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Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Where to bat Soriano?
Alfonso Soriano has big splits. Per 600 PA, comparing bases empty and men on base:
BE: 100 singles, 33 HR, 40 2b+3b, 27 NIBB
MO: 95 singles, 26 HR, 36 2b+3b, 29 NIBB
His wOBA are: .379 with bases empty and .344 with men on base. IIRC, the difference for the average player is a 5 point drop or so. I’m sure someone can correct me. But, he’s got a 35 point difference here (based on almost 3000 PA with bases empty and 2000 with men on base). One standard deviation is roughly a 15 point difference, so we see here a difference of around 2 standard deviations.
While that doesn’t necessarily mean that Soriano definitely prefers to bat with bases empty, it points very strongly toward that. Soriano would be a good case study for PITCHf/x: how often does he take/swing at each count? How often does he do so when a pitch is at the fringes of the strike zone (+/- 15 inches from the middle, excluding +/- 5 inches in the middle)? If he actually approaches the PA differently, then this would point to his sample data being more indicative of something real.
While I can generally agree with Joe “BP” Sheehan’s article, I have concerns with Soriano.
As for the pitcher batting 8th causing strategic headaches: if this forces a manager to pinch hit for him earlier a couple of times a year, this is a good thing. A reliever is usually a better bet than a starter his third time through the order. (One day, some MLB team will wakeup, and go with a 5-day rotation, where you have 3 regular starters for the 1st, 3rd, 4th day, and an all-relief rotation for the 2nd and 5th day. At the very least, do this in September, when you’ve got plenty of called up young guns who can easily go 1 or 2 innings.)