Baseball Notes

Whenever I read analyses of players or blogs comparing stats from player A to player B to player C, it always seems to be about the same old boring superstars. Who’s better, Ortiz or Hafner? Who is the best first baseman in the NL, Pujols, Berkman, Howard, or Lee? Who is the better shortstop in New York, Reyes or Jeter?

Well I want to do something different that I have not seen before. After all, there are nine spots in a lineup and you have to go through each one as many times as they come up, no matter how bad the hitter may be. So, since we can’t really compare the number nine hitters across MLB (because half of them are pitchers), I want to do a study of all the number eight hitters on every team to see when you really get down to the worst of the best, who is the best….and worst…..or something like that.

Today, I will start with the AL and then move on to the NL in a couple of days. Then we will have some epic showdown comparisons between leagues like who is the best #8 hitter, who is the worst, and who constitutes the all-number-eight lineup if you had to make one.

So without further ado, here is the list of #8 hitters for all AL teams. For each team, I took the player who has the most at bats in the #8 spot for the year as of May 22:

Breaking it down by position, we have 4 OF, 4 C, 3 2B, and 2 SS. Interesting that there are no full-time third basemen or first basemen - not really sure why. Those are considered power positions, so I guess that explains a bit of it. But Doug Mientkiewicz and Chone Figgins bat ninth, so who knows?

Anyway, what is certainly intriguing is looking at the names on this list and trying to figure out why they bat so low in the order. Some teams like the Yankees, Tigers, and Boston have traditionally good hitters (Robinson Cano finished second in the batting race last year!) at eighth because their lineups are stacked with quality hitters, and this is just where they are forced to hit. Other teams like the Orioles, Indians, and A’s have put struggling hitters in the eighth spot; hitters who usually bat higher in the order, likely in hopes that they will turn things around from a less-pressure spot. And still others are just trying to hide the dregs of their lineup all the way at the bottom like the Blue Jays, Twins, and Devil Rays. The one I don’t understand is John Buck of the Royals, who has a .299/.398/.588 line for the year yet hits behind Alex Gordon (.186/.302/.283) every game.

But enough of that. On to the relevant stats for each player as of May 22 of this year:

In the stats I am using, I have included some telling counting stats such as HR for power, SB for speed, and Runs Created for overall offensive value; as well valuable rate stats like the common AVG/OBP/SLG and VORP. Runs Created becomes a bit skewed here because a player who is asked to hit eighth everyday will produce runs at a MUCH slower rate than your 1-4 hitters typically will.

RC/27 is interesting to look at here. This simply tells you how many runs each player would create over the course of one game, or 27 outs. So, a team of all John Bucks would score 8.3 runs per game this year (Cleveland, the highest scoring team in MLB, scores 5.5 per game), and a team of all Jason Kendalls would score 1.36 runs per game (Washington, the lowest, averages 3.41 runs per game). As an interesting sidenote, Kendall is on pace to break the all-time lowest slugging percentage for one season. Now there is an interesting record chase to watch if you are tired of all of the 755 stuff.

Also interesting to note is the fact that 10 of the 14 eight hitters have a negative VORP for the 2007 season thus far, meaning they really should be replaced by someone else who can start making a positive contribution, at least on offense. Two of the remaining four (Betancourt and Clayton) seem to be right on that border as well. Buck (highest VORP on his team) and Napoli (fifth on the Angels) are fine.

So why does KC bat Buck eighth the majority of the time? If you exclude third baseman Mark Teahen, who is identical to Buck in VORP, Buck’s VORP is higher than all other position players on his team combined (for the game of May 23). In fact, with Mark Teahen in the equation, the starting lineup’s cumulative VORP is 7.4; if you take Teahen out, it is a staggering -6.5. Fortunately, Buddy Bell has been batting Buck seventh lately, just ahead of Ryan Shealy and his -2.7 VORP and right behind Alex Gordon and his -6.5 VORP. Good luck with that, Royals. PLEASE start batting Buck 4th.

One more fact before I am done for the night. It does peak my curiosity that once you get past the enigma that is Buck batting eighth, if you rank the hitters by VORP, three of the next five eighth spot hitters are from the three best teams in the AL (the Angels, Tigers, and Red Sox). I won’t do any direct correlation here, and we will just suffice it to say that those lineups are pretty stacked and therefore have better overall hitters at number eight.

In the next day or so, we will examine the NL eight hitters and see if there is anyone remotely as good as John Buck, or as bad as Jason Kendall. Then,we will make our all-number-eight team and see how they would fare against the rest of the league.

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As I write this on May 23, John Buck has just gone 2 for 3 with a homerun, double, walk and two RBI…..from the eighth spot. I’m just sayin’.