Who's the Leader in Leading Off?

[jleddy]

Inspired from a 1984 Bill James Baseball Abstract essay, I've decided to take a look at the leadoff hitters across the Brewster two-thirds into the 2039 season. More specifically, I'll be analyzing which leadoff hitters are doing the best (and worst) at scoring runs using James' leadoff runs expectancy formula. In the 2001 edition of the The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (or what I consider, and pardon my blasphemy, to be the real King James Bible), James' reflects on his formula saying “most modern leadoff men will actually score about the number of runs that the formula says they should score."

Through August 3rd, 205 players have batted leadoff, however that number is misleading, as it accounts for any plate appearances for players who bat in the leadoff spot even after taking-over for the starting leadoff hitter due to injury, pinch hitting or as a defensive replacement. For a cutoff for the following analysis, I'll just be looking at players with at least 100 "leadoff" plate appearances, which is 51 players through 8/3/39 (through 8/6/19 in the MLB, 48 players have had at-least 100 leadoff plate appearances, so we're not too skewed up top in the BBA).

Let's first take a look at the top twenty leadoff hitters in runs from the leadoff spot (LOR):

NAME	TEAM	LO PA	LOR
Mons Raider	Madison	376	80
Mark Wareham	Twin Cities	464	74
Ricardo Hernández	Atlantic City	417	72
Gerardo Guzmán	Des Moines	457	71
Chip Puckett	Calgary	484	66
Rashardo Menne III	Vancouver	450	65
Steven Collins III	Edmonton	397	64
David Noboru	Jacksonville	309	63
Joaquin Hebner	Charm City	512	59
Juan Santana	Montreal	351	55
Don Logan	Wichita	314	53
Mike Ellis	Valencia	392	52
Juan Karyabwite	Calgary	398	50
Gipper Kengos	Mexico City	394	49
Quant Kouros	Las Vegas	292	49
Andy McKinney	Yellow Springs	229	46
Dong-po Thum	Yellow Springs	289	41
Luzvimindo Arbizo	Brooklyn	248	41
Jimmy Starks, Jr.	Omaha	232	39
Alfredo Salazar	Boise	249	39

That's fine and dandy, but this is an analytical piece, so let's check on the top twenty in expected runs (xLOR) from the leadoff spot:

NAME	TEAM	L.O. PA	xLOR	LOR Rnk
Joaquin Hebner	Charm City	512	85.9	9
Mark Wareham	Twin Cities	464	82.8	2
Rashardo Menne III	Vancouver	450	76.7	6
Gerardo Guzmán	Des Moines	457	74.3	4
Chip Puckett	Calgary	484	69.2	5
Ricardo Hernández	Atlantic City	417	69.0	3
Mons Raider	Madison	376	68.0	1
Steven Collins III	Edmonton	397	65.5	7
Mike Ellis	Valencia	392	64.3	12
David Noboru	Jacksonville	309	58.4	8
Gipper Kengos	Mexico City	394	57.9	T-14
Juan Karyabwite	Calgary	398	55.5	13
Juan Santana	Montreal	351	53.9	10
Don Logan	Wichita	314	49.6	11
Quant Kouros	Las Vegas	292	49.3	T-14
Jimmy Starks, Jr.	Omaha	232	43.3	T-19
Dong-po Thum	Yellow Springs	289	43.1	T-17
Lúcio Cuellar	San Antonio	284	43.1	T-21
Alfredo Salazar	Boise	249	42.4	T-19
Andy McKinney	Yellow Springs	229	41.4	16

So who's in the top ten of scoring more than expected?

NAME	TEAM	L.O. PA	LOR	xLOR	Δ
Mons Raider	Madison	376	80	68.0	12.1
David Noboru	Jacksonville	309	63	58.4	4.7
Andy McKinney	Yellow Springs	229	46	41.4	4.6
Alfredo Martínez	Louisville	147	31	26.6	4.4
Voitto Strömberg	Phoenix	229	35	31.3	3.7
Don Logan	Wichita	314	53	49.6	3.4
Chang-hyeok Chang	San Antonio	183	32	28.7	3.4
Ricardo Hernández	Atlantic City	417	72	69.0	3.1
Luzvimindo Arbizo	Brooklyn	248	41	39.0	2.1
Todd Rice	Seattle	147	29	27.4	1.7

With 80 runs as a leadoff hitter, Raider is the top dog thanks to getting just over 12 more runs than expected. As one of the fastest and best baserunners in the entire league, Raider uses his wheels and running instincts to help deliver Madison more runs than expected. Also having Jharod Thealer (.280) and Andrew Torres (.378) hitting behind him helps too. Noburu is also a speedster and excellent baserunner and benefits from several .300 hitters batting #2-#5 in the Jacksonville lineup. Interestingly enough, McKinney has below-average speed and is even worse on the bases but as Yellow Springs' leadoff hitter against right-handed pitchers, McKinney crosses home plate more than expected thanks to a stacked Nines' lefty-heavy lineup (#2 José Machado - .938 OPS vs. RHP, #3 Lucas McNeill - .992, #4 George Robertson - 1.042).

