The Split Stat Hall of Famers

Often when we look at a player’s season numbers, it is hard to see an underlying story. Without taking a closer look, it’s difficult to tell if a .300 hitter with an .800 OPS over 120 games was playing through an injury-plagued season, or if he was a platoon player.

Despite the trend to pitchers occupying an increasing number of 25-man roster spots, the platoon player is still very much alive in modern baseball. Frank Catalanotto, Jonny Gomes, Ryan Raburn, Seth Smith, and Luis Valbuena are a few contemporary examples of hitters who have made a career out of hitting right-handed or left-handed pitching. But these are secondary players. They aren’t the franchise building blocks who will be the focus of this article.

Just as with the role players above, it can be difficult to see what makes a full-time player truly special. For some, like Ted Simmons, it made almost no difference whether a righty or a lefty was on the mound. However, as we are about to see, for some players, it could drastically alter the kind of hitter they were.

I examined a few borderline Hall of Fame candidates who would be viewed very differently if they hit righties and lefties equally as well. I considered how players hit from one side of the plate. What they did from their weak side of the plate (i.e. the extremity of their split) was not considered.

An additional note: the projected career stats that follow represent what a player would have done if every plate appearance they ever had came against a lefty/righty. It does not take into account use rate, nor does it make adjustments based on potential or lost PA’s.

And so, the split stat Hall of Famers:

Catcher: Bill Freehan

Although not possessed of the kind of extreme splits we will see later on, the right-handed hitting Freehan was more of a gap power hitter threat with a lefty on the mound.

Although his numbers against lefties may not seem like much viewed through a modern lens, they are comparable to those of another five-time Gold Glove award winner from that era, Hall of Famer Ron Santo, who posted a career slash line of .277/.362/.464/ with a 126 wRC+ and a .367 wOBA.

The most notable split season for Freehan came in 1967, where he hit .324 against lefties to go with a .983 OPS, which was just slightly behind the pace set by that year’s triple crown winner, Carl Yastrzemski.

The Tigers finished that year just one game behind Boston. If Freehan had been able to replicate the same success against righties, it’s likely that Tigers would have been in the ’67 World Series, and the MVP race that year, which Yastrzemski nearly won unanimously, might have become more contentious.

First Baseman: Fred McGriff

As someone slotted into the cleanup spot throughout his career, you might not think of Fred McGriff as a player who was significantly affected by lefty pitchers. But that is precisely what McGriff was, especially early in his career.

In 1989, just five of McGriff’s league-leading 36 home runs came off lefties. His OPS against them that year was a pedestrian .736 compared to a whopping 1.021 against righties.

His .538 slugging percentage against righties is the same as Ken Griffey Jr.’s, while his .294 batting average and .392 career on-base percentage were close to that of another slugging first baseman from that era, John Olerud.

Had McGriff’s numbers against lefties mirrored those against righties, he would have joined the 500-home run club with ease and likely would have been a first-ballot inductee in Cooperstown.

One point of note is that his RBI rate against both lefties and righties was nearly identical despite an almost 140 point difference in OPS, which demonstrates the significant impact batting order can have on a mostly outdated stat.

Second Baseman: Lou Whitaker

Most fans view Lou Whitaker as a solid hitting second baseman with some pop, but nearly all of that pop came against right-handed pitching. Between 1983 and 1985, during which time Whitaker won three consecutive Silver Slugger awards, he managed just eight home runs off left-handed pitching in 597 plate appearances.

As Whitaker improved offensively, his split difference would become even more pronounced; in 1989 Whitaker posted a .892 OPS against righties compared to .654 against lefties. His 1991 season would prove similar, with an OPS of .929 against righties versus .694 against lefties.

His .460 career slugging percentage against right-handed pitching is similar to that of Lee May, while his .378 career on-base percentage mimics that of Chuck Knoblauch. His .838 OPS is 19 points higher than Joe Morgan’s .819 career OPS. Had this version of Whitaker been there against lefties, he would likely present a robust challenge to Eddie Collins for the title of greatest second baseman in American League history.

Third Baseman: David Wright

Although injuries have likely ended any meaningful discussion about Wright as a Hall of Famer, his staggering performance is still worth noting. Wright was anything but a liability against righties, but he was as dangerous as it got for left-handed pitchers.

His career .998 OPS against lefties would be good enough for eighth on the all-time OPS career leader list had he put up similar stats against righties. A closer look at some of Wright’s best seasons further highlights this fact.

