Conventional Leadoff Hitter Be Damned!

When you think of a leadoff hitter, what do you think of ? Speed? Bat control ? Is it Scot Podsednik that pops into your head ? Maybe Johnny Damon or Brian Roberts ? Chances are that whoever that player may be, they’re on the lighter side of the player’s body spectrum, known just as much for their ability to steal bases and their part in the creation of “productive outs” as they are for just simply getting on base. Coco Crisp fits that mold well, a switch hitter capable of stealing bases when he gets on, an appropriate successor for the erstwhile number 18. But Crisp has been on the disabled list for the last 2 weeks or so, and it looks as if that’s where he will remain until the beginning of May. So who on our lead-footed Red Sox has been filling in?

Kevin Youkilis. And he’s doing a damn fine job, too.

If you’ve read any of the numerous articles put forth by individual sabermetricians and the freakily cultish Baseball Prospectus (I always imagine white robes and blinding lights behind expressionless faces) on the merits of the batting order, you have an idea why. This issue is addressed in detail within one of the essays of Baseball Between the Numbers, and with much greater quantitative authority, so I will not pretend to be any sort of expert on the math behind it. Needless to say, it stands to reason that the success of Youkilis in the leadoff spot should not come as a surprise to anyone who takes the time examine what you need from the game’s first batter.

What is the ultimate goal of a batting player? Why, to cross home plate with a run of course. But then, that is the ultimate goal. What is the first successful action that can be taken to advance towards that end? Get on base. You can’t steal a base, hit and run, much less cross home plate without first getting on base. In they eyes of the scoreboard, a walk is just efficient as a hit if it eventually produces a run, and while it may not help owners in standard fantasy leagues, a player who were to theoretically bat .000 for a season but reach base 100% of the time would be incredibly valuable. (Suspend your disbelief for a moment, this is the first time I’ve tried to pass a philosophical argument as numerically sound. At least, I think that’s what I’m doing. I could just be telling you that monkeys don’t exist as your reality because you’ve never actually seen on in person. But I digress…)

Over the last decade or so statisticians have managed to insert the On Base Percentage into the everyday baseball jargon, to the point where a failed general manager (*cough* Steve Phillips) can reference it in a SportsCenter mock press conference and be confident that the majority of viewers will comprehend. It is here, in On Base Percentage (henceforth referred to as OBP) that our phantom player and Kevin Youkilis have their value. Our player, we’ll call him Phantom, would be reaching base 100% of the time for an OBP of 1.000, meaning that every time he came to the plate, he reached base. As a result, the probability of Phantom scoring a run increases dramatically. If he chooses to he can attempt to disrupt the pitcher with a steal or remain rooted at first, but either way he increases the likelihood that a run will come from his at bat. The player behind him has a greater chance at driving him in, increasing his own individual RBI total (an indication of why RBI is also a flawed statistic: if they don’t get on in front of you, you can’t knock ‘em in.) That player becomes important to his team as a run-scorer.

Of course, you could put Phantom anywhere in your lineup I suppose, and he would still be helpful in scoring runs and leading to wins. But as pointed out in the Baseball Between the Numbers, the idea of player placement with a lineup is to maximize that lineup’s production. There are 27 outs to be made in a ballgame, divided by 9 players in a batting order that means that each batter would have exactly 3 at-bats (AB) in a perfect game. Batters #1-3 would come up in the 1st, 4th, and 7th innings, #4-6 in the 2nd, 5th, and 8th, and #7-9 in the 3rd, 6th, and 9th. Unfortunately for pitchers perfect games are as rare an event as you can get in baseball, which means that this dispersion of batters is seldom seen. Assuming that a pitcher throws a 1-hitter instead of a perfect game, or a no-hitter with a walk or HBP, what happens? Exactly. Phantom would get an extra AB, and since we know he gets on base 100% of the time that means the #2 hitter is going to get an extra AB with a chance to knock Phantom in and continue the game.

The idea put forth by these oft-criticized and frequently misunderstood stat geeks is that the player with greatest chance of getting on base should lead off because he will likely get more AB over the course of a season then, say, your number 9 hitter. The more AB he gets, the more chances a team will have to score runs and win ballgames.

This is why Kevin Youkilis is perfect for the leadoff spot in the Sox’ lineup even when Crisp returns. Youkilis is famous for his batting eye in the minors, consistently posting OBP near or above .400. Theo has been quoted as saying that Youkilis is capable of posting .400 or greater at the major league level, meaning he has incredible value to the team. It stands to reason that if you put Kevin Youkilis in front of David Ortiz and Many Ramirez for the course of a season they are going to score more runs than were someone else to lead off. He doesn’t fit the typical mold, to be sure, but he has proven that he has not only the ability to hit to all fields with line-drive power, but that he also has a very sharp batting eye that allows him to compensate for whatever his speed shortcomings may be.

When Crisp went down, anybody with knowledge of these ideas celebrated at the mention of #20 leading off for the Olde Towne Team. They knew he was going to get more AB, see more pitches, and help them score more runs than without him there, and as we’ve seen, he is more than capable of pulling his own weight in that spot. When Coco returns, Tito should keep Youkilis in the leadoff role to continue his productivity.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Youk is on my fantasy team, either.

(Oh yea, how could is Youk actually doing? How about hitting .318 with a .455 OBP… excluding tonight’s great performance.)