All 2007 plate appearances with the bases juiced
Posted by Andy on November 9, 2007
We had a discussion yesterday about the outcome in 2007 for all plate appearances with the bases loaded. Here is the batting summary. Click through for thrills, spills, chills, superior skills, and even a few twin bills.
So firstly, here is the batting line for all PAs with the bases loaded in 2007:
G PA AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF ROE GDP BA OBP SLG OPS +-----+------+------+-----+----+----+----+-----+-----+----+-----+----+----+----+----+----+------+------+------+------+ 1812 4993 4165 1211 250 30 134 3582 351 0 881 58 0 416 56 319 .291 .325 .462 .786
What? No intentional walks?
Compare the batting line of .291/.325/.462 with the overall league performance of .268/.336/.423.
That's interesting...BA and SLG go up with the bases loaded but OBP goes down. I presume that is mainly due to the fact that the walk rate with the bases loaded is a lot lower. In 4993 bases-loaded PAs, 351 walks were drawn (one every 14.2 PAs.) Overall in 2007, there were 188,623 PAs with 16,079 walks (one every 11.7 PAs.)
Batters with the most bases-loaded PAs in 2007:
Jason Varitek 32
Mike Lowell 31
Brian McCann 30
Jeff Francoeur 29
Brad Hawpe 27
Greg Dobbs 27
Carlos Guillen 27
Julio Lugo 26
So that's three, count 'em three, members of the Red Sox, plus one from the other World Series team.
In the 32 plate appearances, Varitek didn't do so wonderfully, managing just a .200 BA with 2 XBH and 19 RBI. Mike Lowell, by comparison, had 24 RBI in 31 PAs, with a .318 BA, although just 1 XBH.
You'll notice that 612 of these plate appearances were go-ahead. Since they all came with the bases loaded, any PA where the batting team was down by 1, 2, or 3 runs, or tied, had the potential to be a go-ahead PA. With the bases loaded, there were 1033 PAs with the score tied, 478 down by 1 run, 327 down by 2 runs, and 219 down by 3 runs. Thus, a total of 612 out of a possible 2057 (29.8%) of possible go-ahead PAs actually ended up as go-ahead.
2940 of the PAs with the bases loaded were by right-handed batters, while 2053 came from lefties. My instinct is that this is very close to the league breakdown of lefties versus righties. Again checking the overall league performance, RHBs had 111,067 PAs this season and LHBs had 77,556 PAs this season. That's a ratio of 1.43 right-handed PAs per every left-handed PA. With the bases loaded, the ratio was also 1.43. So no surprises there.
Now, 3554 of the bases-loaded PAs came against right-handed pitchers, while just 1439 came against left-handed pitchers. That's a ratio of 2.47 PAs against righties for every one against a lefty. In the overall season totals, there were 136,887 PAs against righties and 45,730 against lefties. That's a ratio of 2.99 PAs against RHP for every one against a LHP. Why the disparity? Easy. There are lots of lefty relievers who get brought in to tight spots in games, and nothing's tighter than bases loaded.
Check out the list of most PAs by batting order spot. The so-called cleanup position, #4, has just an average number of PAs with the bases loaded. The 6th, 7th, and 5th spots come up most often with the bases loaded, while the 2nd, 1st, and 3rd come up the fewest. The leadoff batter coming up rarely with the bases loaded is obviously an effect of pitchers hitting 9th in the NL, and I'm sure there is a disparity between leagues. (AL leadoff hitters must come up more often with the bases loaded than NL leadoff hitters.) The 2nd and 3rd spots rarely get the bases loaded since it still often requires the pitcher to get on base in the NL.
Notice that catchers, 3B, and RF get the most PAs were the bases loaded. I assume this is because they are most likely to bat 5th, 6th, or 7th.
By the way, if you do a Pitching Event Finder for bases-loaded PAs, you can see that Daniel Cabrera had the most, with 35. You can also see that Boston (surprise, surprise) had the most PAs by batters, by a wide margin.
