Coulda Been: Ted Williams

So I'm reading Dave Heller's 2013 book, Facing Ted Williams, a collection of dozens of interviews of players who played against Ted. There are some insights, but it is probably an overall mediocre book - but there is one scenario that jumped out at me: How many home runs could Ted have hit?

I've seen some estimations that have Ted challenging for the all-time home run title if he hadn't missed 1943-45 and all but 43 games of '52-53. But former left-handed pitcher Jack Harshman (who actually owned Ted to the tune of a .417 OPS in 38 PAs) proposes a unique number:

If Ted Williams had not had to spend those two periods of time in the service and played his entire career in Detroit, he would have probably hit 1000 home runs. I'm not joking, I'm serious.

The logic behind this is simple: Ted Williams was a dead-pull hitter. Lou Boudreau, managing the Cleveland Indians, invented the shift specifically for Ted (it was called the 'Williams Shift' initially (fun anecdote: Boudreau used to put his outfielders in the right-field bleachers in exhibition games against Boston)) because he always, always pulled the ball into right field. Ted had no problem generating power like this, and he ended up with a .634 career SLG. However, playing at Fenway, where right-center balloons out to 380 feet, likely cost him a number of home runs - and before 1940 when the bullpens were installed, it was actually 403 feet.

Tiger Stadium (Briggs Stadium from 1938-1960), meanwhile, was 370 to right-center, but had none of the 'belly' that Fenway's right field does (it stays out wide, then comes in to 302 feet sharply near the foul line). The following image is the Yankee Stadium dimensions (which have a notoriously short right-field porch of their own) laid over Fenway. The blue line is the RF line at Briggs.

The numbers support this, too. When Ted was healthier, he averaged 148 games a season. Per 148 games, for his career he averaged 31.5 HR at Fenway, and 35.9 HR on the road. At Briggs Stadium, in 169 games, he hit 55 HRs, or 48.2 per 148 games.

So, we need to do two things here, to do what Harshman asked: take Ted out of the Korean and Second World Wars, and make him play for the Tigers.

148 games is 74 home and 74 away games per season, so we add 349 of each for the wartime. This gives us 1476 road games and 1514 at home.

In the road games, Ted averaged 0.242 HR per game, so that's 357 HR on the road. We do need to remove some because he is playing at Fenway instead of Briggs on the road now. That's now 221 games. At a difference of .112 HR/G between Briggs and Fenway, we're losing 25 homers. In total Ted Williams, in our alternate universe, ends up with 327 career away home runs.

At Briggs, though, look out. In 1514 home games, at a rate of .325 HR/G, Ted ends up with 492 homers.

This gives us a total of 819 home runs in a scenario that I daresay is not entirely implausible. In fact, it would probably be more, because the rates I used were for his career, but the years he lost were in his prime.

So a thousand? Probably not. If that had happened, though, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, and Barry Bonds would still be looking up at the greatest hitter who ever lived.