Re: playing density of Norm Cash: he was never on the DL - just platooned.
1960 was Cash’s first year as a regular, so he was eased in with Steve Bilko’s 62 games at first-base.
1961-1967: Cash averaged 150 G/year. That’s not high density, but more than a platoon. Bill Freehan, Jake Wood, Jim Price and particularly Don Demeter played a significant number of games at 1B.
By 1968, the Tigers had four star OFs plus the best pinch hitter in the league who was also an OF - and all five of them remained with the team for the rest of Cash's productive seasons 1960-1973. So, for the rest of his career Al Kaline, Jim Northrup, Freehan, and Mickey Stanley filled in at 1B against left-handers. Sadly Mayo Smith used Dave Campbell at 1B for 13 G in 1969. From 1971 on, Ike Brown had a good share of those games along with Paul Jata (also sad) and Frank Howard in 1972 and a washed up Rich Reese in 1973.
Jim Northrup is the only LHB among these subs and his career platoon split was less than Cash's.
Asked by: hotstatrat
I am not sure it is productive to get into any of this, but what the heck. . . .Norm Cash's career is always of interest to me.
To keep this front and center, what this discussion is about is perceived value vs. actual value. That’s the bridge we are trying to cross here, not Norm Cash vs. Gil Hodges or Norm Cash vs. Rocky Colavito or Al Kaline vs. Roberto Clemente, but perceived value vs. actual value. We might lose track of that.
I endorse what you are saying, Mr. Statrat, so why didn’t I just let you say it, without comment? Why did I wait two weeks after you posted this to respond to it?
Because you are responding to (a) something I wrote in an article and (b) a response to that, an argument against that, posted by another longtime reader. I am quite certain that the other longtime reader did not understand at all what I was trying to say before. Your rebuttal challenges his facts but accepts his assumptions. Posting your rebuttal without comment, then, would simply lead us further away from what I was trying to say. So let me back off and take a direct run at this.
Going back ten years earlier, the Tigers destroyed a "Prague Spring" that they had going with a stupid decision to platoon their cleanup hitter, Vic Wertz. Wertz drove in 133 runs in 1949 and 123 in 1950, hitting over .300 both years, and in 1950 the Tigers won 95 games and pushed the Yankees into the last week of the season. Wertz was 25 years old in 1950. In 1951 the Tigers manager, Red Rolfe, made a fantastically poor decision to sit Wertz down against left-handed pitchers.
Rolfe was no doubt proud of himself because he knew that Wertz was not an especially productive hitter against left-handers. Stats about what a player hit against right-handed and left-handed hitters were not published ANYWHERE in 1950, managers did not know them, and Rolfe knew this only because he maintained his own stats. He put a lot of time and effort into maintaining his own personal records, so he knew that Wertz was somewhat weaker against lefties, and he made the decision to set him down against lefties. Although Casey Stengel platooned with the Yankees in this era, Stengel quite certainly did NOT have any access to platoon data, and actually made public statements mocking Red Rolife for figuring all that stuff and relying on it.
In any case it was a massive disaster. Wertz was pissed off about being platooned, bitched about it to his teammates, and the clubhouse divided. Rolfe lost the clubhouse. They quit on him. The team lost 104 games in 1952, literally one of the worst nose-dives in the history of baseball. Rolfe was fired. The Tigers FRONT OFFICE was in a chaotic period at the same time, and this re-set the Tigers' clock to zero. Although they had a good farm system (producing Harvey Kuenn, 1952, Al Kaline, 1953, Frank Lary, Jim Bunning, and many others). . .although they had a good farm system, they didn't get back where they had been in 1950 until 1961, which was Norm Cash's golden year.
Why was it a foolish decision? Because what Rolfe was risking was vastly larger than what he stood to gain. Outstanding ballplayers are sustained at the level of excellence that they achieve by ego. Ego may be thought of as a negative thing, but. . .self-concept. Very good players are very good players in large part because they think of themselves as very good players. Their world is ordered around that assumption. They put in the work to sustain themselves at that level because they believe it will pay off. When you tell a player at that level that he is NOT such a good player, that he is a player who isn’t good enough to play when the percentages are against him, that’s a serious, serious thing. You’re messing with the team’s jewels here. The damage you can do to your team by putting a gash in a star player’s ego is much, much larger than the benefit you can get by having the platoon advantage for 150 plate appearances a season. What you can gain by having the platoon advantage for 150 plalte appearances a season is along the lines of 10, 12 runs a year. . . not a small thing, but not anything LIKE the damage you can do by telling a star player that he is not a star player. When you have a 25-year-old player who can drive in 125 runs a year for you, you put him in the lineup and let him drive in 125 runs a year for you. You don’t put that asset at risk so you can pick up 7 runs by platooning him with Bud Souchock.