Here are the slackers atop lineups, scoring less than expected:

NAME	TEAM	L.O. PA	LOR	xLOR	Δ
Joaquin Hebner	Charm City	512	59	85.9	-26.9
Mike Ellis	Valencia	392	52	64.3	-12.3
Rashardo Menne III	Vancouver	450	65	76.7	-11.7
José Cortés	Seattle	227	20	30.1	-10.1
Gipper Kengos	Mexico City	394	49	57.9	-8.9
Mark Wareham	Twin Cities	464	74	82.8	-8.8
Dusty Rhodes	San Fernando	199	24	32.8	-8.8
Abdelwahab Kamade	Nashville	203	24	31.3	-7.3
Po-sin Shi	California	294	33	39.5	-6.5
George Lee Anderson V	Nashville	198	17	23.4	-6.4

Hebner was born in 2017, twenty-five years after the Moneyball Oakland A's, who would have likely also employed Hebner's services atop the lineup much the way Charm City has. Hebner is wonderful contact hitter with a very good eye, so he gets on-base at an excellent clip (.407), just as you would want from your leadoff hitter. Unfortunately, he's one of the slowest baserunners in the Western Hemisphere, let alone in the Brewster, so carrying a piano on his back on the bases has really hurt his ability to score the runs at the rate he's expected to. Ellis has excellent foot speed, steals bases at a better-than-league average rate (86%) and Valencia is leading the Frick in homeruns and is fourth in runs, so you'd think Ellis would be scoring more. It appears his teammates are maybe running into way too many outs on the bases, potentially ending innings before Ellis is able to cross the plate. Valencia is ranked 12th out of 15 teams in the Frick in baserunning and not including Ellis, is stealing at a just below league-average (79%) rate of 77%. Additional deep-diving revealed the Stars' home park, Honigsfeld Field, depresses doubles and triples, as well as batting average, so Ellis either relies heavily on his ability to take bases on his own or to jog home from a Pagán, Zalapa or Mahaffey home run.

Nashville notably had two players make the bottom ten in Kamade and Anderson. It looks like a partial change has been recently made, as Kamade continues to leadoff against RHP and but now José Cortéz is the #1 hitter against lefties. In his limited time atop the order, Cortéz has netted -2.4 expected runs, which means the three leadoff hitters combined would ranked second-worst with -16.1 expected runs.

[jleddy]

And back to James' quote touting his own formula, those top 51 (100 PA min.) are scoring a total of -130.6 fewer runs as expected, or just 2.5 fewer runs per player. So yes, "leadoff men will actually score about the number of runs that the formula says they should score".

I wonder if a majority of those 130 fewer runs are the result of all those outfield assists...

[RonCo]

Wow ... lead-off run expectancy ... I had forgotten that. Now I've got to go back to all my old abstracts.

And, yeah, this is great fun.

[RonCo]

Normalizing it by xDif/PA, the top ten becomes:

Name	xDif/PA
Mons Raider	0.032
Alfredo Martínez	0.030
Andy McKinney	0.020
Chang-hyeok Chang	0.018
Voitto Strömberg	0.016
David Noboru	0.015
Todd Rice	0.011
Don Logan	0.011
Luzvimindo Arbizo	0.008
Ricardo Hernández	0.007

[jleddy]

Normalizing it by xDif/PA, the top ten becomes:

Name	xDif/PA
Mons Raider	0.032
Alfredo Martínez	0.030
Andy McKinney	0.020
Chang-hyeok Chang	0.018
Voitto Strömberg	0.016
David Noboru	0.015
Todd Rice	0.011
Don Logan	0.011
Luzvimindo Arbizo	0.008
Ricardo Hernández	0.007

Alfredo's profile is really somethin' else, as Recte confirmed earlier in the year. I love that Shaw still has him leading-off in a platoon.

[7teen]

Nice of you to use “Mons Raider” and “wheels” in same feature. The big dummy is now out 8 weeks after breaking his foot changing a tire!

[jleddy]

Nice of you to use “Mons Raider” and “wheels” in same feature. The big dummy is now out 8 weeks after breaking his foot changing a tire!

Here...Vic gave me a bunch of these in the pre-season in exchange for a case of TELIQUA Añejo:



While it's a little late to help Mons now, might be worth having next year after realignment when Madison goes and plays the Black Sox. I was told if you flash one of those babies to a South Side Towing driver, you can get free 24-hour roadside assistance (plus 50% off deep dish pizza at the new stadium.)