I was reading Zuckerman’s blog posting today and the subject of “batter protection” came up in the comments. Specifically, a reader rather forcefully said that “lineup protection is a proven myth.” I know there are some reports out there (Bill James) that claim it is a myth (here’s a link to an article with 3 myth-proving reports). But I counter instead that “baseball protection is so difficult to really measure that hard core statisticians end up discounting it.” Here’s a “protection exists” link for comparison purposes.
My thoughts are these: You can’t just look at pure baseball outcomes, compare them to the quality of the following hitter, and make a blanket judgement like this. You can’t measure a pitcher being “careful” and you can’t measure a hitter purposely trying to make something happen knowing that he’s being pitched around. Will Carroll at BP did a study of Matt Kemp‘s at bats before /after Manny Rodriguez providing protection and found that the number of fastballs and strike zone pitches were the same … but then concluded somehow that the significant change in the number of curveballs faced was somehow NOT a result of the hitter but instead was just the vagarities of the pitchers being faced. Really? You don’t think somehow that the same hitter suddenly getting a ton more curveballs (which are more difficult to adjust to and drive for most hitters) is meaningful?
You also can’t tell me, as baseball fans, that a #8 hitter hitting with two outs and with the pitcher to follow is going to get ANYTHING decent to hit. The opposing pitcher is always going to be willing to pitch carefully to the batter, force the batter to hit the pitcher’s pitch, expand his own strike zone knowing that you have a 50% chance of a punchout (and usually about an 85-90% chance of an easy out in general) sitting in the ondeck circle.
I have two supporting pieces of evidence right here on the nats.
1. Ryan Zimmerman hit for an OPS+ of 107 and 102 the two years prior to Adam Dunn‘s arrival. Once Dunn is hitting in the 4 spot, Zimmerman’s last two year’s OPS+ are 133 and 150. In 2008 Zimmerman’s cleanup hitter/protection was usually Austin Kearns or Lastings Milledge, not the 40-homer hitting Dunn.
2. Look at Ian Desmond‘s splits hitting in the #2 hole versus #8. .Hitting #2 he’s *significantly* better than hitting #8. Why? You think maybe its because he’s got boppers behind him at #2 but a pitcher or a cold pinch hitter behind him at #8?