They say home run hitters typically get them in bunches. Those of us who remember Dave Kingman sadly will recall that he blasted five homers in the seven games before he was hurt back in 1976, ending his best chance to make a run at Roger Maris. Well, right now Curtis Granderson has hit five homers in his last seven games – if you’re ready to count Saturday’s suspended game before its completion.
To the chagrin of many, all of those homers have been solo blasts. In fact, 11 of his 13 HR have come with the bases empty, including four where he led off the game with a homer. This, combined with the fact that the Mets are struggling so much to score any runs, has many calling for Granderson to be dropped lower in the lineup.
My personal belief is that it doesn’t make any difference where Granderson hits, because there’s no guarantee that runners will be on base when he hits homers wherever he bats in the lineup. Plus, we should be hesitant to move him because as any superstitious person knows, you don’t tempt fate and mess with what’s working. Then Terry Collins comes out and essentially says the same thing, at least the first part, which makes me want to re-examine the whole thing.
Way back in the days of black-and-white photographs in the distant memories of 2013 there was a guy on the Mets who hit a bunch of solo homers. After opening the year with a two-run bomb, 13 of his next 14 home runs were solo shots. He finished the year with 87% of his homers coming with the bases empty. In case you don’t remember, that was Lucas Duda and all of his homers came while batting fourth, fifth or sixth.
With Granderson hitting 85% of his homers with the bases empty and Duda mashing 87% of his as solo shots, we should be wondering what the breakdown of homers and runners on base for hitters as a whole are. In franchise history, the Mets have hit 6,705 home runs. Of those, 3,877 have come with the bases empty. That means a Met home run delivers just one RBI 58% of the time. And it’s not just the Mets. All of MLB combined has hit 2,126 homers in 2015 so far and 1,284 (60%) of those have come with no one on base.
Solo homers are not an unexpected occurrence; they are the most likely outcome of all.
Granderson and Duda hitting so many solo shots is interesting and frustrating but it is not unique in Mets history. A partial search revealed Tommie Agee, Hubie Brooks, Howard Johnson, John Milner and Marv Throneberry hitting more than 70% of homers as solos shots in a season where they hit at least 15 homers, with the latter four all batting in the heart of the order.
But perhaps the most noteworthy one of all was the original Frank Thomas, who established the franchise mark for homers, one that would stand until Kingman came on the scene in ’75. In the Mets’ inaugural season of 1962, Thomas clubbed 34 homers and 27 of them were solo shots. So, the team’s cleanup hitter belted 79% of his home runs with the bases empty.
As for the aforementioned Agee, he started out as a leadoff hitter with the Mets in ’68 and was moved around to numerous spots in the order during the 1969 championship season before batting leadoff for all eight post-season games by the guy often trotted out as a managerial savant – Gil Hodges. After Agee’s success in the role, Hodges kept him there in 1970, where 71% of his 24 homers came with the sacks empty. Hodges saw no reason to remove Agee from the leadoff spot, even though the Mets that year were ninth in the 12-team league in runs per game.
If Thomas wasn’t the most interesting name, Gregg Jefferies would be, because of how his season is/could be a comp for Granderson. Jefferies started out the 1990 season as the Mets’ leadoff hitter, a position he held for two months. In that span, he hit seven homers and six of those were solo shots. He was moved to third in the order and proceeded to hit seven HR. Four of those seven homers were solo shots. That’s 57% or just about what we would expect.
It’s possible that if Granderson was moved lower in the order that he, too, would hit more homers with runners on base, just like Jefferies did 25 years ago. But even that move only produced two extra runs scored.
With no obvious choice to bat leadoff if Granderson was dropped lower in the order, it’s a fair question to ask if the Mets would be worse off if he was batting fifth instead of first. The main job of the leadoff hitter is to get on base and Granderson has a .354 OBP. The only one higher than that is Duda, with a .364 mark. If you think people are upset with Granderson batting leadoff, just imagine what they would do if Collins wrote Duda’s name there, instead.
As fans we make a big deal about who bats where in the lineup. The truth is that it doesn’t matter nearly as much as we make it out to be. It’s probably one of the things where ego should get the final say. If Granderson wants to bat lower in the order, the Mets should probably move him there. And if he likes batting leadoff, let him do that.
Eventually there will be runners on base when Granderson goes yard, regardless of where he’s hitting in the order. After hitting 87% solo shots in 2013, Duda hit 18 of his 30 homers with runners on base in 2014. The really important thing is that Granderson keeps hitting homers. Right now he’s on pace to hit 28 HR, which would be nice to see.
