platoon leveraging occurred.
First I’ll give the first league with a notable number of lefties, the AA from 1885-1891. Then I’ll give the NL from 1892-1969, and finally the AL from its inception until 1969. To keep it as manageable-sized as possible, I’ll put the 1960s expansion teams in the same columns as the four 1890s liquidated teams. I’ll just put new headers in as needed. Since the late AA had so many collapsing teams, I’ll just tell you now the L# for their half-dozen one-year wonder franchises. In 1890, Rochester, Syracuse and Toledo score 92, 110 and 86 respectively. Next year Boston, Milwaukee and Washington earned 86, 82 and 118 L#s.
On the left just next to the year, I’m including the total number of GS by LHP in the study, so you know how large the sample size is each time. Here’s the AA:
Year GS Bal Brk Cin Cle Col KC Lou NY Phil Pit StL 1885 107 87 137 98 79 116 86 95 98 1886 246 126 117 92 98 100 85 103 85 1887 211 108 96 115 76 133 98 103 86 1888 120 114 129 105 79 94 88 105 88 1889 147 82 90 101 110 100 92 100 112 1890 137 41 109 112 122 110 65 1891 147 119 56 118 94 86 84
And the NL:
Year GS BoB Brk ChC Cin NYG PhP Pit StC Bal Clv Lou Wsh 1892 164 81 101 74 82 54 96 141 50 98 174 161 65 1893 165 54 81 92 67 107 121 123 107 121 134 103 102 1894 158 90 104 98 77 76 104 127 122 89 139 93 83 1895 156 63 49 85 60 79 202 144 95 134 100 110 92 1896 171 77 58 110 67 126 131 118 95 73 129 116 90 1897 173 83 64 57 74 144 108 124 100 119 115 115 115 1898 276 92 76 75 78 139 106 97 98 98 124 106 119 1899 258 85 60 85 71 114 90 99 136 117 85 126 129 1900 165 81 89 110 83 115 68 146 114 1901 148 81 76 94 152 89 64 126 135 1902 116 108 108 108 96 78 103 109 90 1903 118 88 101 83 100 83 83 109 112 1904 123 108 108 81 94 118 108 90 85 1905 128 106 98 100 117 90 83 111 98 1906 201 114 125 98 61 92 84 107 111 1907 216 119 120 123 63 100 94 100 85 1908 244 93 122 111 53 167 88 96 77 1909 208 135 100 119 54 112 95 90 100 1910 163 77 124 145 40 151 94 84 100 1911 190 66 98 121 122 132 66 78 122 1912 257 86 119 124 87 100 80 89 113 1913 237 100 120 119 112 97 51 74 132 1914 243 134 114 111 74 103 49 104 115 1915 230 122 120 164 33 90 51 107 121 1916 269 107 109 135 86 116 56 100 96 1917 300 98 110 117 104 117 50 108 97 1918 235 93 89 89 102 133 95 98 101 1919 310 87 85 102 136 124 66 119 88 1920 321 96 74 104 102 126 102 107 93 1921 285 101 72 113 89 127 69 123 108 1922 225 108 74 118 86 122 81 116 90 1923 252 100 106 106 70 109 96 113 96 1924 169 77 147 104 83 127 78 73 106 1925 193 106 148 105 92 117 71 72 89 1926 153 88 146 111 61 91 126 68 96 1927 162 109 73 92 56 117 121 91 147 1928 239 81 133 96 55 129 100 103 101 1929 277 96 116 93 34 105 126 117 108 1930 302 102 114 68 72 102 102 124 115 1931 317 63 145 69 79 84 122 135 100 1932 245 66 80 54 114 119 94 156 116 1933 222 86 123 60 93 95 77 172 99 1934 172 92 88 110 74 98 98 121 127 1935 216 84 70 71 97 107 100 159 100 1936 202 52 71 80 66 107 150 152 107 1937 199 88 92 98 76 112 116 158 60 1938 187 81 96 82 58 134 97 142 115 1939 140 85 114 78 88 92 86 132 119 1940 135 83 114 107 55 98 63 124 168 1941 154 109 155 148 17 98 45 70 150 1942 158 90 136 114 45 96 58 95 173 1943 158 115 129 103 40 64 66 146 115 1944 146 120 108 110 48 93 67 115 157 1945 67 115 115 167 52 104 56 56 106 1946 302 117 139 114 40 110 43 92 157 1947 315 98 126 129 90 108 71 26 155 1948 338 118 100 94 147 89 77 42 146 1949 366 112 102 101 131 76 98 40 157 1950 337 104 104 108 123 120 74 46 129 1951 250 98 89 59 165 108 88 52 146 1952 284 129 55 100 106 121 80 77 144 1953 296 56 55 86 130 76 137 114 146 1954 233 85 52 61 109 93 119 129 148 1955 209 55 13 58 139 116 82 154 176 1956 214 70 38 96 142 139 61 121 130 1957 223 91 11 103 125 112 104 119 125 1958 283 97 71 102 116 95 109 94 114 1959 276 96 63 96 92 88 118 105 136 1960 365 98 59 106 95 132 99 100 112 1961 334 91 62 113 108 108 110 109 95 Hou NYM 1962 361 94 116 107 105 111 105 87 109 80 83 1963 379 86 100 95 108 111 97 83 127 93 97 1964 329 84 105 110 104 96 115 96 113 101 79 1965 374 77 123 101 110 82 116 102 115 102 81 1966 396 95 114 85 109 79 123 71 109 100 111 1967 334 80 104 99 94 92 113 82 121 110 103 1968 356 88 98 89 93 120 103 100 100 105 106 Mtl SDP 1969 342 96 124 98 79 81 101 104 103 112 96 113 92
