Worst-slugging cleanup hitters
Posted by Andy on September 14, 2009
Check out the worst slugging percentage by 4th-place hitters for each team (stats through last Thursday...sorry...wrote this one a little early.)
| Rk | HR | RBI | BB | SO | BA | OBP | SLG ▴ | OPS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | KCR | 8 | 51 | 43 | 130 | .211 | .278 | .301 | .579 |
| 3 | BAL | 16 | 76 | 50 | 89 | .257 | .320 | .399 | .718 |
| 4 | OAK | 17 | 72 | 78 | 115 | .251 | .355 | .406 | .760 |
| 5 | PIT | 19 | 68 | 51 | 112 | .233 | .297 | .407 | .704 |
| 6 | SEA | 19 | 72 | 53 | 105 | .237 | .302 | .409 | .711 |
| 7 | FLA | 15 | 82 | 48 | 77 | .271 | .333 | .415 | .748 |
| 8 | LAD | 15 | 93 | 77 | 106 | .274 | .361 | .423 | .784 |
| 9 | TOR | 16 | 69 | 47 | 88 | .271 | .325 | .433 | .758 |
| 10 | CIN | 23 | 98 | 39 | 88 | .270 | .326 | .445 | .771 |
| 11 | SFG | 21 | 82 | 23 | 81 | .283 | .311 | .458 | .769 |
| 12 | TBR | 29 | 83 | 92 | 167 | .229 | .355 | .462 | .817 |
| 13 | CLE | 17 | 89 | 62 | 136 | .286 | .368 | .463 | .831 |
| 14 | COL | 17 | 85 | 68 | 107 | .288 | .365 | .468 | .834 |
| 15 | SDP | 24 | 88 | 65 | 124 | .273 | .355 | .474 | .829 |
| 16 | ATL | 24 | 93 | 50 | 94 | .275 | .334 | .475 | .810 |
| 17 | NYM | 14 | 91 | 49 | 97 | .303 | .362 | .478 | .840 |
| 18 | ARI | 32 | 88 | 73 | 163 | .251 | .340 | .479 | .819 |
| 19 | HOU | 24 | 91 | 42 | 53 | .300 | .349 | .487 | .836 |
| 20 | NYY | 29 | 107 | 90 | 117 | .286 | .396 | .497 | .893 |
| 21 | LAA | 28 | 101 | 46 | 91 | .295 | .350 | .497 | .847 |
| 22 | CHW | 33 | 102 | 84 | 129 | .273 | .376 | .511 | .887 |
| 23 | STL | 30 | 113 | 56 | 101 | .284 | .353 | .513 | .866 |
| 24 | MIN | 33 | 100 | 66 | 105 | .267 | .346 | .520 | .866 |
| 25 | BOS | 31 | 111 | 72 | 138 | .285 | .382 | .528 | .909 |
| 26 | CHC | 32 | 101 | 70 | 99 | .293 | .380 | .530 | .910 |
| 27 | TEX | 36 | 89 | 62 | 118 | .254 | .341 | .538 | .879 |
| 28 | DET | 32 | 100 | 59 | 109 | .313 | .384 | .539 | .923 |
| 29 | PHI | 37 | 116 | 64 | 166 | .270 | .348 | .549 | .897 |
| 30 | WSN | 38 | 102 | 102 | 159 | .281 | .403 | .561 | .964 |
| 31 | MIL | 38 | 125 | 93 | 120 | .298 | .410 | .592 | 1.001 |
| TOT | 747 | 2738 | 1874 | 3384 | .272 | .350 | .474 | .825 |
Man, check out just how awful the Royals' cleanup hitters have been. They are nearly 100 points below the second-worst team, and the entire range of everybody else is about 200 points. It's not like their producing in any other way, either. The Royals' #4 batters have a collective batting average of .211 and OBP of .278. Sheesh. The cumulative OBP for all of MLB is .333, meaning that the guys on the Royals who should be in the upper echelon of power hitters have an OBP that's more than 50 points below leave average. And they have struck out a ton. Umm...yeah.
Let's not miss the Mets. Although they have an average SLG out of their cleanup hitters, they have just 14 HR, the second-fewest in baseball.
Here are the performances by the guys who have hit 4th the most for the Mets.
| Rk | G ▾ | HR | RBI | SO | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gary Sheffield | 44 | 6 | 32 | 22 | .308 | .385 | .484 | .869 |
| 2 | Carlos Delgado | 25 | 4 | 23 | 20 | .298 | .387 | .521 | .909 |
| 3 | Jeff Francoeur | 20 | 2 | 11 | 15 | .313 | .313 | .500 | .813 |
| 4 | David Wright | 19 | 0 | 8 | 20 | .319 | .405 | .431 | .835 |
| 5 | Daniel Murphy | 18 | 2 | 10 | 11 | .293 | .303 | .533 | .836 |
| Team Total | 176 | 14 | 91 | 97 | .303 | .362 | .478 | .840 |
The loss of Delgado hurts for sure. All of the other guys have hit pretty well, truth be told, and 97 RBI over the course of the season is not too bad. For some reason, though, the dingers have been infrequent.
September 14th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Had to take a look at this since the Giants have Molina as our clean-up hitter. Only 2 NL teams worse in OPS, and 7 worse in the Majors. Amazingly, the Giants are not the worse in OBP, as Molina don't like to take walks but swings a good bat otherwise.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
The 3 biggest perpratators of this are Mike Jacobs (49 starts); Jose Guillen (49) and Mark Teahen (26). A;ll three of them 3 of them did markedly better in other positions in the order. Why would Jacobs slug a pathetic .290 in the 4 hole, but a powerful .628 while batting 6th? Guillen slugged over 100 points better in the 5 hole. And Teahen was 251 points better as a 5-hitter.
Now individually the game totals were smaller samples, but over the course of a season this is incredible.
I wish I had the time to look at this on a game by game basis, but my gut feeling points at least a share of the suspicion on Trey Hillman. Are these players being miscast given the opposing pitcher and other variables?
------------------Games---BA-----OBP-----SLG-----OPS
Jacobs in 4 slot--(49)---.219 .289 .290 .578
Jacobs in 6 spot -(31)---.289 .353 .628 .981
Jacobs overall---(102)---.235 .301 .412 .714
Guillen in 4 slot-(49)---.210 .281 .337 .618
Guillen in 5 slot-(27)---.315 .390 .446 .836
Guillen overall---(78)---.242 .314 .367 .681
Teahen in 4 slot--(26)---.212 .259 .288 .547
Teahen in 5 slot--(27)---.392 .438 .539 .977
Teahen Overall---(129)---.274 .328 .411 .739
September 14th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Why does the table rank the teams from #2 to #31?
Also, the link to "view original table" doesn't work. I assume all the information is already posted here, but I don't know if that's a kink in the Share program or what.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Good points JT. Sean's going to have to look into that.
September 15th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
[...] probably saw this in the Baseball Reference Blog — and it boggles the mind. They list off what the cleanup hitters have done for all 30 teams. [...]