Baseball Notes

On September 11, I attended the Astros-Cubs game here in Houston that the Astros won 5-4 in 11 innings thanks to a Luke Scott walk-off triple off of Ryan Dempster. During games, as is my custom, I will usually try to pick up on some interesting trend, or notice something I have never seen before, or try to predict pitches, etc. You know, nerdy stuff. Well, something caught my attention that day and I have been thinking about it since.

Perhaps it is because I have Carlos Lee in my most competitive fantasy league, but I was noticing that night how many times he led off an inning. So when I got home, I checked the play-by-play, and sure enough, he led off an inning four times in his five at bats that night. In fact, the only time at bat where he did not lead off an inning was in the first inning. As a cleanup hitter, you would think that his first at bat would have been the most logical to lead off an inning if the first three batters were sat down in order in the first inning. But just like I thought, he led off the 4th, 6th, 8th, and 11th. One of the reasons this caught my attention was because a caller on a local radio show called about this same topic a few weeks ago and it stuck with me. But, not wanting to trust what that guy said or just my observation from Tuesday night, I went to check the numbers.

Carlos Lee has led off an inning 142 times this season including the Sept. 11 game. Is that a lot? A little? Somewhere in between? Obviously, leadoff hitters will have a lot more times leading off an inning because they do it every game. Number 8 and 9 hitters will do so much less frequently because they have so many fewer plate appearances than the guys in the top of the order. So Carlos Lee needs some peers to compare him to. And since inevitably I will quit rambling and look at how these many times leading off an inning led to decreased numbers of opportunities with men on base, I figured I would compare him to his fellow run-producers. I have included a list of the top 31 RBI leaders in the majors as of the Sept. 11 games (that is to say, everyone who had at least 90 RBI by that point). And, yes, I am aware that RBI is always a flawed stat to use to compare players, but since this ties in directly with the conclusion of my previous post where it was found that plate appearances with men on base, and not average or OBP with men on base, has a higher correlation with strong RBI numbers, it seems like an appropriate list to use.

Here is the list, with their homeruns and OPS when leading off an inning included:

As you can see, Carlos Lee is tied for third when counting both leagues and comes in first overall in the NL for number of times leading off an inning. Other interesting trends here:

1. As might be expected, the highest numbers of those leading off innings come from cleanup hitters like Lee, Morneau, A-Rod, Ordonez, Martinez, etc. Conversely, the lowest numbers are held by hitters in the third spot such as Utley, Hafner, Ortiz, etc. This makes sense because three-hole hitters are guaranteed that they will have at least one at bat per game where they do not lead off.

2. Of these 31 players, 16 have an OPS higher than their overall number when they lead off an inning, and 15 have a number lower. So in this small group of statistical data, no definitive conclusion can be drawn using OPS that this elite group of hitters are any more clutch when they come up with men on base as opposed to no one on. In this exercise, you know they are coming up with no men on in the plate appearances.

3. The four guys that typically hit in front of A-Rod, Morneau, Lee, and Wright are Bobby Abreu, Torii Hunter, Lance Berkman, and Luis Castillo (since he was traded), respectively. Of those four, you can definitely argue that three of them had significant portions of their seasons where they struggled or were in slumps (Berkman, Abreu, and Castillo). Could it be that the leaders in PA while LOI simply just fell into that because pitchers challenged the guys in front of them more frequently because they did not want to face these sluggers with men on base?

But getting back to Lee for a second, how do the numbers represented above affect Lee’s personal season statistics, or the Astros’ numbers for that matter?

According to Baseball Prospectus, there are only eight major leaguers who have had more PAs this season with runners on base than Carlos Lee. This surprising stat comes while Lee plays for a team that is 27th out of 30 teams in runs scored this season and a team that is 23rd in OBP. The other eight players ahead of Lee all play on teams that are in the top eight in the majors in runs scored. And if my addition is correct, only Alex Rodriguez has more plate appearances leading off an inning plus PAs with runners on than Carlos Lee.

What does all of this tell us? Nothing, really. Just that Carlos Lee has had some absolutely fabulous bad luck this year, his first as an Astro. Lance Berkman has gone from from a Hall of Fame type year in 2006 to merely just a good year in 2007, which apparently has included plenty of rally-killing third outs. Nothing could have helped the Astros this year - not even 142 more plate appearances for Lee with men on base. Lee would have to have created 120 more runs to account for 12 more wins, the number of games out of first the Astros currently find themselves.

But to have some fun with the numbers, we can certainly do some predicting here. Here is what we will use:

1. Maybe not so surprisingly, only Vladimir Guerrero has driven in a greater percentage of his team’s runs than Carlos Lee at 16.8%

2. In 2007, 50.3% of Lee’s PAs have come with men on base.

3. Lee has an OBI% (others batted in) of 17.5% - around 35th in the majors for qualified batters.

4. Lee’s breakdown of runners on each base per PA with men on and his percentage of driving runners in from those bases looks like this:

1B - 74% of PAs with men on - drives them in at a rate of 6.8%
2B - 43% of PAs with men on - drives them in at a rate of 18.2%
3B - 23% of PAs with men on - drives them in at a rate of 50.7%

5. The mean number of PA leading off an inning of the 31 listed above is 115.

So, let’s give Lee 115 PAs leading off an inning instead of 142. This gives him an extra 27 PAs throughout the season. Based on the the 50.3% from above, 14 of those will now come with men on.

Using the other percentages, 10 PAs will come with men on first and he will drive in one of them. Six of those PAs will come with men on second, and he will drive in one of them. Four of the PAs will come with men on third, and he will drive in two of them.

In the end, if we make Carlos Lee the average slugger/run producer, we only add four more RBI to his Sept. 11 total, and he now has 109.

When you have fellow batters like Lance Berkman in front of you all season who are constantly making inning-ending outs, there is not much you can do to change your luck. A lot was made here in Houston at the beginning of the season about having such a great tandem of 3-4 hitters in Berkman and Lee. But hindsight and Berkman’s “down” year and OBI% of only 16.3% shows that the Astros perhaps could have done a bit more damage with those two in the opposite spots in the lineup. But, again, it would have taken a lot more than “a bit more damage” to save the Astros’ season.

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Of course, as I write this, Lee just led off an inning with a homerun for the Astros on Thursday night.