The air is getting more and more rarified up here in the half-world of the half-season. We'll now look at those hitters who have between seven and eleven appearances on our two Top 300 lists which use the splits at baseball-reference.com (1st half/second half) and ordering the results into a top-down leader list based on OPS+.
It's late, so let's not waste time...
These two really need no introduction. Note that Frank Robinson has a wraparound season (2nd half 1966/1st half 1967) that is almost identical in result to his MVP year in the Orioles first World Championship year. Hank Aaron tended to have hot starts: five of his seven appearances in the Top 600 stem from first half performances. Aaron's best half season, which ranks 24th all-time according to OPS+ comes in the second half of 1971, however.
It's hard to imagine that we can move up in stature from these guys, but here we go...
You've probably heard of these four as well...oddly, only Willie Mays doesn't have a Top 25 half-season in amongst his appearances in the Top 300. Rogers Hornsby has two "wraparound" (or "back to front") seasons interspersed into his eleven appearances on the list, and in both of them he hit .400+ in each half of the year: 2nd half 1922/first half 2023, where he hits .404 and .403; and 2nd half 1924/first half 1925, where he hits .451 (!) and .425.
Mays has two wraparound seasons in amongst his ten stellar half-years: 2nd half 1959/first half 1960, and second half 1963/first half 1964. And Mickey Mantle has two wraparound years of his own as well: 2nd half 1959/first half 1960, and 2nd half 1961/first half 1962.
All in all, we think you can take it to the bank that these guys happen to be pretty good hitters...but brace yourself, for our next journey toward the pinnacle is almost straight up.