And the AL (remember, 1969’s the Seattle Pilots, not Mariners):
Year GS BoX CWS Cle Det MN NYY A's StB 1901 163 95 121 99 91 116 118 67 86 1902 154 124 113 93 112 76 100 103 86 1903 257 117 117 96 106 78 84 54 109 1904 304 103 138 90 114 66 92 98 105 1905 272 105 119 99 113 68 90 96 100 1906 254 120 115 87 118 76 88 80 118 1907 260 123 144 80 120 82 86 37 124 1908 172 123 155 41 165 162 53 58 62 1909 140 185 107 31 150 121 35 72 99 1910 178 115 90 48 154 122 50 96 117 1911 175 120 110 66 141 100 98 97 87 1912 184 83 107 98 137 92 88 115 75 1913 247 96 83 99 127 96 88 114 93 1914 281 118 81 86 140 83 87 106 107 1915 243 107 90 66 137 78 106 95 114 1916 330 111 128 66 105 90 111 69 120 1917 246 121 116 74 109 78 117 91 101 1918 157 121 77 103 116 86 102 91 102 1919 196 127 67 104 97 93 79 107 126 1920 189 77 125 115 95 97 81 100 106 1921 137 79 97 107 133 99 82 92 112 1922 85 83 99 76 124 75 99 99 124 1923 131 75 91 106 115 97 114 98 107 1924 194 83 101 101 109 122 118 84 94 1925 244 95 95 110 101 112 105 71 113 1926 230 76 103 120 101 78 120 91 116 1927 219 93 115 85 89 89 126 106 100 1928 194 97 101 103 85 103 98 111 103 1929 198 95 96 129 74 126 124 66 82 1930 180 89 99 89 75 146 116 83 100 1931 223 63 85 94 104 150 118 84 111 1932 230 72 67 112 116 122 106 97 110 1933 208 92 61 99 125 95 126 92 104 1934 168 92 50 135 138 116 135 50 100 1935 165 99 64 126 114 140 93 72 104 1936 146 42 53 138 110 166 145 68 81 1937 168 47 78 134 108 141 147 77 63 1938 152 75 75 141 101 123 111 82 92 1939 152 51 90 157 56 127 161 78 74 1940 177 45 86 160 54 134 150 83 79 1941 197 80 102 119 103 121 120 79 82 1942 128 59 76 148 80 142 122 93 73 1943 140 62 131 112 85 110 112 95 102 1944 137 71 129 107 82 115 102 92 110 1945 157 80 113 115 69 120 116 80 114 1946 127 88 93 110 92 140 92 77 110 1947 122 106 75 80 122 127 135 63 98 1948 173 96 90 113 103 128 102 73 97 1949 303 76 85 99 105 103 101 104 120 1950 311 106 80 131 105 86 95 105 86 1951 266 98 89 129 88 108 118 73 90 1952 292 50 84 125 83 115 129 93 107 1953 316 67 101 126 53 91 142 97 115 1954 262 74 117 123 67 130 136 72 95 1955 310 83 116 160 57 97 113 76 105 1956 292 85 147 99 100 86 109 80 96 1957 248 73 182 150 70 74 122 32 113 1958 176 60 155 110 88 129 110 66 92 1959 178 73 159 62 96 62 126 106 127 1960 186 98 89 102 58 81 121 99 150 Cal Was 1961 267 94 91 83 89 76 119 128 106 101 109 1962 249 79 95 111 81 56 119 112 108 123 103 1963 364 79 129 115 100 49 130 109 85 124 83 1964 395 64 119 113 110 85 125 107 105 95 88 1965 422 81 111 114 94 92 120 100 97 102 92 1966 423 72 102 108 107 94 130 89 108 107 94 1967 388 67 106 110 119 98 121 100 95 105 88 1968 364 75 95 88 111 90 100 126 96 111 104 KCR Sea 1969 385 89 89 110 117 106 109 113 104 91 97 91 86
So much for that. Next time, I’ll look at a subject of considerable interest to me: managers and leveraging. Who did the most and who (prior to the 1960s) did the least?
References & Resources
What the heck is L#?: It’s a stat that tells you if a team faced as many lefthanded starting pitchers as it would have if all southpaws were used evenly against opposing teams. The numerator is the number of starts by LHP against a given team. The denominator is how many starts southpaws should’ve had if they’d been used evenly. Divide it out, multiply by 100, and round to the nearest integer. That’s L#. One key snag: it’s not based on all LHP starts, but only on those pitchers I’ve looked at for this entire series on leveraging. Then again, those 659 pitchers combined for more than two-thirds of all starts from 1876-1969, so I feel pretty confident that these L#s, while imperfect, are generally accurate. For a more detailed account of how I calculated L#, read this article.