In 2007, when the Mets came within one game of reaching the World Series, Wright hit .361 against left-handed pitching, with 11 home runs in 198 plate appearances. He would somehow manage to improve on it in 2008, hitting an insane .382 against lefties to go with a .497 on-base percentage and a .682 slugging percentage.

In both seasons Wright won the Gold Glove, and if he had put up these numbers for his season total would have easily won the MVP title in both years. Having this on his resume would have made it much easier for Hall of Fame voters to overlook his short career.

Shortstop: Julio Franco

Unlike others on the list who were plagued by struggles from one side of the plate throughout their career, Franco, a right-handed hitter, was mostly able to overcome his deficiencies against righties.

When Franco came up in the mid-’80s, he was as deadly a hitter as there was against left-handed pitching. But from ’93 on, Franco had several seasons in which he had better offensive numbers against righties than lefties.

Hidden in Franco’s mediocre-looking ’84 season was that he was a .330 hitter against lefties, to go with a .447 slugging percentage and a .828 OPS. Franco would post even better numbers against lefties in 1986, batting .341 with a .907 OPS. Six of Franco’s 10 home runs would come against lefties, despite seeing them in only 173 plate appearances.

The peak of Franco’s prowess against lefties would come in ’94, when he batted a whopping .364 facing them to go along with a 1.173 OPS and seven home runs in just 127 plate appearances.

Left Fielder: Frank Howard

Any .300 hitter from the 1960s rates as a first ballot Hall of Famer. A .300 hitter with the kind of power Frank Howard had would have made for an era-defining player on par with players like Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, and Frank Robinson.

That was the type of hitter Frank Howard was against lefties. His .581 career slugging percentage against lefties would be good enough for ninth all-time if he had hit this from the right side as well and second only to Ted Williams among Howard’s contemporaries.

His .401 on-base percentage against lefties is equal to the career average of Rickey Henderson, showing  how difficult an out he was for left-handed pitchers. While it would take Howard several years to become comfortable against righties, he never had a problem bashing lefties, batting .283 to go with a .949 OPS against lefties in 1964, compared to just a .191 batting average with a .598 OPS against righties.

In the year of the pitcher, Howard would obliterate left-handed pitching, batting .393 off them with 16 home runs in 200 plate appearances. This success against righties would have put Howard at a Ruthian level of dominance and would have made him the most dangerous hitter in baseball.

Center Fielder: Fred Lynn

Lynn’s performance against right-handed pitching was enough itself to make him arguably the best center fielder in the American League during the second half of the 1970s. In his MVP year of 1975, Lynn hit .350 against righties to go with a .611 slugging percentage and a .967 OPS.

Lynn’s best offensive season of 1979 where he led the American League in batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage. However, this was a result almost entirely of his ability to hit righties. Lynn hit just .241 against lefties that year to go with five home runs in 155 plate appearances, compared to a .364 average against righties with a .709 slugging percentage an a 1.158 OPS. If he could have sustained the same level of success from both sides of the plate, Lynn would likely not have sat nearly as much against lefties as he did later in his career with Baltimore.

Right Fielder: Bobby Abreu

Throughout Bobby Abreu’s career, the phrase “professional hitter” came up when people described his sweet swing and approach to the plate. While that characterization may be accurate, the writers who gave Abreu this moniker likely never saw much of him against left-handers.

Of all the players featured in this article, Abreu was the one whose power was most affected by same-side pitching. He broke in during the 1996 season; his first career home run off a lefty would not occur until 2000. When he hit a career-high 31 homers in 2001, just one of those bombs was served up by a lefty.

Abreu would eventually close the gap when it came to his contact ability, but the power didn’t follow suit. His .389 career slugging percentage against lefties is the same career total set by Tony Phillips. Against righties, however, Abreu was a borderline .300 hitter with about as much power as Richie Sexson. Combined with his defensive abilities, had Abreu been this type of hitter against lefties, he may have been viewed as a modern day Paul Waner and would garner a lot more Hall of Fame consideration than he has.

Although only eight players are in this article, plenty of others could meet the criteria of a Splits Stats Hall of Famer. Norm Cash, Dale Murphy, and Graig Nettles are a few who just missed the cut. Feel free to bring up other names in the comments below. I hope we can expand the conversation surrounding these players to more than just having a general debate on whether they are good enough for enshrinement in Cooperstown.