I know that people will say that if Casey Stengel could platoon Gene Woodling, who was probably just as good a hitter as Vic Wertz, or better. . . if Casey Stengel could platoon Gene Woodling, why couldn’t Red Rolfe platoon Vic Wertz? If you think that that’s good logic, I don’t know if I can help you, but I’ll try. Woodling was three years older than Wertz, and three years behind him, so six years behind him age for age. Woodling was nearing 30 years old, and trapped in the minor leagues. He hated being platooned, but he was a minor league player being promoted into a major league platoon player. Wertz was an all-star being demoted to a platoon player. It’s a completely different thing.
The Yankees had talent crawling out of the walls. The Yankees could give away guys like Jackie Jensen and Sherm Lollar and Gus Triandos and Vic Power because they had Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra and Bill Skowron to play instead. The Tigers didn’t. The Tigers had a good farm organization, but it wasn’t the same. Platooning works a lot better when you have a robust stream of talent to work with.
And, setting THAT aside, the Tigers were not the Yankees. Casey Stengel could very credibly say to his players, "Look, you want to be a part of the Yankees, this is the deal." The Yankees in that era took a lot of PRIDE in being a Yankee. There was a swagger in being a Yankee. A Yankee would make twice as much money as he would make anywhere else because of (1) the World Series money, and (2) the endorsement money/off-season opportunities money. The Tigers were trying to get to that level, but they weren’t there. Beat the Yankees a couple of times, and THEN you can start jerking players around.
So by 1961 (a) the Tigers were back where they had been in 1950, (b) the Yankees were no longer platooning, and (c) Norm Cash hit .361 with 41 homers.
Norm Cash’s 1961-1962 seasons are one of the greatest flukes in the history of baseball. Norm Cash, despite what you have been told all of your life, was exactly the same player in 1962 than he was in 1961. His home run rate was almost precisely the same in 1962 as in 1961 (.0769 home runs per at bat vs. .0766). His walk rate (excluding intentional walks) was the same. His strikeouts were the same. His rate of grounding into double plays was the same, and his stolen base percentage was the same, and his Hit By Pitch rate, and his fielding percentage was the same, .992 both years. He was exactly the same player.
The only thing was that, by a kind of phenomenal fluke, Cash hit .372 on balls in play (BABIP) in 1961, and .216 in 1962. His batting average dropped 118 points, entirely because his bloopers didn’t drop in and somebody was standing in front of his line drives. All Year.
People at the time did not see it that way. It would be almost 40 years later that Voros McCracken would demonstrate that Batting Averages on Balls in Play were highly subject to year-to-year variation based on factors beyond the hitter’s control (or the pitcher’s.) People at that time—and you cannot blame them for this, because you see what you have been taught to see, we all do, and you know what those around you know, we all do for the most part—but the baseball people at that time did not read it as a fluke, they read it as a dramatic dropoff in performance. His managers began to take away his playing time.
Ironically. . .I think this qualifies as an irony; not sure that the word "ironic" has an identifiable meaning anymore. But ironically, the first player who benefitted from Cash’s periodic stints on the bench was Vic Wertz, back with the team after an epic ten-year journey involving injuries, polio, World Series stardom and 100-RBI seasons here, there and everywhere. Old Vic Wertz had a good year as a pinch hitter for the Tigers, hitting .324 and starting 14 games in place of the "slumping" Norm Cash, all of those games against right-handed pitchers.
Bob Scheffing, manager of the Tigers in their golden 1961 season, was fired on June 16, 1963 with the Tigers (24-36) just three games out of last place. He was replaced by Charlie Dressen, who, like Red Rolfe, was very much a too-smart-for-his-own-damned good type of manager. It was basically Charlie Dressen who made the decision to platoon Norm Cash, although Cash had platooned with Steve Bilko for most of 1960. It was Bob Scheffing who made the decision to promote Cash to regular status in 1961—correctly predicting, when he did so, that Cash might win the American League batting championship soon—and it was essentially Dressen who made him a platoon player. His playing time dropped by 20% after Dressen took over.
I have written about this many times, I know, but I think the decision to make Cash a platoon player was a terrible decision that is one of the key reasons that the Tigers failed to dominate the American League in the years 1965 to 1968, when the league was there for the taking any time somebody wanted it, and the Tigers had more talent than anyone else. Platooning Cash was not the WORST decision the Tigers made in 1963; the worst decision they made was trading Jim Bunning for Don Demeter. NOBODY understands that decision, and it was mostly Don Demeter who played first against lefties in 1964 and 1965.
