Harold Baines, Athletic-Killer
Posted by Sky on August 30, 2007
Harold Baines, Yankee-Killer. I heard that one all the time growing up. Did Baines actually dominate the Yankees, though? I used his PI splits page to get the following data. tOPS+ is Baines' split OPS compared to his overall OPS.
Split G GS PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO BA OBP SLG OPS BAbip tOPS+ Split OAK 214 208 905 781 105 236 49 5 24 132 107 16 114 0.302 0.385 0.470 0.855 0.325 109 OAK MIN 213 189 809 716 112 209 41 4 32 127 78 13 101 0.292 0.356 0.494 0.850 0.297 106 MIN TOR 221 202 848 773 89 230 29 4 38 131 71 9 106 0.298 0.356 0.493 0.849 0.304 106 TOR TEX 209 195 825 734 110 213 27 4 33 117 85 13 119 0.290 0.363 0.473 0.836 0.307 104 TEX SEA 213 193 832 737 100 213 39 5 29 132 82 20 113 0.289 0.355 0.474 0.829 0.303 102 SEA MIL 183 175 744 678 84 204 33 3 26 108 54 4 93 0.301 0.349 0.473 0.822 0.313 100 MIL NYY 213 182 802 713 92 203 30 5 29 124 82 19 117 0.285 0.357 0.463 0.820 0.304 100 NYY KCR 203 193 824 748 91 220 42 2 27 101 71 19 114 0.294 0.353 0.464 0.817 0.315 99 KCR CLE 202 192 825 740 100 213 36 4 28 117 75 14 99 0.288 0.350 0.461 0.811 0.297 98 CLE DET 213 199 854 753 95 210 27 4 30 148 91 20 112 0.279 0.352 0.445 0.797 0.290 95 DET BAL 168 161 681 619 86 178 35 2 22 98 54 13 81 0.288 0.342 0.457 0.799 0.299 94 BAL ANA 215 189 829 757 87 217 43 5 24 115 64 10 108 0.287 0.341 0.452 0.793 0.306 93 ANA BOS 210 191 823 731 93 207 33 1 24 105 86 15 104 0.283 0.357 0.430 0.787 0.301 93 BOS CHW 85 71 309 269 42 65 14 1 12 44 40 2 42 0.242 0.340 0.435 0.775 0.247 89 CHW TBD 27 17 80 71 6 18 4 0 2 15 9 0 9 0.254 0.338 0.394 0.732 0.267 80 TBD Tot 2830 2579 11092 9908 1299 2866 488 49 384 1628 1062 187 1441 0.289 0.356 0.465 0.821 0.303 100 Tot
As you can see, Harold Baines' OPS against the Yankees was right on par with his performance against all other teams. But those A's, boy did he take it out on those A's.
As for teams Baines struggled against, Tampa Bay and Chicago lead the way. That makes sense because he would have played against both those teams later in his career, as he was slowing down.
August 30th, 2007 at 11:01 am
It's pretty remarkable how much more often OAK walked him than did any other team. Overall, he actually looks to have been most productive against DET, with 148 RBI in just 213 games, despite the 0.797 OPS.
I think a lot of the "Yankee-killer" stuff we hear (and coincidentally I just posted, cheek-in-tongue, about how Julian Tavarez is a Yankee-killer this year) is because more people see/remember games against the Yankees against other teams. In the early 80s, only a small fraction of the baseball world was paying attention to CHW/OAK games or CHW/DET games, but a much larger fraction paid attention to ???/NYY games.