BillFacts: National League East
Posted: April 30th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 34 Comments »
We go to the National League East next with Billfacts. Why? Because there’s a Florida Bllifact that inspired a mini-study …
Atlanta Braves
Billfact: Chipper Jones — whether he’s batting right-handed or left-handed — tends to go to right field with his hits. It’s interesting: He pulls as a lefty but likes to go the other way as a righty. About 38% of his balls in play go to right, another 36% to center, and only 26% to left.
Billfact: There are only two players in baseball who have made more outs than Jeff Francoeur* since he made it to the big leagues: Jimmy Rollins and Jose Reyes.
*How many “Jeff Francoeur is a changed man” stories did we have to endure this off-season? Fifty? One hundred? From what I can gather, Francoeur is a wonderful guy — Lord knows that Royals general manager Dayton Moore will talk about him endlessly. He’s an excellent outfielder, a competitor, and all that. But he’s not, repeat NOT, a changed man. OK? He’s a moderate power guy with limited speed who doesn’t get on base. He was that when he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated. And he was that when he hit .239/.294/.359 last year. That’s not to say that he is without value; I think in the right situation, in the right frame of mind, he can hit you 25 to 30 home runs, play good outfield defense, be a clubhouse presence, all those things.
But we’re almost one month into the new season: And while Frankie has cut down on his strikeouts and he oddly already has hit two triples, he is what he is: .269/.301/.423. That should be his social security number.**
**Much in the same way that, back in Cleveland, people used to say that Rick Manning had the perfect uniform (brilliant reader correction) number, 43, because that’s what he did all game long.
Florida Marlins
Billfact: Ricky Nolasco last year only allowed four of his 42 walks to score, lowest percentage in baseball.
Billfact: Hanley Ramirez lost about 46 RBIs last year because he hit leadoff.
Bill has topped himself — he has a small chart on Page 109 of the Goldmine that hat has TWO mind-bending baseball ideas in it. People, you have to get the Gold Mine.
The first: He put together a chart of how often each spot in the lineup comes up with men on base. Great stuff. I’m going to reprint the chart here because I know you’re going to buy the Gold Mine:
Leadoff 33%
2nd 43%
3rd 48%
Cleanup 50%
5th 48%
6th 46%
7th 46%
8th 46%
9th 45%
OK, so as you can see … the leadoff hitter is really the outlier. The leadoff comes up with men on base 10% less often than any other spot, including the 9th spot. The reason is obvious: The leadoff hitter always begins the game with nobody on base, and he also follows the 9th hitter, who is presumably the worst hitter in the lineup.* We all know the cliche that the leadoff hitter’s job is to set the table and not drive in runs. The cliche fits because, verifiably, leadoff hitters will simply not get nearly as many chances any anyone else to drive in runs.
*Except when Tony La Russa is managing.
OK, so that’s idea No. 1. The second idea is more of a Bill formula that he mentions in the same chart … he has come up with a simple way to determine roughly how many RBIs a batter should be expected to have bases on his batting. Formula is simply this: (Total Bases / 4) + home runs. That’s it. And it gives you some very interesting numbers.
First — and this should be no surprise based on the numbers above — leadoff hitters are almost exclusively the league’s biggest RBI underachievers. Here are your Top 10 RBI underachievers from 2008 and where they most often batted in the order.
1. Hanley Ramirez, -46 (leadoff hitter)
2. Stephen Drew, -31 (leadoff hitter)
3. Ichiro Suzuki, -30 (leadoff hitter)
4. Jose Reyes, -30 (leadoff hitter)
5. Scott Hairston, -25 (leadoff hitter)
6. Curtis Granderson, -24 (leadoff hitter)
7. Grady Sizemore, -23 (leadoff hitter)*
8. Brian Roberts, -21 (leadoff hitter)
9. Fred Lewis, -21 (leadoff hitter)
10. Shane Victorino, -20 (Batted 2nd)
*Obviously, we’ll have more to say about THIS in a minute.
