Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
December 28, 2005
Leading Off

I was doing some research for my radio show tonight, and I wanted to see just how good Damon was as a leadoff man. Here's a table of OBA batting in the #1 slot over the last three seasons, minimum of 500 plate appearances:

BatterOBA
Jason Kendall0.386
Derek Jeter0.380
Ryan Freel0.377
Ichiro Suzuki0.373
Brady Clark0.373
Brad Wilkerson0.372
Matt Lawton0.366
David DeJesus0.364
Johnny Damon0.363
Ray Durham0.360
Jerry Hairston Jr.0.358
Chone Figgins0.357
Brian Roberts0.356
Shannon Stewart0.356
Juan Pierre0.355
Grady Sizemore0.353
Eric Young0.353
Craig Counsell0.351
Ronnie Belliard0.349
Kenny Lofton0.349
Michael Young0.349
Rafael Furcal0.348
David Eckstein0.346
Mark Kotsay0.345
Marlon Byrd0.343
Scott Podsednik0.343
Craig Biggio0.342
Reed Johnson0.342
Jimmy Rollins0.341
Sean Burroughs0.340
Dave Roberts0.340
Alfonso Soriano0.335
D'Angelo Jimenez0.333
Felipe Lopez0.327
Alex Sanchez0.325
Carl Crawford0.325
Tony Womack0.321
Willy Taveras0.321
Aaron Miles0.319
Cesar Izturis0.317
Coco Crisp0.312
Jose Reyes0.297
Endy Chavez0.293

What's clear is that Jeter is a much better leadoff hitter than Damon, and I'd bat them Jeter-Damon rather than the other way around. However, from what I can tell, Damon prefers to bat leadoff and Jeter second, so it's likely they'll be happier with the proposed arrangement.

It's continues to shock me that there are no great leadoff men anymore. There should be two or three players capable of generating a .400 OBA from the leadoff slot. No wonder Rickey Henderson believes he can still play in the majors. The best leadoff man in terms of getting on base is a catcher!


Posted by David Pinto at 03:14 PM | Offense | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Tow thoughts:

1. What if you added to your table something about runs created? How many runs created, do these leadoff guys generate when they're leading off an inning or at least a game?

2. Nobody cares about a good leadoff man as long as people are focused on hitting 50+ HR's, even though a good leadoff man generates runs as much if not more. I miss a great leadoff man....growing up watching Raines, Coleman, and Henderson (just to name a few)

Posted by: Devon at December 28, 2005 03:48 PM

Coleman was never very good at getting on base, actually. His best year his OBP was .363, and his career was only .324.

Posted by: JeremyR at December 28, 2005 04:14 PM

He hardly qualifies as great at this point, but Podsednik showed flashes of greatness in the post season this year as a classic type leadoff man.

Posted by: Cary Broder at December 28, 2005 05:12 PM

I would be curious to see what the decade-by-decade average of leadoff OBP is. Should we consider Rickey the norm for leadoff hitters or is he an aberration among baseball players? Maybe I'll work on that.

Posted by: Benjamin Kabak at December 28, 2005 05:15 PM

Ben said/asked: "Should we consider Rickey the norm for leadoff hitters or is he an aberration among baseball players?"

Ricky was definitely an aberration. Here are his top ten "most" similar comparisons from BaseballReference:
1 Paul Molitor (686) *
2 Lou Brock (673) *
3 Rusty Staub (672)
4 Joe Morgan (665) *
5 Robin Yount (649) *
6 Al Kaline (648) *
7 Vada Pinson (646)
8 Tim Raines (645)
9 Brooks Robinson (632) *
10 Craig Biggio (629)

A score of 900 or higher is considered (by James) to mean truly similar. 850 or higher equals similar. No one is even vaguely similar to Henderson. Henderson is truly unique.

Posted by: LargeBill at December 28, 2005 05:29 PM

Rickey had a rare combination of selectivity, power and speed, and all of it lasted a long time. If you just look at OBAs, I think you'll find similar players. Chuck Knoblauch was very good at getting on base as a leadoff hitter. Morgan didn't lead off because Rose was there, but he was a lot like Rickey.

