July 30, 2003

Lies, Damned Lies

Leading Off

by Nate Silver

One of the perks of traveling for work--I've been doing a lot of that lately--is the USA Today planted in front of your hotel room door. Sure, for the most part, McPaper's articles are about as substantive as the "continental breakfast" you're likely to eat while reading it--but now and then, in its own glossy, Technicolor way, USA Today stumbles across something significant.

Last Wednesday's sports page featured a headline on leadoff hitters--it seems that there aren't very many good ones these days. As the article pointed out, none of the league's leadoff hitters are among the top 30 players in OBP. Among qualified players, the highest-ranking leadoff hitter is Ichiro Suzuki, 39th as of this writing (Jason Kendall, who has occupied the leadoff spot in Pittsburgh since the departure of Kenny Lofton, ranks 31st). And it's not as if Suzuki or Kendall are walking machines in the mold of Rickey Henderson--Ichiro is a fine player who can hit .340 consistently, but his walk rate is well below league average, while Kendall's OBP is boosted in part by his fearless desire to lean into pitches.

Then again, players of the Rickey/Tim Raines profile have never been terribly common. It also doesn't help when teams insist on placing mediocrities like Eric Young or Endy Chavez in the one-hole. Is anything going on here, apart from a one-year fluke?

The problem, in fact, is widespread, and it hasn't been limited to this season. In the table and graphic below, I've presented OBP by batting order position for each of three periods: (i) 1982-1989, sort of the Henderson/Raines prime years; (ii) 1999-2000, the last days of irrationally exuberant offense, and (iii) 2001-2002.

OBP by Batting Order Position

Order #       1982-1989       1999-2000       2001-2002
1               .336            .349            .332
2               .333            .346            .331
3               .349            .384            .379
4               .345            .375            .368
5               .329            .356            .338
6               .322            .345            .327
7               .315            .326            .318
8               .308            .329            .312

You'll notice how much the No. 3 and No. 4 slots have come to monopolize OBP. Although those lineup positions also accumulated higher OBPs than the leadoff slot during the 1980s, the gap is much wider now, on the order of 40 or 50 points instead of 10 or 15.

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