What's the most important at-bat in an inning?
May 12, 2007 4 Comments
The first hitter in the inning sets the tone for the rest of the frame.
Filed under leverage, run expectancy
4 Responses to What's the most important at-bat in an inning?
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Yesterday, Tim McCarver said “more often than not, when multiple runs are scored in an inning, a walk is involved.” I just nodded and smiled.
I do that a lot when Tim McCarver is involved. Maybe I’ll take a quick look at that when I need to procrastinate on actually working on my dissertation. (Which is really all I do on this site.)
There’s some truth to the statement. If nobody is on base, the leadoff batter has the highest leverage index.
The more baserunners, the greater the LI, obviously, but first you’ve got to get those baserunners.
You’d probably really need to look at the weighted average of different situations for the first, second, and third hitters in an inning, right?
The statement relates to which hitter is most important, not which stitution is most important. I suspect you’ll arrive at the conlusion Sean does through a simpler methodology–all things being equal, the first hitter is most important.