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Then there was the Ralph Houk factor. At the end of April, Maris was batting around .200 with one home run, mostly in the "seven spot." Houk decided to move Maris up to third in the lineup, just ahead of Mantle.
In the Yankees' 15 April games Maris batted 7th in 4 of them
He batted 6th in 2
batted 5th in 6
and batted 3rd in 3
*source
Quote:
Maris started seeing more hittable pitches and soon caught fire offensively.
This makes no sense.
First, in April of 1961 pitchers were able to hold Maris to a .328/.286 OBP and SLG. Assuming the 'moved Maris in front of Mantle' narrative were true, which it isn't, why would pitchers change the way they were pitching to Maris when what they were doing was so effective?
Second, It's been shown that 'protection' is a myth
Quote:
Originally Posted by http://www.sabernomics.com/sabernomics/index.php/2004/09/the-protection-externality-it-doesnt-exist/
The results lead us to not only reject the protection hypothesis, but also we find evidence that good on-deck hitters actually harm the hit and power probabilities of the current batter. This is consistent with the effort hypothesis. However, the magnitude of the spillover is tiny and for all practical purposes the effect is zero. Even very good (bad) hitters have only a very small impact on the batters who precede them.
Quote:
Later on when Mantle and Maris were both running ahead of the Babe's pace, Houk was criticized by fans who felt that Maris had an unfair advantage. Houk made it clear that he didn't care who won the home run race.
Mantle batted clean up for the Yankees in 149 games in 1961. He received 643 plate appearances batting 4th.
Maris hit 3rd in 139 games in 1961. He received 610 plate appearances batting 3rd.
643/149=4.39 PAs/Game
610/139=4.31PAs/Game
Houk did help Maris a little, by getting him an extra fraction of a plate appearance each game. The difference amounts to about 10 extra PA's for Maris over 139 games.
Houk figured that opposing pitchers would be less likely to pitch around Maris with Mantle on deck. Duhhhhhhhh!
already addressed
Quote:
This makes no sense.
First, in April of 1961 pitchers were able to hold Maris to a .328/.286 OBP and SLG. Assuming the 'moved Maris in front of Mantle' narrative were true, which it isn't, why would pitchers change the way they were pitching to Maris when what they were doing was so effective?
Second, It's been shown that 'protection' is a myth
Quote:
The results lead us to not only reject the protection hypothesis, but also we find evidence that good on-deck hitters actually harm the hit and power probabilities of the current batter. This is consistent with the effort hypothesis. However, the magnitude of the spillover is tiny and for all practical purposes the effect is zero. Even very good (bad) hitters have only a very small impact on the batters who precede them.
The information I posted came from a Phil Rizzuto book about the 1961 season, the title of which I cannot recall. Even if Rizzuto, Houk and all the Yankee fans were wrong in their thinking, it still turned out to be a pretty good year.
The information I posted came from a Phil Rizzuto book about the 1961 season, the title of which I cannot recall. Even if Rizzuto, Houk and all the Yankee fans were wrong in their thinking, it still turned out to be a pretty good year.
Sure was a good year.
But just because they were wrong in their thinking doesn't mean that we have to be
On May 16th, after 28 games, Maris was batting only .208 with 3 HRs.
Mantle was batting .309 with 10 HRs, and Moose Skowron was batting .291 with 5 HRs on that date.
Hell of a change to his season at that point in time.
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