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/3/17/795946/optimizing-your-lineup-by
I think that there is a lot of substance in Tom Tango’s optimizing a lineup. It is only a subtle advantage but an advantage just the same. The Met offense could use any help at this point.
The team has had a losing record since ” the streak ” and it is the manager’s responsibility to find a way to change the trend. TC pretty much puts out a similar constructed line up instead of switching things up. Moving Granderson down is an obvious alternative.
“just like Jefferies did 25 years ago. But even that move only produced two extra runs scored.” Two runs would be a windfall for this pitching staff.
Brian, to you it does not matter but to me it is just another indication of TC’s inability to embrace and apply the sabermetric approach.
It feels anti-intellectual — combined with a stunning lack of curiosity — to be unwilling to “try” Granderson at another spot.
Sure, there’s no guarantee of anything, but again, the offense has stalled. There are likelihoods, probabilities. Also, this is not stratomatic. Real things ripple through a lineup when players are inserted into new places, it effects hitters before and after. It’s situational and it’s a fact known to anyone who watches with baseball with an open mind.
The argument against “trying” amounts to . . . feh, it probably won’t help anyway. Why bother?
Here is a team willing to tentatively, pathetically explore batting the pitcher 8th. Moving the leading HR hitter out of the leadoff spot? Wow, crazy talk.
OTOH, I personally would time it for the return of Murphy. And the whole lineup doesn’t even begin to make sense until d’Arnaud returns. Without those two players, I am inclined to think it doesn’t matter what you do when you’ve got to write in names like Plawecki, Campbell, Ceciliani and Tejada on a regular basis.
I guess I’m not opposed to trying it as a – What the heck? – type of move.
But not until they arrange the infielders to optimize the team’s defensive lineup. To me, that has a much greater chance of producing positive results. I’m also not convinced that dropping Granderson would be more productive than flip-flopping Granderson and Cuddyer in the outfield corners.
Baseball wisdom would have it that pitching from the stretch was seen as a disadvantage for the pitcher. Do the stats Brian presents mean the opposite, or is it just a matter of more batting opportunities with no one on base?
I think two things: 1) Pitchers face more batters with no one on base; 2) Pitchers pitch to HR hitters differently when there is no one on base, particularly in games that are not close.
Minor point, but after 1970 — after the wheels started to wobble — Hodges batted Agee 3rd more often than leadoff.
As we all recall.
I am incredibly impressed with your memory! I was living through this as a kid (I could tell you every Met’s batting average, HR and RBI at the time) and I would have said that Agee was almost exclusively a leadoff hitter during both years. Who did Hodges put in that slot when he moved Agee down in the order? I could only imagine it would be Harrelson or Boswell, neither of whom would have been very good there, IMHO. Maybe Joe Foy or Wayne Garrett? I was curious about Foy. He actually might have been a good choice for leadoff. Did you know that he stole 22 bases and had one of the Mets top OBP at .373? Who would have guessed that?
Here’s the Mets’ leadoff hitters in ’69
Agee-93
Harrelson-45
Gaspar-13
Jones-4
Boswell-2
Garrett-2
Otis-2
Gosger-1
Agee started there the first 10 games and then the shuffling began.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYM/1969-batting-orders.shtml
Brian – picking up on your post about the Coors Field effect. That’s an interesting set of stats and analysis that you linked.My personal take is that the calculation is underestimating the impact of Coors Field. The missing datapoint, IMHO, is the visiting team wRC at Coors vs their wRC at other parks. This would isolate the variable of becoming familiar with Coors and developing bad habits.
That said, many have bemoaned the fact that the Mets AAA team is in Vegas, where offensive stats are inflated. The thought there is that these guys develop bad habits in Vegas and that the adjustment to MLB pitching is even harder for them. This would be consistent to why the wRC road stats are so lousy for the Rockies. For my money, I would expect a sharp decline in production from Tulo if he moves from Denver, but he would remain an above average offensive SS and a better defensive SS. No doubt he’d be an upgrade over Flores/Tejada but the question of course is, at what cost? I really do not want to see the Mets part with one of their Big 5 arms. If they can get TUlo for remaining piece parts (excluding Conforto – the only other untouchable IMHO), they should do it. But I don’t see the ROckies going for it.
Thanks for the insights. I learned something about wRC and am going to research it further.