1964 - Mickey Mantle v. Dick Allen

[NetShrine]

Who do you think had a better season and why?

[timconnelly]

Comparing the 1964 seasons of Dick Allen, who at the time was known as Richie Allen, and Mickey Mantle comes off as an unusual comparison. When the ’64 season started, Mantle was an established superstar with 3 MVP awards and a Triple Crown to his credit and Allen was a rookie with 10 games of major league experience. 1964 would be a huge breakout season for Allen that would establish him as a future superstar and as a player with unlimited talent.

If you look at the Triple Crown statistics, there is little to separate the two of them in 1964. Allen batted .318 to Mantle’s .303, hit 29 home runs to Mantle’s 35, and drove in 91 runs to Mickey’s 111. So you might give a slight edge to Mantle in this important area But Allen scored 125 runs to Mantle’s 92, which means Mantle produced 168 runs (RBI + runs-HR) to Allen’s 187. Allen also had more doubles, 38 to 25 and more triples, 13 to 2, more base hits 201 to 141. He was also more durable, playing in 162 games to Mantle’s 143.

In the important category of runs created, Allen also leads 135 to 121. Allen reached base 268 times to Mantle’s 240. So looking at it strictly from the backdrop of traditional stats, I think you would have to give a clear edge to Allen offensively.

But let’s look deeper: in 1964 Allen made 431 outs to Mantle’s 324. We need to ask ourselves, what is an out and how important a stat is it? Only 2 things measure a game: runs and outs. Whichever team has scored the most runs in their allotment of 27 outs is the winner. Whenever a player makes an out, he is making a withdrawal from his team’s allotment and their opportunity to score runs is reduced. Allen made 107 more outs than Mantle which is pretty close to 27 games worth of 0 for 4s!

None of our traditional statistics measure this and the fact that Mantle walked 32 more times in 167 fewer at bats would generally go unnoticed. A very complicated formula that takes this into consideration and that I believe is a fairly accurate barometer is one called offensive winning percentage. I first ran into it in the Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract and am very excited to see that it is included in the Sabermetrics Encyclopedia that was created by the founder of this site. Anyway, using OWP, Allen has a very respectable .794 but Mickey’s is an almost off the charts .854. What this formula measures is that a player hitting with the power and efficiency of Mantle is leading his team to wins with an .854 offensive efficiency based on his plate appearances. In Mantle’s case, that’s approximately 13 games worth of plate appearances. In other words, if everyone on the team batted the way Mickey did, the team would win approximately 138 games. This formula is certainly not perfect, but I think it is a far better measurement than any other single offensive statistic.

Another indicator is on base average, where Allen’s is .379 to Mantle’s .423. That’s a 44-point advantage for Mickey. I use a measurement that I call total bases against outs and it simply divides the total bases by the number of outs: Mantle leads .849 to .817. What this means simply is that Mantle averaged 84.9 total bases to every 100 outs to Allen’s 81.7. I’ve found this to be a slightly more accurate gauge of offensive value than slugging average (Mantle .591 Allen .557) because a player who hits for power with a low batting average is not as valuable as a player who hits for slightly less power with a higher batting average. Of course, neither of these stats takes walks into consideration but that’s easy to do. Since I have already overloaded all but the most patient reader with all these stats, I’ll leave it to you to figure that one.

In summation, Dick Allen had a brilliant rookie season, especially offensively (He made 41 errors at third base!). The collapse of the Phillies, coupled with the Yankees winning their 5th straight pennant, make it clear that Mantle’s season was definitely the greater of the two.

Tim Connelly

[BuzzBuzzard]

Now that is an analysis. Just based on word count alone, I'll go with what Tim said.

[Duque]

Walks and on-base skills are consistently ignored by MVP voters. Both Mantle and Barry Bonds have gotten short shrift, and each should have at least two more MVP seasons to their credit.

[NetShrine]

Agreed Buzz - - Tim nailed it.

Great job Tim.