Now, when you look at the RBI Overachievers, you see they bat all over the lineup. It seems to me this is because the only spot in the lineup that is a true barrier to driving in runs in leadoff. At every other spot in the lineup, you come up with runners on base more than 40% of the time. You will also notice that the list of overachievers is much more of a mixed bag … some really good players and some not as good. I think this gets to the idea of just how much help you need to drive in runs:
1. Justin Morneau, +28 (Cleanup)
2. Ryan Garko, +26 (Batted 6th)
3. Brian Buscher, +22 (Batted 7th)
4. Jesus Flores, +21 (Batted 6th)
5. Bengie Molina, +20 (Cleanup)
6. Jason Michaels, +19 (Batted everywhere)
7. Melvin Mora, +19 (Batted 2nd and 3rd)
8. Jed Lowrie, +18 (Batted 6th and 7th)
9. Joe Mauer, +16 (Batted 3rd)
10. Ryan Howard, +15 (Cleanup)
(tie). Josh Hamilton, +15 (Batted 3rd)
I should say that I looked at the Top 400 players in baseball last year in Total Bases, and more than half of them — about 220 of them — were within five RBIs of their Total Bases formula. So that’s a pretty solid estimator, I think … not that I ever doubted Bill.
Now, here’s the question: Since the leadoff spot is so unique, what kind of player do you REALLY want in the leadoff spot? Or to put it another way: I’ve been ranting for two years now that the Indians should absolutely move Grady Sizemore down in the lineup. I imagine Florida Marlins fans might say the same thing about Hanley Ramirez.
The argument the Indians and some fans would make is this: Yes, it’s true that Sizemore doesn’t get as many RBI opportunities (or as many RBIs as his total bases would suggest) but that’s not his job. He scores so many more runs than expected, you come out ahead.
Well is this true? I have no idea. But, you know me, I tried to come up with my own formula to find out. I basically reworked the Bill James RBI formula for runs. It probably doesn’t pass the smell test, but my quickie run expectation formula is simply (Times on Base / 3.5) + Home Runs. Don’t ask me how I came up with that because the answer would embarrass all of us … I’m sure I could come up with a much better formula that would incorporate doubles and triples, and maybe I will. But this is just a quick test to give us a sense of things.
And the formula does sort of work more or less … it predicts almost half of all players within five runs, and it averages out to almost exactly zero. And, look, the point is only to get an estimation.
Once again, as you might have expected, it’s the leadoff hitters and players up near the top of good lineups who outperformed their expectations in 2008:
1. Jacoby Ellsbury, +31
2. Shane Victorino, +25
3. Curtis Granderson, +25
4. Dustin Pedroia, +24
5. Brian Roberts, +22
6. Ian Kinsler, +22
7. Michael Young, +21
8. Rickie Weeks, +20
9. Carlos Gomez, +20
10. Ichiro Suzuki, +20
And before we come to any conclusion, here are those who wildly underscored in 2008. You will notice something about these men … they are mostly slow, and they mostly hit in the middle of the lineup:
1. Adam Dunn, -33
2. Pat Burrell, -27
3. Troy Glaus, -26
4. Jason Giambi, -24
5. Bengie Molina, -22
6. Prince Fielder, -22
7. Albert Pujols, -22
8. Carlos Pena, -20
9. Miggy Cabrera, -20
10. Jack Cust Nipping At Your Nose, -20
Now, obviously, I don’t think that my formula is especially good. But I’m only using it to make a simple point: It’s clear that when you bat a man leadoff, you are making the tradeoff. You are saying that his skill set make him a better run SCORING candidate than an RBI candidate. OK? So Jacoby Ellsbury last year was +25 in runs scored, and -17 in RBIS. That seems to me a good tradeoff.
But Hanley Ramirez was -46 in RBIs and only +13 in runs … that does NOT seem a good tradeoff to me. Ramirez led the National League in runs scored last year, and that’s great, I’m obviously a big fan of runs and feel like that’s a wildly underrated statistic. But it sure seems to me that he would be more valuable hitting down in the lineup.
