Baseball Notes

Two days ago, I began a thrilling expose of number eight hitters in the majors by looking at the American League teams and examing their numero ocho guys. We looked at John Buck (outstanding), Jason Kendall (abysmal), and everyone in between.

Well now it is the Senior Circuit’s turn. Before I list the number eight hitters for each team, I will offer the disclaimer again that I used the hitter with the most at bats in the number eight spot for that team for this year only:

What a great group of players we have here. The breakdown of position for the NL goes like this: 6 C, 3 OF, 3 3B, 2 SS, 1 2B, 1 1B. For those keeping score, that is 10 catchers out of 30 teams batting eighth. Where have you gone Berra and Bench?

And special congratulations to Craig Wilson for being the only first baseman on either list. You can’t play defense or hit - good for you! Being fair, though, he does play outfield as well. And he is a bench player.

Some other items of note on this list: Quintanilla doesn’t start, but rather spells Carroll and Tulowitzki, Betemit recently lost his job to Andy LaRoche, Counsell just lost his job today to uber-prospect Ryan Braun, JoseValentin is on the DL, Randy Winn has been batting leadoff for a couple of weeks now, and Langerhans has played for three teams this season.

So do we have any Bucks or Kendalls in this group? Here are the numbers as of May 23:

At first glance, Winn and Valentin jump out as huge outliers in this group. Winn actually has more than 90 at bats now in the one or two spot, so his RC and, in turn, RC/27 will be considerably higher. Valentin just drew the short straw, I guess, in New York and bats eighth in a lineup that includes Jose Reyes, David Wright, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado, Shawn Green, Paul Lo Duca, and Moises Alou. All of those, including Valentin, are valuable hitters - but someone has to bat eighth.

Over the whole group, the most interesting thing I see is in the VORP column. If we follow the definition of the statistic, and a VORP of zero is exactly replacement level, look at how many of the 16 are within +/- 2.1 of zero. Ten of them! And another three are worse than -2.1 VORP. Truly, the eight hitters in the NL define mediocrity and replacement level. So apparently teams are sticking their worst hitters as far down as they can in the order. What a novel idea!

Our candidates here for best and worst seem pretty clear.

If you allow Winn to be labeled as an eight hitter, he is the candidate for best. If not, we must look at either Valentin or Yadier Molina, whose power numbers are atrocious, but otherwise has very respectable stats. An eight hitter with a .295 average and .360 OBP? Yes, please.

If we are comparing the NL best to Buck, let’s choose Molina: they are both catchers, spent all year at the eight spot, they are within 15 at bats of each other, and neither are hurt (like Valentin).

In looking at these two catchers, you can analyze a lot of pieces of data, scrutinize a lot of stats, and spend too much time trying to compare the two across leagues. But, I will make it very simple for you. Both of these guys have been catching in the majors since 2004. And this year, they both have career highs in AVG, OBP, BABIP, RC/27 and BB%. So clearly, they are both playing above their heads (normal stats) right now. The advantage goes to the hotter guy, with the better overall stats, and you just ride him until he drops. Here, the winner is John Buck.

The worst spot in the NL goes to (no, not Brad Ausmus!) Ryan Langerhans; he of the Braves, A’s, and Nationals so far in 2007. Using RC/27 like we did with Jason Kendall, a team of all Langerhans would score 1.2 runs per game; worse than Kendall. The only vindication for Langerhans is that the A’s continue to give Kendall at bats (more than 150 now), while Langerhans is a spot starter, and relegated to pinch-hitting most of the time. Langerhans has had four plate appearances in a game only once in the last month, where Kendall has done it 18 times.

That simple fact alone gives the dubious honor to Kendall, and perhaps A’s management. Kendall has been batting 8th or 9th recently, but he also has 36 at bats in the leadoff spot, where his numbers are significantly worse (if you can imagine that) than they are right now. They both have slugging percentages under .200, but if you can keep that feat up for 160 at bats, you deserve the title of the worst.

So now the question become, who constitutes our all-eight-hitters lineup? Some simple rules - nine spots, one DH, all positions have to be filled out, and an outfielder can play any OF position. Here is my team with a note about each:

So there is my lineup - all number eight hitters. You know what? Give me the Nationals, the Royals, and the Pirates. I think we can take ‘em. How many games do you think this team could win with league average pitching?

Hope you had fun reading about this stuff. It was sure fun to write about something unusual for a change.