April 7, 2005

Crooked Numbers

On the Run

by James Click

One of the major themes in performance analysis of batters is context independence, the idea that a batter hits just as well whether his team is tied in the bottom of the ninth or up by nine in the eighth. This idea is at the core of the clutch hitting argument and is borne out by statistics: while clutch hitting exists, there are no persistent clutch hitters. Great hitters are great clutch hitters; terrible hitters are terrible clutch hitters.

Context independence can also be applied to situations involving the interaction between baserunners and the batter at the plate. The idea that a runner on a particular base can consistently influence the batter's performance is contrary to the idea of context independence. But listen to a ballgame and you're almost guaranteed to hear discussion of baserunners disrupting a pitcher's timing, rhythm, focus...maybe even his hairdo.

While context independence governs a great deal of batting performance, the presence of runners does affect a noticeable change in the opposition. Pitchers typically go to a stretch delivery instead of the windup. Defensive players position themselves differently, preparing for a possible double play or playing deeper in the outfield to give up a single while preventing a double. The first baseman is assigned to cover the bag and keep the runner from stealing rather than playing back and off the line.

The immediate results of this can be seen in the performance of batters broken down by the baserunner situation in 2004:

YEAR    RUNNERS       PA    AVG   OBP   SLG   ISO   MLVR
2004   2nd & 3rd     4292  .275  .414  .451  .176   .179
2004      3rd        5644  .287  .384  .450  .163   .136
2004   1st & 3rd     6379  .291  .342  .454  .163   .074
2004      1st       38136  .280  .338  .440  .160   .039
2004      2nd       17210  .247  .367  .394  .147   .004
2004    Loaded       5041  .276  .314  .443  .167  -.002
2004    Empty      103422  .262  .325  .426  .164  -.018
2004   1st & 2nd    14083  .258  .327  .415  .157  -.032

The highest situations, as measured by MLVr, are those in which a runner is on third: second and third, third, and first and third. However, the isolated power in these situations is similar to those when the bases are loaded or empty, so much of the difference of MLVr may be a result of intentional walks, a decision element that should be removed in order to better maintain context independence. Removing intentional walks, the numbers for 2004 now look like this:

YEAR    RUNNERS      PA     AVG   OBP   SLG   ISO   MLVR
2004      3rd        5644  .287  .361  .450  .163   .097
2004   1st & 3rd     6379  .291  .337  .454  .163   .066
2004   2nd & 3rd     4292  .275  .347  .451  .176   .065
2004      1st       38136  .280  .337  .440  .160   .037
2004     Loaded      5041  .276  .314  .443  .167  -.002
2004     Empty     103422  .262  .325  .426  .164  -.018
2004   1st & 2nd    14083  .258  .327  .415  .157  -.032
2004      2nd       17210  .247  .340  .394  .147  -.045

While the OBP with runners on second and third dropped from .414 to .347 (and thus MLVr from .179 to .065), the three situations with a runner on third, excluding when the bases are loaded, remain at the top of the list. More importantly, batters perform better in general with runners on base than when the bases are empty. While this may not be as conclusive looking at the 2004 numbers, batters hit worse with the bases empty in 2003 than in any other situation, even when removing intentional walks. In 2002, only with runners on first and second were batters less adept than with the bases empty.

Batters do better when there are runners on base and the year-to-year consistency of offensive performance given a particular combination of baserunners is high. Thus, it can be said with confidence that baserunners do alter batter performance slightly.

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