You’re forgetting about the pitchers the other teams had to bring up to fill their pitching rosters. Nobody said that in 1961 the worst teams had the 50 worst pitchers, but, they came close. The Twins were on the verge of becoming a relevant team. No surprise that Kralick and Pascual were two of the better young pitchers around. Kaat was hardly a top flight pitcher that season. Conley was a run of the mill pitcher by then as was Nuxall. I’m not getting into who should or shouldn’t have been on those teams. There were plenty on every team, including the Yankees.

BTW, your remark regarding 150 wins of 511 reminds me of just how remarkable of career that Greg Maddux has had (I think it is safe to say a non-PED user).

Expansion in 1961 had no affect on 1960 numbers. The injuries certainly did, though. He hit 22 homers against the bottom four teanm After the injury his average drooped from .295 to a low of .272 before rallying….but, without power.

33 homers against the bottom 5 teams in 1961. 13 against the 2 expansion teams…teams that gave up 180 homers and 131 homers. The Senators would have given up more if not for the airport they played in. You still think that expansion wasn’t the major reason for the spikes?
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While I am familiar with the injury you noted, assuming that Maris would have been “considerably higher” is mere conjecture. It is true that his HR totals and rate did drop in the final 2 months, but not precipitously. He still managed to hit 11 and 10 HR’s respectively when the pressure to catch Ruth was at its highest, down from 11, 15, and 13 in the prior 3 months. In contrast, no injury can explain his April output of 1 HR, although I’m sure that someone will cite a change in the batting order for his sudden turnabout. Regardless, injury or not, he still averaged 10.5 HR in the last 2 months, down only from 13 HR over the prior 3.
The numbers about 1960 (as well as the 1961 numbers)are relevant as they group the pitchers into categories that demonstrate those regarded as the most competent and the ones who would still have been on rosters even if expansion had not occurred. Conversely, you cited Maris’ success against the bottom 5 teams in the league, a proposition that assumes that each of those teams has the roughly 45-50 worst pitchers in the league. While it is true that expansion teams generally have inferior staffs, the effect of expansion is greater felt league wide as inferior arms are disseminated league-wide across the back-end of each team’s staff.
For example, the 5 teams that you mentioned (Bos., Minn., L.A., Wash, and K.C.) featured such arms as Conley, Kaat, Ramos, Pascual, McBride, Donovan, Sturdivant, Nuxhall, Shaw, et. al. These pitchers would have almost certainly have been on MLB rosters regardless of expansion. The disagreement here is a question of targeting–namely that it cannot be assumed that the worst teams in the league have an absolute monopoly on the 45-50 worst pitchers.

To answer your question of whether or not expansion affected offensive output in 1961, I would say that it absolutely had an effect. However, in the individual case of Maris, the numbers do not suggest that he personally benefitted altogether that much.

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OMG, SO jealous!!! That’s so cool

i’d say when comments get over 100 and a commenter consistently goes over 15%. they should get their own blog.

so we’d have the choice of not going there.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06.....oping.html

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Who got in the first punch?