This is why it’s so much harder managing pitchers in the NL |

The biggest impact the designated hitter has on the game is detaching the link between a pitcher’s performance and what his own team is doing on offense. In the NL, without the DH, it’s not uncommon for a manager to have to decide whether to pinch-hit for a pitcher who comes to bat in a key situation.

Here are the 2011 batters with the highest average Leverage Index (which is basically a measure of how much game hinges on the plate appearance, with 1.0 being average.)

Rk	Player	aLI	Tm	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	RBI	BB	SO	SH	GDP	BA	OPS	Pos
1	Scott Proctor	3.220	ATL	31	2	2	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	.000	.000	*1
2	Jose Arredondo	2.560	CIN	53	2	2	0	1	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	.500	1.000	*1
3	Chad Reineke	2.120	CIN	2	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	.000	.000	/*1
4	David Herndon	2.098	PHI	45	4	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	0	0	.000	.000	*1
5	Brandon Moss	2.072	PHI	5	6	6	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	1	.000	.000	/9
6	Adron Chambers	2.054	STL	18	8	8	2	3	0	1	4	0	1	0	0	.375	1.000	/789
7	Jeremy Affeldt	2.035	SFG	67	2	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	.000	.500	*1
8	Carlos Fisher	1.995	CIN	17	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	.000	.000	*1
9	Zach Stewart	1.990	TOT	14	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	.000	.000	*1
10	Cristhian Martinez	1.920	ATL	46	8	6	0	2	1	0	2	0	1	2	0	.333	.833	*1
11	CC Sabathia	1.907	NYY	33	3	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	.000	.000	*1
12	Joel Pineiro	1.877	LAA	27	6	5	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	1	0	.000	.000	*1
13	Joseph Thurston	1.835	FLA	1	4	4	0	1	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	.250	.500	/*4
14	Felipe Paulino	1.770	TOT	39	4	1	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	3	0	.000	.000	*1
15	Kyle Davies	1.750	KCR	13	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	.000	.000	*1
16	J.C. Boscan	1.737	ATL	4	9	9	0	3	0	0	0	0	5	0	0	.333	.667	/*2
17	D.J. Carrasco	1.700	NYM	42	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0			*1
18	Javier Lopez	1.680	SFG	70	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	.000	.000	*1
19	Juan Castro	1.679	LAD	7	15	14	2	4	0	0	1	1	4	0	0	.286	.619	/*45
20	Mike Rivera	1.675	MIL	1	6	6	0	2	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	.333	.667	/*2

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 2/2/2012.

The vast majority of these guys are pitchers, and most of them were starters who the manager preferred to keep in the game. He’d probably have liked to use a pinch-hitter, but liked his chances even less if he had to replace his pitcher.

Obviously, the above list has no lower limit for plate appearances and many of the samples are ridiculously small.

If we instead apply a lower limit of 100 plate appearances, we get a lot of guys who specialized in coming off the bench in big situations:

Rk	Player	aLI	PA	Tm	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pos
1	Jorge Cantu	1.321	155	SDP	57	144	8	28	4	0	3	16	7	28	.194	.232	.285	.517	35/4
2	Jason Giambi	1.321	152	COL	64	131	20	34	6	0	13	32	17	45	.260	.355	.603	.958	3/D
3	Brooks Conrad	1.267	122	ATL	92	103	11	23	5	0	4	13	15	41	.223	.325	.388	.713	4/53
4	Matt Downs	1.258	222	HOU	106	199	29	55	18	0	10	41	17	47	.276	.347	.518	.864	453/96
5	Ivan Rodriguez	1.252	137	WSN	44	124	14	27	7	0	2	19	10	28	.218	.281	.323	.604	*2/3
6	Adam LaRoche	1.245	177	WSN	43	151	15	26	4	0	3	15	25	37	.172	.288	.258	.546	*3
7	Donnie Murphy	1.231	100	FLA	36	92	10	17	4	1	2	9	4	21	.185	.240	.315	.555	*65/4
8	Steve Pearce	1.231	105	PIT	50	94	8	19	2	0	1	10	7	21	.202	.260	.255	.515	35/9
9	Ross Gload	1.222	116	PHI	93	113	3	29	8	0	0	8	3	23	.257	.276	.327	.603	3/9D
10	Greg Dobbs	1.209	439	FLA	134	411	38	113	23	0	8	49	22	83	.275	.311	.389	.701	*5/397D
11	Omar Vizquel	1.200	182	CHW	58	167	18	42	7	1	0	8	9	18	.251	.287	.305	.592	*54/6D3
12	Luis Rodriguez	1.192	139	SEA	44	117	10	23	10	0	2	14	16	21	.197	.299	.333	.633	*65/43
13	Ike Davis	1.191	149	NYM	36	129	20	39	8	1	7	25	17	31	.302	.383	.543	.925	*3
14	Scott Rolen	1.190	269	CIN	65	252	31	61	20	2	5	36	10	36	.242	.279	.397	.676	*5
15	Brian Bogusevic	1.180	182	HOU	87	164	22	47	14	1	4	15	15	40	.287	.348	.457	.805	97
16	Ryan Ludwick	1.180	553	TOT	139	490	56	116	23	0	13	75	51	124	.237	.310	.363	.674	*79/D
17	Brad Hawpe	1.179	216	SDP	62	195	19	45	10	0	4	19	19	68	.231	.301	.344	.645	*3/9D
18	Eric Patterson	1.175	103	SDP	47	89	8	16	2	1	2	8	12	22	.180	.272	.292	.564	4/897
19	Ezequiel Carrera	1.166	226	CLE	68	202	27	49	8	3	0	14	16	35	.243	.301	.312	.613	*8/79D
20	Jay Bruce	1.163	664	CIN	157	585	84	150	27	2	32	97	71	158	.256	.341	.474	.814	*9