And, of course, that’s how I ALWAYS have felt about my man Grady Sizemore. From a logical standpoint — at least using my logic — he just seems like an absolute fit to move down in the lineup. He gets on base, yes, but he hits with power, and I just think you want to get him up there as often as possible with men on base.
The numbers I worked do confirm my point with Sizemore. Not that I put a lot of stock in the numbers, but I did work hard to add them up so here they are:
2008: Scored 12 runs more than expectation, drove in 23 fewer runs (-12)
2007: Scored 11 runs more than expectation, drove in 19 fewer runs (-8)
2006: Scored 26 runs more than expectation, drove in 39 fewer runs (-13)
2005: Score 19 runs more than expectation, drove in 18 fewer runs (+1)
All I can say is: Free Grady Sizemore.
New York Mets
Billfact: This is how good Johan Santana is: He is 8-2 with a 2.29 against teams with a winning percentage of .600 or better. He has been even better against those teams than he has against the good teams.*
*Are the Mets REALLY going to keep blowing great Johan Santana starts? I mean, we all know here how much better Santana’s record should have been last year.
Loss: 7 innings, 1 earned run.
ND: 6 innings, 1 earned run
Loss: 7 innings, 3 earned runs
Loss: 6 innings, 1 earned run
ND: 7 innings, 0 earned runs
Loss: 7 innings, 1 earned run
ND: 8 innings, 2 earned runs
ND: 8 innings, 2 earned runs
ND: 6 1/3 innings, 1 earned run
ND: 7 innings, 2 earned runs
ND: 7 innings, 2 earned runs
He actually had a handful of other decent starts that could have been wins with some support, but just consider those 11 starts he either lost or did not have a decision. Santana went 16-7 last year. What COULD he have gone. With just a bit more luck, he would have been the unanimous choice for Cy Young winner last year.
So, OK, you figure that you chock that up to an unlucky year.
Well, how about his start in 2009?
He’s 3-1, which sounds great. But the loss was seven innings with zero earned runs. And on Wednesday, he went 7 innings, gave up two runs, and got a no decision. Zack Greinke is 5-0 with an 0.50 ERA and some guy wrote a Sports Illustrated cover story on him. Johan Santana is 3-1 with a 1.10 ERA and, as the old baseball writing cliche goes, he could sue the Mets for non-support.
Billfact: There is no doubt that Mets fans have picked up on this, but nobody swings less often than Luis Castillo. Last year, Castillo only swung at 32% of the pitches thrown to him. It’s almost exactly the same this year: He has seen 249 pitches, swung at 83 of them — 33%. That’s by far the lowest percentage in baseball*.
*Though it did make me want to look up Bobby Abreu, who seems to NEVER swing. Sure enough, Abreu , through the years, has consistently swung at 35 or 35% of all pitches, a low total to be sure though not quite Castillo low. To give you a comparison, Vlad Guerrero last year swung at 62% of his pitches. Love the Vlad. I’ll have a few Billfacts about him should we ever get to this to the American League West.
Philadelphia Phillies
Bilfact: The 2008 Philadelphia Philles were successful 84.5% of the time they tried to steal, the second best mark in baseball history. The best mark? The 2007 Philadelphia Phillies, who were successful 87.9% of the time. Remarkable. This year, the Phillies are 11 of 13 — which is 84.6%, almost exactly the same as last year.*
*I must point out here that one of the most incredible base stealing teams ever was this little team that played in Cincinnati in 1975. That Reds team was success 82.4% of the time, and catcher Johnny Bench was successful all 11 times he tried to steal.
JoeBlog fact: Last year, I really blasted the Phillies for trading for Joe Blanton because I thought that once you got him out of the wide open spaces of Oakland, he would absolutely stink. And this would be doubly true for when he pitched in Philadelphia, which is hardly a pitcher’s park.
Well, as it turned out, the joke was on me. Blanton went 4-0 with a solid enough 4.20 ERA down the stretch for the Phillies, and he won two games in the postseason, and hey, I’m happy to admit when I’m wrong.
