Comments on: Pitchers batting 8th http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/20 This and that about baseball stats. Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:41:25 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: maelstrom http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/20/comment-page-1#comment-5 maelstrom Thu, 14 Jun 2007 18:36:02 +0000 http://www.baseball-reference.com/sotd/archives/20#comment-5 It may very well have been effective for Tony La Russa to use his pitchers in the eighth spot even if they only hit .100. "The Book" says teams batting pitchers, as lousy of hitters as they may be, in the eighth slot will "gain a couple of extra runs per year". The reason is that the leadoff hitter will have more people on base, on average, batting after a more effective number 9 hitter who records less outs. And since the leadoff hitter tends to hit well, more baserunners means more runs when he gets on base, and the same thing resonates through the rest of the top of the order. This effect, according to their simulations, far outweighs the penalty of batting a less effective hitter (the pitcher) at a higher slot, which is small because all the hitters at the end of the order tend to be lousy anyway. It may very well have been effective for Tony La Russa to use his pitchers in the eighth spot even if they only hit .100. "The Book" says teams batting pitchers, as lousy of hitters as they may be, in the eighth slot will "gain a couple of extra runs per year". The reason is that the leadoff hitter will have more people on base, on average, batting after a more effective number 9 hitter who records less outs. And since the leadoff hitter tends to hit well, more baserunners means more runs when he gets on base, and the same thing resonates through the rest of the top of the order.

This effect, according to their simulations, far outweighs the penalty of batting a less effective hitter (the pitcher) at a higher slot, which is small because all the hitters at the end of the order tend to be lousy anyway.

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