At more or less the same moment, batting totals around baseball dipped sharply downward, which isn’t directly relevant but is part of the same discussion. It is relevant to the issue of "How good a hitter was Norm Cash, really?". What should have been his prime years were in a pitcher’s era. But sticking with the decision to platoon Cash, and why it was a mistake. Cash was simply too good a hitter to be platooned. You platoon players when you have two hitters who are more or less even. The Tigers did not have a right-handed hitting first baseman who was anywhere near as good a hitter as Norm Cash. In 1965 they platooned Cash with Don Demeter, but Demeter (a) was not a first baseman and (b) had an OPS 100 points lower than Cash’s (.883 to .788.)
Cash and Colavito. Norm Cash and Rocky Colavito were almost exactly the same age, and they were acquired by the Tigers at essentially the same time. But Cash had had very, very little major league playing time before coming to the Tigers, whereas Colavito had been a regular for years, had hit 40 homers twice in a row, driving in easily more than 100 runs a year. Colavito was perceived as a huge star when the two men joined the Tigers, but in the four years that Cash and Colavito were Tiger teammates, Cash was a better hitter than Colavito all four years. His OPS was higher than Colavito’s all four years, mostly quite significantly higher. My point is, it would have made more sense to take 150 at bats a year away from Colavito, rather than Cash. Colavito was the team’s cleanup hitter, period. Cash hit 5th; even in 1961, Cash had almost all of his plate appearances in the five spot. But per 700 plate appearances, Colavito scored 97 runs and drove in 111. Cash drove in "only" 109, but scored 104.
Not that I am advocating that you bench either one; Rocky Colavito was a formidable hitter. In the four years they were teammates, Cash out-hit him by 20 points, matched his power and drew more walks. With the arguable exception of Al Kaline, Cash was the best hitter on the team. You don’t platoon your best hitter.
Cash and Kaline. I would not say that Norm Cash was a better hitter than Kaline. He was as good a hitter as Kaline. Cash’s career OPS was 6 points higher than Kaline’s. In the 15 years that the two men were teammates (1960 to 1974), their OPS was nearly identical. Treating 700 plate appearances as a "season", Kaline scored 99 runs per season and drove in 93; Cash scored 93 and drove in 99. Kaline hit .290 with 25 homers, 93 RBI per 700 Plate Appearances; Cash hit .272 with 34 and 99. Both men walked a lot, Cash a little bit more. Both men had slugging percentages of .490, or each man had a slugging percentage of .490. Each man made 457 outs per 700 plate appearances. Although Kaline’s On Base percentage was 2 points higher, he actually made a tiny fraction more outs than Cash, because he grounded into double plays 30% more often. Even their plate appearances over the 15-year span are nearly identical—7,820 plate appearances for Kaline, 7,772 for Cash. Kaline missed a lot of games with injuries; Cash missed games because he was platooned.
I am not suggesting that Cash was equal to Kaline as a player; I am suggesting that he was equal to him as a hitter. The Pirates in many different ways are the National League version of the Tigers. Kaline and Cash are like Clemente and Stargell. Clemente was a greater player than Stargell, but Stargell—a left-handed slugger like Cash—was a greater hitter than Clemente, with both a higher on-base percentage and a higher slugging percentage than Clemente. The thing is, the Pirates were never stupid enough to platoon Willie Stargell. Well, they were, but not for a long period of time.
To get back to the original dispute, what I was trying to say is that Cash was underrated, as a player, because he was platooned. More specifically, what I can demonstrate to be true is that if that if a player’s playing time is reduced by 20%, his perceived value will drop by dramatically more than 20%. I would generalize that if two players are of equal ability but one has 80% of the playing time density, he will have 64% of the perceived value. The reason this happens is that perceived value is based to a significant extent on counting stats. If a player has 560 plate appearances per season rather than 700, he becomes essentially ineligible for standards such as 100 runs scored and 100 RBI, and this causes him to lose all chance of being perceived as a star. It becomes practically impossible for him to lead the league in any significant category.
Norm Cash would likely have led the American League in home runs in 1965, had he not been platooned. He hit 30 home runs in 467 at bats, and missed leading the league in homers by only two. Even though he homered less frequently against left-handed pitchers in his career, it is extremely likely that, given another 100 at bats, he would have led the league in homers. In 1971, given only 452 at bats, he drove in 91 runs. Given another 100 at bats, it is overwhelmingly likely that he would have driven in 100.
In a wide-ranging article about factors that cause a player to be underrated or overrated, I argued that playing time density is what we’re missing here. Although no one comments on it, it may actually be that the largest factor there is in determining whether a player is overrated, underrated, or appropriately evaluate is playing time density.
In responding to this, a beloved longtime reader wrote that:
I liked your over/underrated articles (but) there is one criteria that I value more than you do. You seem to disparage density of playing time because players with more seasons/games/at bats add to their counting stats in ways that can be misleading. But I think the adage that availability is an ability is true. Sports is full of figures who would be Hall of Famers if only they could stay healthy.