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 2/2/2012.

Two guys really stick out for me—Jason Giambi, who had his best season in a long time (from a percentages basis only, since he didn’t play all that much) and Ike Davis, who was playing full-time until he got hurt, and still produced at a high level despite batting in high LI situations a lot of the time.

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Max

12 years ago

I have my fingers crossed that Ike Davis is healthy, because with all the bitching and moaning for how terrible the Mets are/are going to be, he looked like an absolute beast in the making the last couple years. If he is healthy, he will almost be worth watching the games for. Almost. (and much like his original injury, I am sure the Mets will find away to screw it up, like trading him for John Lackey or something.)

I know Bill James would definitely disagree with you. He wrote about this (I think) in one of his abstracts. He found that in the NL, taking out a pitcher is basically an easy/automatic decision based on what’s going on when they come to bat. In the AL, on the other hand, the manager actually has to pay attention to how the pitcher is throwing, see if they struggling, fatigued, etc.

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Andy

Reply to Ed

Ed, I titled my post poorly. What I really meant was–“This is why pitching in the NL is so strongly affected by what his team’s offense is doing” or something like that. It’s not that managers don’t know what to do–it’s that pitchers come out of games for reasons other than how they are pitching (which is pretty obvious…)

Reply to Andy

Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification. I think this is one of the reasons I prefer the AL…pitchers actually get to pitch and don’t get pulled from the game due to something that has nothing to do with their pitching.

vivaeljason

If I recall right, Jim Leyland has said it’s significantly easier to manage substitution in the NL due to the automatic nature of subbing the pitcher.

Reply to vivaeljason

Yep. He said it was more difficult in the AL, but more fun in the NL.

http://www.mlive.com/tigers/index.ssf/2011/05/detroit_tigers_manager_jim_ley_12.html

kds

Andy, it has been argued, especially by Mitchel Lichtman, (MGL at insidethebook blog), that managers routinely get this wrong by leaving in the starter too long. Not only is there the obvious gain at bat, but there is frequently a gain in removing the starter, as a reliever is likely to be as good, or close to it. Obviously other things matter, how much has the bullpen been used recently, who is coming up for the other team, (can a platoon advantage be leveraged). Generally a starter the 3rd or 4th time through the order is not better than a… Read more »

Doug

Jay Bruce’s inclusion here is interesting – only guy on the list (albeit the last guy on the list) who had a full season with 600+ PAs. Don’t know whether his nice counting stats are because he got a lot of important ABs, or because he came through in those opportunities. I’m guessing more the former, based on his Situational Wins Added, which at 0.7 is way behind the leaders (Jose Bautista, followed by the usual suspects) who are above 6.

Steven

The DH “experiment” should have ended when the last of the original set of injury-hobbled sluggers (Cepeda, Carty, Tommy Davis, Horton,) retired. Two separate sets of rules for the same sport is silly. Unfortunately, since inter-league play isn’t going away, I think universal use of the DH is going to happen soon. Thanks a lot Bud.

Thomas

Am I the only one who thinks Juan Castro probably wouldn’t be in the top 10 hitters if you ranked the 20 players in the first list given?

CursedClevelander

Reply to Thomas

I think it would be a very close call.

Juan Castro – career 55 OPS+

CC Sabathia – career 64 OPS+

Somehow, Juan Castro conned teams into giving him almost 3,000 PAs even though he has a career -2.8 dWAR and a bat worthy of Ray Oyler.

Kahuna Tuna

Reply to CursedClevelander

According to a little-known MLB rule, there has to be at least one player from Los Mochis, Mexico in the majors each year. Teddy Higuera kept MLB in compliance until 1994, when his career ended abruptly due to arm trouble. We’ve been stuck with Castro ever since.

Luis Gomez

Reply to Kahuna Tuna

You’re right, and don’t forget about Dennys Reyes, he is from Higuera de Zaragoza, a small town just outside los Mochis but it belongs to the los Mochis County.

Outfielder and 2007 draftee Adron Chambers (#6 on Andy’s first list) is the first 38th-round pick to make the majors since Cubs pitcher and 2002 draftee Randy Wells . . . who was drafted as a catcher.

DaveR

Wow! Jorge Cantu. What happened?

Reply to DaveR

Cantú’s #1 comp is Garrett Atkins. Same question. (At least Cantú is still playing professionally.)