Believe it or not, I don't think there is an easy way to search for highest batting average with the bases loaded. But it is easy to find who had the most hits. That was Jorge Posada, with 12 of the 1211 total hits. If you click on "go ahead", you can see that 3 guys had the most go-ahead bases-loaded hits, with 5: Carlos Lee, Raul Ibanez, and Brandon Phillips. Most pinch-hits with the bases loaded: Greg Dobbs with 3. Most bases-loaded hits by a pitcher: 2, by four guys: Brad "Bad" Penny, Buddy Carlyle, Tim Hudson, and Russ Ortiz. Most extra-inning bases loaded-hits: Brandon Phillips again, with 2.
How about most RBI with the bases loaded? Brad Hawpe leads the pack with 30. Under the "Game Totals" column, you can see that there was a game this year that had 14 RBI with the bases loaded. Who can figure out which game that was? And by the way, now the "cleanup hitter" does rise to the top, with the 4th-position batter getting the most RBIs, narrowly edging out #6 and #5. Most game-ending RBI with the bases loaded? That's 4, done by 4 guys: Carlos Lee again, Russell Martin, Ryan "Ouch" Zimmerman, and Alex "Soon I'll have $350 million reasons to continue living" Rodriguez.
Most strikeouts by a pitcher with the bases loaded: 9, by Kevin Cameron, Chad Gaudin, and Daisuke Matsuzaka. Most strikeouts with the bases loaded to end a game: 2, by new Phillies closer Brad Lidge, Joe Nathan, Mariano Rivera, and Kevin Gregg.
I could go on and on with this bases-loaded stuff. If you want to know a particular thing I didn't list, just ask.
November 9th, 2007 at 9:52 am
Varitek has historically bad with the bases loaded. It's enough to make you believe in reverse-clutchiness. Almost.
November 9th, 2007 at 10:22 am
How did someone have a 2-3 count? Strike 3 passed ball/wild pitch?
November 9th, 2007 at 10:33 am
Weird. The 2-3 count game is here:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TOR/TOR200705100.shtml
It was in the bottom of the first. Frank Thomas struck out swinging and on the play Glaus was picked off first. The whole play got recorded as a plate appearance ending in a double-play, and indeed the count was 2 balls and 3 strikes when the second out was recorded.
Isn't that totally insane? Baseball is cool.
November 9th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Who had the most grand slams?
November 9th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
That's what I always wonder about "clutchness"... a network will put up stats about so-and-so's record with runners on second and third, and I wonder, "Well, how did those runners get there?" In other words, couldn't the league's higher BA and SLG with ducks on the pond be less about good hitting, and more about hurlers getting batted around? Quite a few of the RBI/hits leaders in the accompanying chart are decent-but-not-superstar hitters (with some notable exceptions). Usually a pitcher's already made a few mistakes before facing a batter with the bases loaded behind him.
November 9th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
In 2007, 2.65% of PAs occurred in a bases loaded situation (4,993 bases loaded PAs). In 2007, 2.63% of PAs results in a home run (4,957 homers). I've looked at this before, and that's not unusual -- bases loaded situations and home runs usually occur rougly about the same number of times (general order of magnitude, anyway) in a season, although I think the relationship was unusually close in 2007.
If the overall 2.63% homer percentage applied to the 4,993 bases loaded PAs, there would be 130 grand slams. There were actually 134 grand slams, about 2.7% of the bases loaded PAs, instead of the overall 2.63%. So coming up with the bases loaded didn't seem to have much effect on the likelihood of hitting a home run (a bit surprising, as you would think pitchers are more likely to groove a pitch with the bases full)
November 10th, 2007 at 7:21 am
It was a down year for grand slams. Torii Hunter and Pay-rod led MLB with 3 each. Seattle gave up the most grand slams, with 10.