However, I will point out that Blanton is 0-2 with an 8.40 ERA and six home runs allowed in 20 1/3 innings so far this year. So that is not as good.
Washington Nationals
Billfact: The Nationals cleanup hitters only drove in 73 RBIs in 2008 — by far the lowest total in baseball. But here was the interesting thing, especially based on the long interlude above in the Marlins section: That was only FOUR MORE than their leadoff hitters. Now, seriously, how does that happen?
It’s really not that complicated: The Nationals cleanup hitters were THAT BAD. Nothing fluky about it. The leadoff hitters had an RBI expectation level of 77, they drove in 69 which is probably a touch better than you would expect from the leadoff spot but really not too much better.
But, the Nationals’ cleanup hitters had an RBI expectation of 74.5 and they drove in 73, so that’s pretty much dead on. When you hit .255/.355/.388, you are really not going to drive in many runs. And when your cleanup hitters are Austin Kearns, Lastings Milledge and Dmitri Young, yes, he that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind.
Billfact: This is one of Bill’s favorite stats — Tim Redding was quite mediocre last year. He went 10-11 with a 4.95 ERA and and ERA+ of 89. He did not have an especially large number of quality starts — 14 out of 33 — and he did not have any peripherals that would indicate to you that he had an exceptional year.
And yet, the Nationals went 20-13 in games he started. This is a team that won 59 games all last year — they won more than a third of them in Redding’s games. John Lannan was a lot better. Odalis Perez was better. Heck, Jay Bergmann was about as good. But Redding was the guy the Nationals won with.
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What are we supposed to call a Pozterisk that wasn’t referenced? Your ** Pozterisk for the Braves is apparently meant to simply be the next sentence of the * Pozterisk above it. There’s no ** call to get you there. Sort of like:
1 PRINT “Hello ”
2 GOTO 50
3 PRINT “world!”
50 PRINT “* Is anyone else disturbed by the way the word hello starts with ‘hell’? It always got under my skin that way.”
51 GOTO 3
755 PRINT “** None of this makes any sense.”
This is grammar, Joe. We’ve got to have rules to break!
Fantastic stuff, Mr. Posnanski. Fantastic. Really a pleasure to read.
I agree whole heartedly about Sizemore and Hanley Ramirez (who is batting third this year, right?). What about Soriano for the Cubs? What were his numbers according to what you measured above? They are probably close to Sizemore’s.
uh oh, your program does not terminate!
OK, I’ll try that again to actually fit the point I was making:
1 PRINT “Hello* â€
2 GOTO 50
3 PRINT “world!â€
50 PRINT “* Is anyone else disturbed by the way the word hello starts with ‘hell’? It always got under my skin that way.â€
51 GOTO 3
52 GOTO 4256
755 PRINT “** None of this makes any sense.â€
4256 END
/end ancient programming geekery
And of course, even that has an infinite loop. An object lesson in why programming quickly in BASIC led to frustration for all involved.
For your runs scored formula, you clearly mean (Times on Base / 3.5) + HR, not (ToB * 3.5) + HR. Otherwise, decent hitters would be expected to score nearly 1,000 runs.
Beyond that…the Nats’ cleanup guys were EXPECTED to drive in 74.5 runs? Egads, that’s horrible. How can you have someone like that hitting in one of the lineup spots typically reserved for one of your best hitters?
Man, I can be self-deprecating about nerding out and talking baseball for hours on end, but with all the programming talk, we’re officially about a half-step away from breaking out a 20-sided die here.
Here’s a fun NL East fact, although it’s a bit personal: Omar Minaya is ruining my goddamn life.
Yeah, I refused to do a third post with the program further corrected for that reason. Hopefully we can hold the 20-sider in reserve.
but don’t Hanley and Grady get on base more often than another leadoff hitter on their team would? so wouldn’t Hanley and Grady not be able to knock in as many runs?
I’m not disagreeing, I’m just saying, maybe there’s noone else better for the top of the lineup on those 2 teams?
first
Hanley was indeed moved down in the order. He has batted third in every Marlins’ game this season.
