Loading ...Earlier tonight, we were wondering if Dusty Baker has always batted a lousy (but fast!) CF in the leadoff spot, or if that was some special torture he dreamed up for Reds fans.
I ran through the history of Dusty Leadoff Men, and found that – yeah, he almost always bats his CF first. In 16 seasons (counting this one), Dusty’s CF has been his most common leadoff man (or nearly so) 13 times. One other season, he had 3b David Bell(?) leading off (along with Tom Goodwin) until the Giants acquired Kenny Lofton to lead off and play CF – something you can’t criticize.
What really convinces me that this is Dusty’s default lineup configuration is that he sticks with it, whether his CF is good or bad at getting on base.
Here’s a breakdown of the leadoff and #2 OBP for all of Dusty’s teams, along with where the leadoff man ranked, compared to the rest of the lineup. For example, the 1993 Giants’ leadoff hitters had a worse OBP than any other hitter’s spot in the lineup.
You can see that Dusty shows no regard whatsoever for putting good OBP at the top of his lineup. Only 3 times (of 16) has a Baker team gotten top 3 OBP performance from their leadoff man. And his respect for the #2 spot is no better.
The odd thing is I can’t ascertain any pattern – that ‘93 team won 103 games and the 02 squad won pennants – both with atrocious leadoff hitting. Meanwhile, the same nonsense fails for the Reds. Maybe we just need an enhanced Barry Bonds.
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| Year | Team | #1 | #2 | #1 Rank | Win % | |
| 1993 | SF | .301 | .356 | 8 | .636 | Darren Lewis was the most common leadoff man (101 times): .302 OBP |
| 1994 | SF | .343 | .313 | 3 | .478 | Lewis .340 |
| 1995 | SF | .316 | .320 | 6 | .465 | Lewis .303 when traded to CIN; replaced by Deion Sanders .296 when acquired – .346 for Dusty |
| 1996 | SF | .324 | .346 | 4 | .420 | Marvin Benard .333 |
| 1997 | SF | .342 | .337 | 5 | .556 | Darryl Hamilton .354 |
| 1998 | SF | .392 | .377 | 2 | .546 | Hamilton .393 when traded away; then Benard .396 |
| 1999 | SF | .368 | .369 | 4 | .531 | Benard .359 |
| 2000 | SF | .341 | .334 | 7 | .599 | Benard .342 |
| 2001 | SF | .315 | .367 | 7 | .556 | Benard .320 and Calvin Murray .319 |
| 2002 | SF | .326 | .305 | 6 | .590 | David Bell (3b) .333; Kenny Lofton .353 for SF; Tom Goodwin .321; The atrocious Tsuyosi Shinjo .294 was his CF – and he STILL led off 14 times in April. |
| 2003 | CHI | .348 | .342 | 2 | .543 | Mark Grudzielanek (2b) .366 and Goodwin .328; then Lofton .333 when acquired, .388 for CHI |
| 2004 | CHI | .329 | .320 | 6 | .549 | Todd Walker .352; then COREY PATTERSON .320 |
| 2005 | CHI | .299 | .314 | 8 | .488 | Jerry Hairson (2b/LF) .336; Patterson .254(!!!); Neifi Perez .298(!!!); and Matt Lawton .380 when acquired, .289 for CHI. That’s SIXTY-FIVE starts to guys w/ <.300 OBP. |
| 2006 | CHI | .329 | .319 | 4 | .407 | Juan Pierre .330 |
| 2008 | CIN | .326 | .305 | 7 | .457 | Patterson .238 (!!!). But actually, JHJ (.384 overall OBP) actually ended up with the most starts, and had a .427(!!) OBP when leading off. Corey’s was .217 in the #1 hole. |
| 2009 | CIN | .273 | .305 | 8 | .450 | WILLY! .279(!) |
Basically what you are saying is the man is a moron and some of his teams won despite his being the manager.
Fascinating.
Wow… that’s striking. Nice work, Chris. Some fancy html too!
So just to make sure I have this straight… the “#1 rank” means his leadoff hitter’s OBP rank out of the 8 most common starters? Is that it?
Is the SS the most common No. 2 hitter?
This is amazing, great post. I wonder where Dusty picked up this idea. Did one of his managers do this while he was a player?
One thing this definitely tells us is that as long as we have Dusty, whoever plays CF will be leading off regardless of how incredibly crappy they are. Old habits die hard.
