..?
Alex Gordon has been nothing short of terrific this year. He's been amazing at home; he's been solid on the road. His May was around the previously known Gordonian levels, but his other months have mostly been around the newly known Gordonian levels. He has a nice blend of speed and power.
But he's not a lead-off hitter. Going by the man's size and the number of CS, says to me that he has too much more power than speed for him to be a lead-off hitter. As the first hitter of the game, he's hit .286/.326/.560. The first number is pretty good, the second is barely ok-ish but the last number is gargantuan. He's started a game with the longball 5 times. It's always a positive to start the game off on the right foot, but his 13 XBHs to start off a game are...well, not wasteful, but less efficient? If he had a batter or two that were good at getting on in front of him... He started off the season barely walking and that trait has continued when leading off the game.
A lead off hitter needs to be someone getting on at any cost, and a .326 isn't getting it done often enough.
If Alcides Escobar was just a bit better than this guy instead of being this guy, our question would have its answer (and we'd have a HUGE star for this new era). But at this point in time, he's not a bit better than that guy.
Lorenzo Cain just posted his best power year since his days in ROOKIE ball and he stole at an unacceptable rate this year. Not to mention due to the most unlikely breakouts of the year, we really don't know what Cain's future currently holds in Kansas City. He has the opportunity to be a premium athlete playing a premium position with a plus bat, but with Royals loaded with so much talent, it's been hard to make room for Cain. The way Ned Yost "uses" (or doesn't use) his bench and with our rotational needs, makes Cain a waste as a fourth outfielder.
Do we have any good candidates to replace Gordon?
What I'd really like to see out of our lead off hitter is a guy that can hit .275/.360/.400 and steal around 30 bases with like 5 toss outs. Is this asking for too much?
In my opinion, this is like the fourth most important thing of the offseason after:
1. Pitching
2. Pitching
3. Pitching
14 comments:
Who is this crazy guy!? He has no clue what he is talking about!
...and that's what happens when you haven't submitted in forever.
I want Gordon at leadoff next year, I'll be disappointed if he's not. Yost inserting A1 at the top of the lineup was brilliant and showed an outside the box thinking that many didn't know he was capable of.
It did show thinking outside of the box that few thought he was capable of, but do you really want a guy with a .326 OBP to start the game starting the game? Alex lead off 89 times; he walked four times. A .326 OBP in 89 plate appearance (call SSS foul) means that in 60 games with Gordon as the lead off hitter, we got to the #2 guy, usually Melky, with one out. Interestingly, Gordon as a hitter leading off the game, has a .326 OBP compared to the league average of .323...which is the exact difference between Willie Wilson and his era. Before you say "If it worked for Willie," take note that they're not the same players in the sense that Alex has a ton more power, Willie has a ton more speed and is much smarter as a base thief. I call it a waste of his power in the 1-hole.
You want your most productive hitters, hitting more often. Gordon is not the prototypical leadoff, but he has been very good this year. In a perfect world, you would hit Gordon, Butler, Hosmer, Cabrera, so on. B/c you want your most productive hitters to have more ABs throughout the year.
Look at his overall numbers at leadoff, they play 9 innings not 1.
He's not a lead-off hitter beyond the first inning. If Alcides leads off the inning, do you consider Alex the lead off batter again? As far as your best players getting the most at bats, I did mention having a .360 guy with good speed in front of Alex and the others...don't you think we'd do even better with
Speedy OBP guy
Gordon
Butler
Hosmer
Cabrera..?
As it is now, Gordon is batting after Getz/Giavotella and Escobar. Not exactly efficient use of his power.
Gordon lead off an inning 227 times, thats nearly a third of his total PA's. Only 89 of those came in the first inning. In those 227 PA's he had a .383 OBP, drafting a batting order based off one inning would be silly. I mean Butler's best numbers occurred in the 3rd inning but you wouldn't move him to 9th in the order so just he'll be sure to hit in that frame every game.
I mean to me, "if it's not broke don't fix it" definitely applies.
If you can find a .360 OBP guy the Royals can get, then more power to you. I don't know of any .360 OBP guys that bat leadoff besides Reyes. Could we get him to play 2B? That would be sweet.
In those 138 innings, you wouldn't call him a lead off hitter. Beyond the first time through, the line-up doesn't really matter nearly as much...because again, your guys don't line-up well...you never know when your break comes, which is why it was always ridiculous that Bell would bat Maier (f ex) clean up so he could sub in Guillen has his clean up hitter. Beyond making sure your best players have the most at bats, the line up 1-5 don't matter so much. Your 1-hitter won't get that many more at bats than your 2 or 3 hitters if they play the exact same number of games.
Also, hitters that could lead off and have .360 OBPs:
Pedroia
Reyes
Ellsbury
McCutchen
Granderson
Fowler
Bonifacio
In 2011, Gordon was the best option to lead off games for the Royals. The best option for a guy leading off? Probably Babe Ruth in his prime. Of course he'd also be the best number 2 hitter, number 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. Forget speed. All I want is OBP in lead-off, if he's fast enough to have a high OBP, then he's fast enough to lead off.
The argument that his OBP was low when leading off is hollow. The pitcher is probably throwing harder and better, so it's probably going to be harder for any player in the 1 hole to post a good OBP. It's also small sample size.
All that being said, It'd be fun if Jarrod Dyson lead off while posting a .380 OBP.
Frankly, this team should trot out the same lineup this year as next year, and hope for the same results. All we need is starting pitching to happen and we'll be in the post season. Why quibble about lineup optimization which might make us +/- 5 runs scored? What we want is -200 Runs Scored Against compared to this year.
Again, I did have it down the list quite a little bit considering our need for starting pitching. But not only are we missing out on having a better speed option--that doesn't get tossed out as much as Gordon--but we're also wasting his power with the low OBP fodder that is in front of him through the rest of the game.
For fun: http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/LineupAnalysis.py?Player0=Gordon&OBA0=+0.376&Slug0=+0.502&Player1=Cabrera&OBA1=+0.339&Slug1=+0.470&Player2=Butler&OBA2=+0.361&Slug2=+0.461&Player3=Hosmer&OBA3=+0.334&Slug3=+0.465&Player4=Francoeur&OBA4=+0.329&Slug4=+0.476&Player5=Moustakas&OBA5=+0.309&Slug5=+0.376&Player6=Giavotella&OBA6=+0.273&Slug6=+0.376&Player7=Perez&OBA7=+0.361&Slug7=+0.473&Player8=Escobar&OBA8=.290&Slug8=+0.343&Model=1
I wouldn't build a line-up like the ones recommended because why I go pretty hardcore stats-wise, I can't completely break the mold enough to lead off Butler. In the second half of the season, we mostly ran out the above line-up and we scored 4.62 runs/game. I get the problem with the above extends beyond Butler leading off as it's making projections on a lot of rookies that do not have a history behind them yet.
And I get that I'm drawing conclusions from SSS, but it still remains that he's fast but not that fast and he's powerful and he spent a significant portion of the year batting behind Getz and Escobar.
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