DTRO – I cannot believe Minaya is still employed by the Mets.
They should get Pedro in the bullpen. I bet you he could be convinced.
Then they could get Maddux in the pen and that Florida High School no-hitter kid. Then put a tent on that circus.
Re: Rick Manning,
Baseball players wear uniforms, Joe. Not jerseys. Shame on you.
DTRO #8 –
I know what you mean. Jerry Manuel is not doing much to help the cause either.
I was at the game yesterday (Santana’s ND that Joe describes) and, among other nonsense, Manuel had them sacrifice FOUR times including (1) 1st inning, no outs, #2 hitter, Reyes on 3rd with a leadoff triple, already trailing 0-2, and (2) 7th inning, no outs, #3 hitter(!!), Cora on 2st with a leadoff single, leading 3-2.
I hate the sac bunt almost always, but these are just so ridiculous they are off the chart. If Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds had been the #2 and #3 hitters (in either order), I have no doubt that Manuel would have done the exact same thing regardless.
And please don’t get me started on his “mastery” of the double-switch.
Obviously, that should have been Cora on 1st, not “2st” (whatever base that is ). Although I would bet money that if he were on 2st, or even 2nd, Manuel still would have called for a sacrifice.
Obviously the Mets should hire Jack Morris as their pitching coach to teach Johan how to win those ND’s. Sure, it’s impressive to throw 6 to 8 innings with 0 to 2 runs allowed, but that’s not his job! His job is to win games!
If only the Mets could get Storm Davis…
It’s really not that odd that Francoeur has already hit two triples. He has pretty good speed (I note that he was recruited to play defensive back at Clemson) and decent power.
[...] are some of Johan’s starts from 2008 that probably should have been wins: Loss: 7 innings, 1 earned run. ND: 6 innings, 1 earned run Loss: 7 innings, 3 earned runs Loss: 6 [...]
I have 20 sided dice in my briefcase. Also 12, 8, 6, and 4 sided dice. As a game programming instructor, I never know when I might need to demonstrate some randomness issues. For that matter, start->run->command prompt, followed by prompt$p-$t> gives you a randomness factor fairly good for percentages by taking the hundredths of a second. And I have a laptop with me for all my classes.
[...] Joe Posnanski placed an observative post today on BillFacts: National League EastHere’s a quick excerptWe go to the National League East next with Billfacts. Why? Because there’s a Florida Bllifact that inspired a mini-study … Atlanta Braves Billfact: Chipper Jones — whether he’s batting right-handed or left-handed — tends to go to right field with his hits. It’s interesting: He pulls as a lefty but likes to go the other way as a righty. About 38% of his balls in play go to right, another 36% to center, and only 26% to left. Billfact: There are only two players in baseball who have ma [...]
A couple observations from a Phillies fan about the NL East. Like Mets fans, i cant believe minaya has a job. that’s the weird thing about extenisions in sports. he certainly didnt need one, and why give him that many years. it’s almost like minaya worked on that one himself (ha. ha.). same thing with odalis perez. ok so you pay him more than anyone else would, but why do it for 3 years.
but my real point… I’ve seen Larry, i mean chipper jones play for years. i have a quiet respect for him. he seems like a good leader. never gets in the papers for the wrong things. he is the example of a guy you WANT to end the career with one team. and, man, can he hit. it’s also cool to see somebody get better as the get older. it’s gotta be a sign of intelligence right? he was always good but he got better, and then there’s a guy like raul ibanez, it’s cool to see to just see them outsmart pitchers (offensive jamie moyers?). ANYWAY, doesn’t chipper need to go to AL? who is anybody kidding? the guy is on the DH every year. what’s going to happen when he gets even older? he probably ought to be a permanent DH, but he’s too competitive for that. still, he shouldn’t play the field more than 50 games a year right?
