Tony La Russa used to get all sorts of attention when he batted the pitcher 8th and slid his 8 hitter into the 9th spot but, who really cares? Well, the blogosphere. It gives us all something to talk about as the Earth spins and on that note, I decided to look at the various number 9 hitting statistics throughout the Majors and see what I saw. Clearly, there’s a difference in NL and AL number 9 hitters but I wonder if some of the same trends remain constant (like best 9-hitter means best win/loss record, or if there’s a 9-hitter that’s better than some 3 hitters. And it just so happens there is…)
We all know the Boston Red Sox have the games best lineup but that extends even into the Number 9 spot. Boston’s 9 hole hitters have combined for a .756 OPS, a .262 batting average and 13 homers. That’s a higher OPS than 6 AL number 3 hitters, higher average than 5, and more homers than 3. Next thing I did involved correlating wins with No-9 hitters’ OPS. For the AL, I found no correlation (r=-.125). For the NL, there was slight correlation of r=.371.
Another interesting note is just how well the Arizona Diamondback No. 9 hitters have faired. They’ve hit a .562 OPS, 8 home runs (as many as the Angel’s No. 3 hitters) and a .215 average. All of this is bolstered by the 4 homers, and .190 average by D’backs pitchers.
Remember Adam Dunn and his current .164 average? Yeah, 4 pitching staffs have better averages than the Big Donkey. And exactly 0 pitching staffs have struck out as much as Adam.
Also, Pirates pitchers really cannot hit. They’ve got 20 hits so far this year (in 224 ABs good for a .089 average).
Now that we’ve got most of the stats out of the way, we can examine what they all mean. It appears that 6 AL teams would be better suited if they had Boston’s number 9 hitters (its usually been Marco Scutaro in that spot) batting in their 3 spot so far this year. How absolutely absurd is that? Theo Epstein knows something, or everything that we do not.
Also, it appears that some success is based on how well the No. 9 spot hits in the NL, though I doubt its for anything more than a win or two. Another thing I looked at was the number of sacrifices by the pitcher but, I found that not much correlation existed between that and success.
Overall, what have I found? Number 9 hitters are interesting, and could be just as important as leadoff hitters. Teams are only as good as their weakest link.
Stat of the Day: Bill Hall is 91st among active players in career extra base hits. Hey, I told you I was just filling time as the Earth Turns.
-Sean Morash