Article about Dusty Baker by Joe Posnanski today. He’s one of the very top sports writers in America.
http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2009/07/30/dusty-roads/
Dan @4, yes you have it correct that the rank is relative to the lineup. Also, besides having CF almost always leadoff and some middle infielder bat 2nd, Dusty usually had some juiced power hitting OF to compensate for his “managing style”. i am coming to the conclusion those teams won in spite of Dusty’s “efforts” because they were so talented or had abilities “beyond normal men” (see bonds/sosa)
Go (2010) Reds(Dustyless)
So I guess the solution is for management to supply Dusty with a CF who can get on base? And possibly a SS who can do the same?
Chris, I first touched on this way back in May of 2008. One thing is for certain: somebody needs to kick the toothpick to the curb.
http://www.redszone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=68007
maybe someone like Drew Stubbs? What’s his OBP?
I remember last year before we signed CP, I was hoping that we could sign Kenny Lofton. He’s always been a pretty good OBP guy and I didn’t think he could do any worse than CP. Still wish we would have explored that option, though of course that might just mean that CP would be on the team this year lol
You know, this kind of confirms what I’ve been thinking: Dusty is an idiot, but I think a “bigger” problem is that he has this idea of how a baseball team should work and he basically tries to conform (or outright force) the team he actually he has into this “perfect”, ideal baseball team. He visualizes Plato’s form of how a baseball team mechanically operates, and gosh darnit, that’s how his team is going to be operated, even if the result is atrocious. In his mind, the ideal baseball team has a speedy CF batting leadoff. A speedy, “crafty” middle infielder batting second. The catcher bats 8th. The starters work themselves out of jams. The hit and run works. Etc, etc.
Basically, I think Dusty believes that if you keep forcing your team into the ideal team, then eventually, your team will magically transform into the ideal baseball team.
He visualizes Plato’s form of how a baseball team mechanically operates, and gosh darnit, that’s how his team is going to be operated.
That is exactly how I see it, per14. And your use of the phrase “magically transform” is also in line with what I think a lot of baseball people believe.
Remember that Tim McCarver quote the guys at FJM mocked, where he expressed surprise that a leadoff homer was not, in fact, a rally killer? Of course, a leadoff homer is an efficient, one-man rally (you’ve already scored a run, regardless of what happens during the remainder of the inning!), but I think McCarver was betraying his superstitious belief in baseball mojo.
That belief holds that homers use up too much mojo, and it’s better to dispense it sparingly, blooping singles, bunting guys over, executing the hit and run, and maybe plating the runner on a suicide squeeze. (Strangely enough, the adherents of baseball mojo disdain bases on balls.) By playing the game the right way, the belief goes, a team could shake out just enough baseball mojo to bat around the order in some platonic ideal of a rally.
They’re completely wrong of course, from a mathematical standpoint, but it’s still a fascinating belief system that goes back a long, long way.
To be clear, I took the “lineup slot OBP” from baseball-reference, which gives figures for all players who batted in a given lineup spot, for that particular team. It’s not limited to any particular guy. For example, the #9 spot includes the pitchers’ hitting, plus all the pinch hitters who hit for them.
Last year’s CIN numbers are much better than you’d think, because JHJ happened to be ON FIRE in games when he led off.
Thanks Chris, very good rundown/summary of Baker’s leadoff spots. It is interesting to see how often he seems to have a pre-populated order based on position (Cf-ss-1b-etc) then fills in the name of whoever is playing that position on that given day. As I note below in 2004, Baker almost always has a 2nd baseman leadoff for the first 4 months of the season and then switches to the centerfielder for the last two months.
I’m not as familiar with some of his Giants teams, but yes, one of the problems with the Cubs and Reds is that they GM gave him crappy options to leadoff with. There’s no one on this 25-man roster that screams “I’m a leadoff hitter, put me in coach.” Jocketty shares some blame here in signing Taveras to a 2-yr multi-million dollar deal and having so many obp-deficient players on the roster.
During his Giant years, I do see that the San Francisco leadoff spot obp was .337 compared to a league average of .342 during that same timeframe.
In Chicago, he did have a lot of non-centerfielders leadoff. Grudz, Walker, Hairston.
In 2003, Grudzielanek led off most days in the first half of the season, except when Goodwin spot-started over Patterson. Grudz did not post a good obp the two years prior to coming to Chicago, but posted a .360obp in his two Chicago years (league average obp for a leadoff hitter is about .340). Lofton was acquired mid-season and lead-off most of the rest of that season. That was a pretty good year for Cubs leadoff hitters.
In 2004, up until August 1, you have whoever was playing 2B in the leadoff spot. Grudz, Walker or even Macias ( which was a terrible decision) for a couple of games. From Aug 1 on, Patterson was the team’s leadoff hitter. In August, Patterson had a 388obp and 605slg. In Sept, he completely sank – 250obp & 373slg.
