Clyde Vollmer's 1949 Splits
Yes, the newspapers at the time discovered this
Clyde Vollmer's 1949 Splits
I came across an interesting article the other day:
Now, the game itself was actually pretty exciting, though the “excitement” of another thwarted 9th inning comeback didn’t make for headlines at home.
Instead, there were questions about Clyde Vollmer — clearly a good hitter against righties, who wasn’t seeing any action against righties.
The problem, of course, was experimentation on the part of manager Joe Kuhel. Despite Vollmer’s excellent performances at the plate, it seems that Kuhel wanted left handed hitting Buddy Lewis to start against right handed pitchers. You can see the change in strategy that started on June 21:
It didn’t last long, as you can see in the above chart. However, for reasons that will likely remain obscured in history, Lewis started against righties on June 21, 23, 24, and 26.
Gil Coan, the other man in the outfield those four games, was also a left handed hitter — and a pretty poor one at that.
Now, this is where the impressive bit of batting split knowledge on part of the beat reporter really shines. Vollmer’s righty/lefty splits in 1949 are pretty remarkable:
Vollmer eventually came back down to earth against right handed pitching — but he never really learned what to do against lefties that season.
However, before you start thinking about how significant lefty/righty splits are over the course of a full season, consider Vollmer’s lifetime lefty/righty splits:
One of the rules of lefty/righty splits is that they almost always converge to historical norms. In general, this means that right handed hitters have a slight disadvantage against right handed pitchers. But it’s a slight disadvantage — one that tends to be obscured as plate appearance totals increase.
It’s certainly possible that Vollmer bucked that historical trend for whatever reason. It’s hard to say, though. Clyde only really played as a regular starter during his Washington years, between 1948 and 1952 (though he did manage to appear in 94 games with the Orioles in 1954). If he had a full time job in 1946 and 1947, and if he had managed to earn more plate appearances in 1955 and 1956, perhaps we’d see the righty/lefty splits take on a more predictable pattern.
At any rate, there might be something here — and whatever true pattern existed here was completely lost on the Washington Senators manager.