Posted by: David Pinto at December 28, 2005 05:35 PM

Wow! I took a look at Lou Brock, and his most similar batters are Tim Raines, Max Carey, Sam Rice, Rod Carew, and Willie Davis. Their similarity scores are 861, 834, 794, 793, and 793. All MUCH more similar to Brock than anybody is to Henderson.

A few more greats of the past decade or so and their highest similarity scores:
Roger Clemens: 853 (Tom Seaver)
Randy Johnson: 846 (Jim Palmer)
Cal Ripken Jr.: 787 (Dave Winfield) (!)
Nolan Ryan: 755 (Steve Carlton)
Mark McGwire: 813 (Jim Thome)
Tony Gwynn: 882 (Zack Wheat)
Even Barry Bonds has someone much more similar to him than Henderson does: 795 (Willie Mays)

I started spot-checking a who's who list of the greatest HOFers, and the only person I could find with a lower highest similarity score is Pete Rose, whose most similar player is, coincidentally, also Paul Molitor (674). Even Cy Young himself has Walter Johnson nipping at his heels with a relatively close 703.

Posted by: Adam Villani at December 28, 2005 05:49 PM

Rob Neyer suggests that on this basis, Tim Raines belongs in the HOF.

Posted by: Yankee Despiser at December 28, 2005 07:35 PM

Tim Raines was the man, suffers from Expos fevah

Posted by: colin at December 28, 2005 09:47 PM

I think Rock Raines is just Hall Worthy, mostly for his prowess on the basepaths: he had 800+ stolen bags in his career (good for 5th all-time), over 1500 runs scored and almost 1400 walks to go with his 2600+ hits. He was highly durable with an outstanding peak. From '82 - '87 he was a holy terror, batting over .300 and on base over .400, stealing over 60 bases a year, and playing solid defense. He had a couple more outstanding seasons after that in '89 and '92, and then aged nicely, providing value in limited playing time. He'd be a lock if he could have had one or two more of his peak level seasons...as is, I think he's on the cusp, and he'd get my vote.

Posted by: Dave S. at December 28, 2005 10:36 PM

Well, players just aren't that good. The only players who really fall in the camp that folks want them to fall into are the A-Rods and Pujols of the world. There are only 11 players who had OBP over .400 in 2005 which is barely more than the starting squad of an all-MLB team. And most fall in the power hitter territory where teams prefer to have them driving in runs (Giambi, Helton, ARod, Pujols, etc..) IN fact of the top 14 OBP players, 9 had 30 HRs or more. #16 was Jeter with a .389 OBP. 5 of those top 15 had more than 20 IBBs. It simply appears that .400 OBA is too rare to be a common trait of top leadoff hitters.

I just think we need to rethink what makes for a great leadoff hitter in terms of OBA. It has to be good numbers AND realistic. In that context Jeter was unbelievable.

Posted by: seamus at December 28, 2005 11:38 PM

"leading off" is overrated. even ricky said, when asked about his power as a leadoff man, "you only lead off once in a game."

Posted by: benjah at December 29, 2005 08:35 AM

While "leading off" is overrated, it's still the position most likely to receive the most plate appearances in a game.

You'd think that in today's game, the actual leading off part of it would seem less important than the lineup construction part of it. You basically want the guys you want up the most in the game to be up first in the game. I've always been partial to power starting in the number two spot and stacking low OBP speedsters in the 8 and 9 hole. Let them make fewer outs at the bottom...but when they get on, let 'em run.

Posted by: Dave S. at December 29, 2005 09:00 AM

Dave S.:

What do you expect will happen if you let your low-OBP speedsters run quite a bit? What net advantage do you hope to gain?

Posted by: Dennis at December 29, 2005 11:42 AM

Dennis- Well, so long as their SB/CS ratio is good, they'll help to create more runs. Good examples of bottom-of-the-order speedsters would be Jose Reyes, Juan Pierre (last year, at least, with his .326 OBP), or Carl Crawford. None of these guys has any business leading off and making more outs than they ought to at the top of the order. But bat them 8th or 9th, when they ARE actually on base for a more powerful top of the order their great SB rate (and low CS rate) will put them in scoring position often enough to greatly assist in runs scored. There IS an advantage to taking a bag, actually. Anyone who gets caught more than 1/4 of the time gets the red light on my imaginary team.

Posted by: Dave S. at December 29, 2005 02:20 PM
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