2005 was just a terrible year results-wise and roster-wise for the Cubs. They started out continuing the Corey Patterson experiment. He was 25 at the time, had OPS+ of 114 and 95 the previous two years and should have been playing, but IMO, shouldn’t have been batting leadoff. I can’t explain the Neifi Perez fetish, either. Jerry Hairston got a lot of at-bats there (76 games.) He had a .367obp in his previous two seasons in Baltimore but just couldn’t repeat that in Chicago. Matt Lawton was acquired midseason, then traded away within a month, and his one month in the leadoff spot was significantly worse than his career stats.
In 2006, the Cubs acquired fast centerfielder Juan Pierre. Pierre had spent the previous 3 years in Florida, starting all 162 games each year, posting OBPs of .361, .374, and .326. He got off to a terrible start in Chicago. .289 obp in April. .267obp in May. Starting June 1 through the final 4 months of the season, he had a .354 obp, though Cubs fans despised him throughout the season since his season obp remained low all year.
All of that said, I’m not trying to defend Baker’s lineups at all. Some bad breaks that have gone against him (Lawton/Hairston) can’t completely get him off the hook when he leadoff with guys like Macias or Perez.
As I said during the offseason, this team would have been better served with a Dickerson/Hopper type platoon in CF in the short-term until Stubbs was read to come up. Jocketty has a lot of blame to share in this one because it’s his 25-man roster that he put together for Baker to use.
Joe Poz has a nice entry up about our favorite manager.
http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/
Chris, thanks for all the hard work on this. Really interesting and it sparked a great discussion.
*There’s no one on this 25-man roster that screams “I’m a leadoff hitter, put me in coach.”
Ryan Freel (career .356 OBP, 136/180 SB to that point) and Norris Hopper (.379, 16/24) were on the roster when he arrived. Instead, it was Corey Patterson (.297, 168/209).
Granted, it appears that both Freel and Hopper might’ve been done as of Spring ‘08, the same was definitely true for Patterson.
*Here’s a nice thread covering much of the same ground. Amazingly, it was written 15 months ago.
http://www.redszone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=68007
*It is interesting to see how often he seems to have a pre-populated order based on position (Cf-ss-1b-etc)
I could see a tiny bit of logic in that, if it allowed the other starters to stay in their normal lineup spots. Not that it happens that way.
“i don’t care. I am who I am. And I am invincible.”
Joe Poz just made my morning with that line.
Frankly, Hanigan has been screaming he’s a leadoff hitter all season long, but he’s a catcher, so Dusty can’t even CONCEIVE of batting him lead-off.
Good point, per14. You’re right. Hanigan really should be batting #1 or #2 in the order.
“i don’t care. I am who I am. And I am invincible.”
Sounds like Arroyo’s quote in his PED admission article on ESPN.com.
“Personally, I don’t care what people think about what I did. I do what I do.” Arroyo says that he wouldn’t be surprised if his name was 1 of the 104 on the secret list. How many players did they test that year?
Chris @ 18 – I was talking about this year’s roster and, more specifically the Padres series.
Obviously, it has been a year-long problem, and Dickerson should have been getting more at-bats at #1. I also have no problem with Hanigan at #2. I’ve always thought Encarnacion’s obp/slg combination would be a good fit for #2.
When your healthy choices are the following, how do you line them up?
Tatum
Votto
Phillips
Gonzalez
Janish
Encarnacion
Nix
Taveras
Gomes
Hairston
Rosales
Is Sutton still on the team?
Wow, his 2005 season with the Cubs is very telling.
“The odd thing is I can’t ascertain any pattern – that ‘93 team won 103 games and the 02 squad won pennants – both with atrocious leadoff hitting. Meanwhile, the same nonsense fails for the Reds. Maybe we just need an enhanced Barry Bonds.”
It pains me as much as the next guy to watch Willy bat lead off but it’s been pretty much settled that batting order just doesn’t matter that much. The bigger problem is that Willy is batting at all, not where he’s batting. And yes; a pre- or post-roid Barry would help. Alot.
I made some posts earlier this year that attempted to show that batting order does matter, it is just has less impact than playing the best 8.
For example, if Dickerson is on the bench in favor of Taveras, that hurts run production worse than Taveras batting #1 and Dickerson batting #7. But flipping the order (Dickerson first and Taveras 8th) actually does improve expected run production. Optimizing some of the past Reds lineups, is enough to make this bottom 3 offense about league average.
It should be noted Dusty’s 103-win 1993 Giants did NOT make the playoffs…they lost out to the Braves.
By one game.
Do you think his idea of giving the worst guy in the lineup the most at bats cost him at least one game? Methinks yes.