Baseball Remembers: Oscar Gamble

The 1970s were a time of great platoon players. I know platooning exists now, and started long ago, but it seemed to reach its peak in the time of Earl Weaver, and Sparky Anderson, and Billy Martin. They, and managers like them, didn’t just start a random righty versus a tough lefty, or vice versa. They fully committed to the notion that platoon advantages were real and used them as much as they possibly could.

Anderson was probably best known for this on the pitching side, earning the nickname “Captain Hook” for his tendency to pull pitchers far earlier than his peers and insert someone who would give the Reds or Tigers a platoon advantage instead. He seemed to always have a pair (or more) of ace relievers he’d use interchangeably depending upon who was coming up to hit. In 1972, righty Clay Carroll was the Reds’ primary closer, racking up 37 saves, but lefty Tom Hall threw almost 30 more innings than Carroll and managed 10 wins and 8 saves of his own. In 1975 it was lefty Will McEnaney paired with righty Rawly Eastwick. In 1984 he rode lefty Willie Hernández to 140 innings, 32 saves, a Cy Young Award and MVP, but also managed to give righty Aurelio López 137 innings of his own, allowing him to save 14 games and win 10 more.

His counterpart on the offense side was Weaver, who was remarkably committed to platooning, particularly with left fielders John Lowenstein and Gary Roenicke. They were teammates for six full seasons, from 1979 to 1984, during which time a normal platoon split in the American League saw left-handed hitters face right-handed pitchers in about 80% of their plate appearances, while right-handed hitters got to face left-handed pitching about 40% of the time.

Now look at how Lowenstein was used, and how it affected his right-handed counterpart, Roenicke, in many years.