Not wishing to dismiss the contribution of my longtime reader, I don’t think that he understood at all what I meant by the term playing time density. If he did, he didn’t address it. From my standpoint, I was trying to make an original point—a point that neither I nor anyone else had made before—and the reader responded to it as if it were merely a re-iteration of an older point. I think.
Playing time density doesn’t have anything to do with how many SEASONS you play. The fact that he referenced seasons played suggests that he didn’t understand what I was trying to say. But also, as Mr. Stat-rat correctly pointed out, Norm Cash was ALWAYS available. His team just did not choose to put him in the lineup. He is immensely underrated, in my opinion, solely because of his playing time. Not that I advocate Norm Cash for the Hall of Fame—I don’t—but Norm Cash was clearly a better player, in my opinion, than Gil Hodges, who is now in the Hall of Fame, or Tony Perez or Harold Baines. Or quite a few others.
There are two reasons, however, that I could not rest comfortably on Stat Rat’s response. One is that it leaves the door wide open to an obvious response—obvious, but false. His comment, undefended, would not advance the discussion by one inch, because of the obvious false response. The second problem is that his response builds upon and thus buttresses a false assumption of the earlier poster, that being that this is essentially about underrated players. It isn’t. It is 80% about OVERrated players. The problem of playing time density is not so much that it causes anyone to be underrated. It is, mostly, that it causes players with very high playing time density to be overrated. If the earlier poster had understood that, he wouldn’t have offered this essentially irrelevant comment about potential Hall of Famers not staying healthy. Responding to that, without other explanation, would simply solidify the false assumption.
Addressing the first part of that, the obvious false response would be that Cash was a platoon player because he couldn’t hit lefties, and that his value was diminished by the fact that he couldn’t hit lefties. But that’s not really true. Norm Cash’s platoon splits are almost the same as Carl Yastrzemski’s. Cash’s career OPS was .900 against right-handers, .691 against lefties. Carl Yastrzemski’s splits were .890 and .692. Norm Cash’s OPS against lefties was .691; Roger Maris’ was .697.
All players have a platoon split. The notion that only some left-handed hitters are "vulnerable" to lefties is basically a myth, a misunderstanding perpetuated by reliance on single-season platoon stats, which don’t really mean anything. Cash was 77% as effective against a lefty as he was against a right-hander, which is a relatively low figure but not out of range. Jim Thome was 74%, Johnny Mize 77%, Duke Snider 77%. Ted Williams was 79%, Eddie Mathews 80%, Ted Kluszewski 82%, Willie Stargell 82%.
Cash’s platoon split was on the high side, but you have to attribute SOME of that to the fact that he was set down against lefties for almost all of his career. Cause or effect: did he not play against lefties because he had trouble with them, or did he have trouble against them because he didn’t play regularly against them?
We don’t know, but here are a few things that we do know.
(1) Willie McCovey was probably the only left-handed hitter ever who was a better hitter than Cash, but was nonetheless platooned for a significant portion of his career. In the three years that he was a platoon player, Stretch had a .934 OPS against right-handed pitchers, but .505 against lefties (148 PA). But his platoon splits normalized once he became an everyday player.
(2) David Ortiz, platooned by the Twins, had an immense platoon differential his last season in Minnesota, and an even larger one his first season in Boston. But his platoon splits normalized once he became an everyday player.
(3) Left-handed hitters overall have a larger platoon differential than right-handers. One presumes that the reason for this is that right-handed hitters have to deal with same-side deliveries three days in four, thus learn to adapt, while left-handed regulars face a same-side delivery only about one day in four.
(4) In 1966 Cash played everyday for the first time since 1962, and set career highs in games played and at bats. His OPS against lefties that season was .963.
Norm Cash was probably the best left-handed hitter ever who was platooned more or less all of his career. I would not concede that there was ANY reason for his weakness against lefties, other than that he didn’t always play against them.
Moving on to the other issue. . . this isn’t really about players being underrated because they missed some games. That applies to Norm Cash, and maybe a few other guys. Matt Stairs and Gene Woodling.
But when you run down a list of players who won honors well beyond what would be expected based on their performance numbers, it is almost ALL guys who racked up 650-700 plate appearances a year in their prime seasons. Simply being in the lineup every day will not cause a player to be overrated; he has to do that AND something else. But if he plays every game and has one or two other things to sell, a player will often be dramatically overvalued, as measured by the comparison (studied earlier) of the player’s performance numbers and his performance in award voting. Gene Woodling was a far better player than Bobby Richardson, both playing for the Yankees when the Yankees were in the World Series every year. But Richardson, because his playing time density was extremely high, was extremely overrated. Woodling, because his playing time density was low, was very underrated. Documented in the previous article.