The Lineup Card

FanHaus blogger Larry Brown had an excellent post today on Willie Mays' Sunday Conversation with Peter Gammons aired on ESPN. In case you missed it Mays made a rather interesting claim:

• "Gammons asked Mays whether he thought he could have hit 800 home runs if he hadn't played so many games in the windy and spacious Candlestick Park. Here was Mays' response: 'No, not that. I think the Army, if I didn't have to go into the Army, which I had to go for my country, I would've hit 800 home runs or more. Let's say I played the schedule of 110 games in the Army, that's like 40 home runs a year. So you take that and you add it on to the 660, I think I would've been way ahead of everybody.'"

Brown takes exception to Mays' claim that his military service robbed him of a chance at 800 homers, and I agree with him on that point, but if Mays had played in a different environment could he have had a shot at 800?

If we go to Baseball Prospectus' Davenport Translations, we can find out. The DTs adjust a players statistics to a completely neutral offensive environment -- both historically and in terms of ballpark. As you're probably well aware, offensive performance fluctuates wildly over different eras and the DTs attempt to compensate for that. A roughly neutral offensive environment and park, just in case you're having trouble imagining it, is somewhat akin to Kansas City's Kaufmann Stadium in the 1980s.

So how many homers would Mays have hit if we remove him from Candlestick Park in the 1950s and 1960s and put him in this hypothetical neutral environment? According to the DTs, 856. Maybe Willie isn't so crazy after all? Or at least Peter Gammons' question wasn't.

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• #1 Comment from gposner29 
  6/30/07 10:46 AM | Permalink

  TODAY'S "YUTE" HAS BEEN "CHEATED" OUT OF SEEING WILLIE MAYS AND HANK AARON DO THEIR THING FOR SO MANY YEARS.  BONDS, ROIDED UP AND WEARING A SUIT OF ARMOR EVERYTIME HE STEPS IN THE BOX, AGAINST TRIPLE A PITCHERS, IN TINY PARKS, WITH A LIVLIER BALL, COULDN'T CARRY THE SPIKES OF MAYS OR AARON, LET ALONE RUTH. BONDS DIDN'T START OUT AS A PITCHER DID HE? BONDS DIDN'T SERVE HIS COUNTRY, DID HE? CASE CLOSED.