THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I looked at a few of the play by plays of the games and each of the intentional walks were in classic intentional walk situations; men on 2nd and 3d with 1 or 2 outs or man on 2nd with 1 or 2 outs.  And each time the following batter was a terrible hitter.  Raines’s IBB totals, though impressive, may be more of a reflection on the Expos woeful number 2 hitters and weak bench.

I responded to a thread on BTF about Reyes 9 (I think) IBBs.  For one thing, I don’t see why a leadoff hitter getting IBBs is “surprising” or worthy of any particular note.  If your leadoff hitter happens to be a very good hitter, especially a power hitter, and the next batter is not very good, than he is going to get his fair share of IBBs.  Whether a batter gets IBBd or not has nothing to do with where in the order he bats, other than the fact that leadoff batters are not usually power hitters and they are not going to get IBBed in the first inning (then again, most other players will not get IBBd in the first inning either).

In any case, with regard to Reyes, I mentioned in the BTF thread that I would guess that most if not all of those IBBs were incorrect, as Reyes is not that good of a hitter and the Mets don’t usually have a terrible hitter batting second (LoDuca is not that bad).  I also mentioned that leadoff hitters should rarely if ever be IBBd since the #2 hitter should be one of your best hitters.  In any case, the article referenced by BTF says that the Mets should find a better hitter to hit second to avoid Reyes being IBBd.  Since most IBBs are incorrect (I think), the last thing you want to do is discourage teams from issuing them, not withstanding the fact that of course having a better hitter in the #2 hole will benefit the Mets.

Ichiro has 108 IBB total.  He’s been almost entirely a leadoff hitter, so I’m fairly certain that he has beaten Raines, but I have not yet searched to see how many IBB he has in his couple dozen games as the non-leadoff man.

Lo Duca was recently placed back into the 2 hole but for a large part of the season he was batting 7th actually.  The 2 hole has been a mix of many players....endy (when he was playing), wright sometimes, valentin i think....im not sure what Willie is wanting in that hole.

I like Lo Duca there personally.

For a guy who doesn’t walk alot, Ichiro sure has plenty of IBB.  He has 106 as leadoff hitter.  Career high of 25 in 2002.

Peter: I only looked at Mitch Webster, who was an above average hitter.  Who is it that you saw was terrible?

MGL: walking the leadoff hitter, to face the #2 hitter, with the #3 hitter on deck is fairly dangerous I would think.  We’d have to break out Andy’s shortcut formula from The Book to see how bad a #2 hitter and how good a #3 hitter you could handle.  Certainly, there has to be 2 outs.

Raines’ big IBB seasons were 1987, when he mostly batted third in front of Wallach, and 1989, when he was moved into the clean-up role in mid-season and had most of his intentional walks there.

None of that detracts from his greatness, naturally.

The amazing thing about that 1987 season is that he had 14 IBB in 58 leadoff starts, and 12 IBB in 81 #3 starts, and missed 23 games because of collusion.  He was also the hero of the all-star game, and had the best opening-day (for him) game you could have ever hoped for.

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There have been 116 times (91 players) when a player has received at least 3 IBB in a game, since 1957.  Raines did it twice, among a select group of 9 such players.

http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/25nU

Bonds, of course, at 16 times (!) and counting
Ryan Howard, 3 and counting
McGwire, 3
Vlad, 2 and counting
Raines, 2
Dick Allen, 2
Scioscia, 2 (thank the NL)
Ted Simmons, 2
Olerud, 2

In 1995, Raines was followed by Lance Johnson, who was followed by Frank Thomas. Twice it was with 2 outs, and once with 1 out (in the bottom of the 13th!).  Lance Johnson made the last out in all three occasions.

Can you believe the luck and balls on Sparky?  There’s a runner on 2B, and he’s got 1 out, and there’s Raines, Lance, and Frank Thomas.  Forgetting about a DP, he gets to choose Raines/Lance or Lance/Thomas to keep the runner at 2B from scoring.  He chooses Lance/Thomas with the (realized) hope that Lance would GIDP.  Lance only had 7 GIDP that year.

In 1989, as a cleanup hitter, he was followed by Hubie Brooks and Tim Wallach.  All three times there was 1 out and 1B open.  Hubie was a league average hitter, but Wallach was above average.

Raines was as clutch as they come… insofar as the opposing managers believed it.