larry leads off
recent study at baseball prospectus examines lineup construction and apparently asks some unorthodox questions — viz., would the giants score more runs with barry bonds in the leadoff slot? you can’t read the article, less’n you have a subscription (which i don’t), but baseball musings has an excerpt and some commentary. ditto only baseball matters, with a followup email exchange between perricone and the study’s author.
which leads me into my annual pout about la russa’s underutilization of the leadoff hole, and an unorthodox question of my own: how would the cardinals fare with larry walker leading off?
i ask because walker excels at the one skill a leadoff man has to have: on-base ability. he has a career obp of .401, which i grant is inflated by 10 seasons at coors field. but his obp away from coors over the last 6 seasons (covering 1255 at-bats) is .382 — with a high of .416 and a low of .370. how good is .370? over the last 20 years only two stl leadoff men have beat it: frankie vina in 2001 (.380) and delino deshields in 1998 (.371).
though womack did a surprisingly nice job last year, he still only ranked 4th on the team in runs scored, tied for 4th in OBP, and fifth in times on base. it’s that last statistic that really tells the tale. like most cardinal leadoff men of recent memory, womack did not excel at his primary offensive task — not even while setting career highs in batting average and obp. he scored 91 runs, a good total — but with three mvp candidates batting behind him, wouldn’t a really good leadoff man have cracked 100 runs by mid-august?
eckstein is no worse than womack, but he’s no better either — last year his times on base (205) and runs scored (92) were nearly identical to tony’s. and his obps are trending downward, just .325 and .339 the last couple of seasons vs a career mark of .347.
what’s the diff’nce between .340 and .380 in the leadoff hole? over 650 plate appearances, it’s about 25 times on base. assuming equivalence among all other stats (steals, extra-base power, etc), the 25 extra times on base translates into roughly 10 to 15 runs. that alone is reason enough to lead larry off, imho. but the case gets stronger yet when you factor in walker’s superior extra-base power. that is, "on-base" usually means first base for eckstein, whereas for walker it often means scoring position or, better yet, a trot around the bags. consider: last year in 608 plate appearances, eckstein propelled himself into scoring position via stolen base or extra-base hit 43 times. walker (away from coors only) did it 34 times — in only 229 plate appearances. true up the plate appearances and walker would propel himself into scoring position 90 times to eckstein’s 43 — which tells us the diff’nce between eckstein’s .340 obp and walker’s .380 obp is going to be a lot more than 10 to 15 runs. more likely we’re talking 25 to 35 runs. and a figure that big has got to show up in the standings.
those of you who’ve read my concerns about eckstein’s glove are now going to accuse me of denigrating the poor bastard’s bat, too. but i’m really not. i’m saying eckstein’s probably going to give you in the neighborhood of 90 runs out of the leadoff hole — but walker’s going to give you 120. i’m saying 90 runs is nothing to brag about when you’ve got murderer’s row batting behind you. . . . . . really, all i’m saying is that la russa should flip-flop his first two hitters, bat walker in front of eckstein instead of the other way around. one advantage you gain by doing so is that you occasionally get some value out of one of eckstein’s outs. in the one case, larry hits a leadoff double, scoots to third on eckstein’s chopper to 2d, scores on a fly to center. in the other, eckstein leads off with a chopper to 2d, walker hits a one-out double, and then gets stranded. same double by walker, same groundout by eckstein — but a diff’t result.
we’ll never get to test this theory in real life, because la russa is about as likely to lead off with walker as he is to confess that he personally jabbed a steroid syringe into mcgwire’s ass. but if anybody out there has access to one of those high-powered simulations and wouldn't mind running a buncha seasons — half with walker batting leadoff, half with eckstein — i’d be curious to see what the computer showed.
which leads me into my annual pout about la russa’s underutilization of the leadoff hole, and an unorthodox question of my own: how would the cardinals fare with larry walker leading off?
i ask because walker excels at the one skill a leadoff man has to have: on-base ability. he has a career obp of .401, which i grant is inflated by 10 seasons at coors field. but his obp away from coors over the last 6 seasons (covering 1255 at-bats) is .382 — with a high of .416 and a low of .370. how good is .370? over the last 20 years only two stl leadoff men have beat it: frankie vina in 2001 (.380) and delino deshields in 1998 (.371).
though womack did a surprisingly nice job last year, he still only ranked 4th on the team in runs scored, tied for 4th in OBP, and fifth in times on base. it’s that last statistic that really tells the tale. like most cardinal leadoff men of recent memory, womack did not excel at his primary offensive task — not even while setting career highs in batting average and obp. he scored 91 runs, a good total — but with three mvp candidates batting behind him, wouldn’t a really good leadoff man have cracked 100 runs by mid-august?
eckstein is no worse than womack, but he’s no better either — last year his times on base (205) and runs scored (92) were nearly identical to tony’s. and his obps are trending downward, just .325 and .339 the last couple of seasons vs a career mark of .347.
what’s the diff’nce between .340 and .380 in the leadoff hole? over 650 plate appearances, it’s about 25 times on base. assuming equivalence among all other stats (steals, extra-base power, etc), the 25 extra times on base translates into roughly 10 to 15 runs. that alone is reason enough to lead larry off, imho. but the case gets stronger yet when you factor in walker’s superior extra-base power. that is, "on-base" usually means first base for eckstein, whereas for walker it often means scoring position or, better yet, a trot around the bags. consider: last year in 608 plate appearances, eckstein propelled himself into scoring position via stolen base or extra-base hit 43 times. walker (away from coors only) did it 34 times — in only 229 plate appearances. true up the plate appearances and walker would propel himself into scoring position 90 times to eckstein’s 43 — which tells us the diff’nce between eckstein’s .340 obp and walker’s .380 obp is going to be a lot more than 10 to 15 runs. more likely we’re talking 25 to 35 runs. and a figure that big has got to show up in the standings.
those of you who’ve read my concerns about eckstein’s glove are now going to accuse me of denigrating the poor bastard’s bat, too. but i’m really not. i’m saying eckstein’s probably going to give you in the neighborhood of 90 runs out of the leadoff hole — but walker’s going to give you 120. i’m saying 90 runs is nothing to brag about when you’ve got murderer’s row batting behind you. . . . . . really, all i’m saying is that la russa should flip-flop his first two hitters, bat walker in front of eckstein instead of the other way around. one advantage you gain by doing so is that you occasionally get some value out of one of eckstein’s outs. in the one case, larry hits a leadoff double, scoots to third on eckstein’s chopper to 2d, scores on a fly to center. in the other, eckstein leads off with a chopper to 2d, walker hits a one-out double, and then gets stranded. same double by walker, same groundout by eckstein — but a diff’t result.
we’ll never get to test this theory in real life, because la russa is about as likely to lead off with walker as he is to confess that he personally jabbed a steroid syringe into mcgwire’s ass. but if anybody out there has access to one of those high-powered simulations and wouldn't mind running a buncha seasons — half with walker batting leadoff, half with eckstein — i’d be curious to see what the computer showed.
posted by L Boros at 2:59 PM
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