The Evolution of Baseball's Perfect Lineup | Hacker News Reader

The Evolution of Baseball's Perfect Lineup

pudding.cool

3 pointsabe946 comments

Besides the fact that presenting data in this scrolling kind of web page is obnoxious and renders itself unable to be used for my set of disabilities - from what I can glean in reader mode, this talks about how lineups have changed over the years, but is otherwise extremely sparse on details or any kind of analysis. I was hoping to read more about the “why” rather than “because of analytics.”

It’s a complex topic with many different opinions, but overall, I believe this effect of “spreading speed and power throughout the lineup” is because players as a whole are developing faster and more powerful tool-kits rather than the more specialized roles of teams from decades ago. and as always, but especially in baseball, there are outliers. Players like Ohtani existing are forcing managers to rethink all of these things constantly.

Would love to read an actual in depth analysis of this topic - it’s quite complex, and not easy to explain.

Would also love a more in depth analysis. It always frustrates me when people say Henderson was the greatest leadoff hitter. He was the most well known, mostly because of his speed. Watching him steal a base was insanity. But he is not, imo, the greatest leadoff hitter. That goes to Craig Biggio[0].

If we go by stats, he played 5 fewer years than Henderson, has a higher avg (.281 v .279). More hits (3060 v 3055). More RBIs (1175 v 1115). More doubles (668 v 510). And only 6 fewer home runs (291 v 297); WHILE playing the majority of his career at the Astrodome! Where home-runs go to die. Henderson has more runs (2,295 v 1,844) and obviously more steals (1406 v 414). And only 11 more triples (66 v 55). He also played 3081 games compared to Biggio at 2,850.

I'll take Biggio at leadoff before Henderson any day.

Henderson was exciting; Biggio did what the team needed. His 285 hit-by-a-pitch is 2 away from the record. He didn't get showy or argue or stare down a pitcher, he did his job and took his base.

And while unrelated to batting, he moved from being an All-Star catcher to All-Star & 4x Gold Glove second baseman.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Biggio

I dunno, man. You're really under-estimating those steals. Look at it this way: Biggio got himself into scoring position by hitting extra-base hits; Henderson got himself into scoring position by stealing bases. Who got himself into scoring position more often? That's Henderson, and it's not close.

That's not to take anything away from Biggio, however. I always loved the catcher-2b-CF trifecta: has anyone else ever done that, at such a high level? Also, the stat in your list that most stood out to me was how much more durable he was: five fewer years, and barely more than a season fewer games than Ricky.

> was how much more durable he was

While getting hit 285 times!

I will still take the extra productivity over opportunity. Even if Biggio had got into scoring position more, not sure it would be that big a difference (I would like to see things like how his runs were scored compared to Henderson; on home-runs? doubles? If so it wouldn't really matter (as much) if he were on 1st or 2nd. He did have Bagwell hitting 3rd, I believe). The Astros had some sluggers, but beyond 2-3 players a season, they were pretty bad for decades, they were about pitching. Henderson played on better teams with 9 batters, (the AL with a DH).

Biggio was productive in RBI's while having to deal with the 9 slot being a pitcher. Thats where I think a distinction should also be made. The NL was a different game because they were playing with a liability every 9th batter. So things like doubles or his 53 home runs to lead off a game are important, more so than if he was playing in the AL.

[added] was just thinking would also like to see how many times he was up to bat with 2 outs. Chances are the pitcher would sac bunt (or strikeout or hit into a double play), Biggio gets on base and the #2 hits a fly ball and ends the inning, instead of having that extra out to be able to tag up for an easier RBI for the #3

That's a really good point about the different run-scoring environments between the AL and NL in that time-period. I guess we'd need a contextualized RS+ / RBI+ statistic that I'm not smart enough to generate, but maybe someone on Baseball Prospectus already has.

Biggio was my favorite of the "Killer B's", and he'd have found a place in any lineup in any era. The power-hitting leadoff guy is a recent (analytics-driven) trend, so it's probably the correct approach - I just wonder if Ricky wasn't such an outlier (and it's not even like he didn't have some pop, too!) that I wonder if he doesn't confound the model.

I'd be equally as interested in the converse to the (very good) added question you propose: which of them leads in first-inning RS rate?

it would be great to see a notebook from the methods section!

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