[...] Joe Posnanski placed an observative post today on BillFacts: National League East » Joe PosnanskiHere’s a quick excerptBilfact: The 2008 Philadelphia Philles were successful 84.5% of the time they tried to steal, the second best mark in baseball history. The best mark? The 2007 Philadelphia Phillies, who were successful 87.9% of the time. Remarkable. … [...]
Love reading your posts Joe.
Gaylord knows what Santana is going through on the Mets. He went through it on the Indians. 1972 he was 24-16 and won the Cy Young. But he was very close to winning 30. He lost one game giving up 1 earned run. He lost five games giving up 2 earned runs. Three of those games he pitched 10.2, 8 and 8 innings. He lost three games with 3 earned runs.
If only the Indians hadn’t been such a bad team. Perry was a quite talented pitcher and the doctored balls made him even better. ‘72 was his year.
So instead of giving plus/minus numbers for the RBI over/under-achievers, Bill could take the expected percentage with runners on base and use it to manipulate that list into who the best RBI men are regardless of where they bat, and how many total RBIs they have. In fact, it may represent a clutchiness stat. Where if a guy can repeatedly hit the top of the list, they can be considered clutch.
For the record, I don’t believe in clutchiness, but it could be interesting.
East coast bias strikes again!
Interesting note about Tim Redding. There was another interesting post about him on Amazin Avenue about a month ago that pointed out that he faced baseball’s toughest opposition last year, so his mediocrity might be overstated a bit. Here is a link to that post:
http://www.amazinavenue.com/2009/2/2/744160/is-there-anything-to-like
Nate
Regarding RBIs forgone, I thought I’d check out Bobby Bonds as he was basically the proto-Sizemore / Soriano in terms of power-hitting lead-off men. Here are his numbers for his peak.
1969: He actually hit leadoff in less than half his starts — Fuentes took the leadoff spot when he came up and Bonds was moved to 5th to protect McCovey.
1970: -31.5 RBI +25 R
1971: hit leadoff in less than half his starts — mostly due to McCovey being hurt.
1972: -16 RBI +24.5 R — leadoff was the best place for him that year
1973: -28 RBI +13 R
1974: -11.5 RBI +4 R
1975: -15 RBI -8 R — He batted 3rd in 33 G and hit .190 / .301 / .355 there.
@25 Aaron M.
Good idea, to see which players are the best at driving in runs independent of batting position. I don’t think it would show who is clutch though. It would more likely, I assume, be a list with mostly the best hitters in the league and players who hit well with runners in scoring position that year. Would be interesting to see if anyone else wa identified who doesn’t fit into one of those two categories though.
To the Mets fans, think Manual/Minaya suck? Try putting up with Sabean*/Bochy like us Giants fans do.
*I think Sabean has started to perform slightly better recently compared to teh last few years but Bochy, ugh!
When my Tigers pulled the plug on Mike Maroth a couple years back, the team’s record in gamees he started was excellent, though his own numbers were pretty bad. I thought at the time he had been treated quite shabbily by the team, but his lack of success since then seems to suggest the team’s judgement was correct.
And this year, it’s not just the Mets bullpen causing headaches for Johan. Ed Coleman from WFAN pointed out the other day that the Mets are hitting under .100 with runners in scoring position for him. (They are 5 for 51.) And they leave an average of 10 men on per Johan start in 2009.
I came up with a system similar to this a few years back as an indirect way of looking at baserunning
runs scored = (H+BB)*team slugging percentage.
RBI = (Total bases)*team OBP
http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/discussion/lowell_sun_scoggins/
I also worked out linear weights values, but I can’t find them with a google search.
Fan of the Mets and New Jersey Devils (pucks, ice, sticks). I’m having one of those moments where it feels like the entire point of the sporting world is to make me feel despair. It, and the time, are the rent I pay for those moments of brilliance. Glad you’re here Joe, to make it good no matter what.
I mean, seriously, they’re acting like they don’t DESERVE Santana! He’s a Met! Make it count!
Re: Rick Manning
Manning wore uniform number 28 until Bert Blyleven came to Cleveland. Manning relinquished number 28 to Blyleven and wore number 20.