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I'm feeling ornery today. Let's pick a fight. From the cubs.com article regarding the coming Sorianotwoholeacalypse:
Soriano showed last season that he was most comfortable batting first. In 125 games as the leadoff man, he hit .308 (167-for-542), while he hit .179 (5-for-28) in seven games in the three-hole.
From the Daily Herald:
As he always has done, Soriano voiced a willingness to go along with Piniella, even though he prefers to bat first. Last year in the third spot, Soriano was 5-for-28 (.179). He was 0-for-8 batting fifth, but he was a .308 hitter batting leadoff.
From the Tribune:
Last season Soriano batted third in Derrek Lee's absence and hit only .179 in seven games (compared to .308 as leadoff).
28 at bats, eh? Well, here's to the first 54 at bats of Bo Hart's career, or the first 83 at bats of Clint Barmes' 2005. I know I'm likely preaching to the choir here, but there's nothing like cherry picking stats to make a point, or in this case, being too damn lazy to look up something more substantial. Not to mention the fact that they're trying to imply that Soriano will fail in the second spot because of how he performed in the third spot.
Of course, what really weirds me out is the fact that the Sun-Times made no mention of Soriano's batting order splits in 2007, qualifying Gordon Wittenmeyer as a beacon of enlightenment, which makes me question, not just the meaning of 'enlightenment', but of all words ever uttered by man.
But I digress. After going to BB-REF and performing a search on 'Soriano', I was two laborious clicks away from the information outlined below.
Position in Order
PAs
Batting Line
1st
2,804
.295/.341/.551
2nd
31
.161/.161/.258
3rd
687
.260/.310/.452
4th
44
.195/.227/.390
5th
626
.268/.312/.513
6th
24
.292/.292/.542
7th
76
.306/.333/.486
8th
234
.305/.335/.441
9th
309
.248/.292/.462
That's Soriano's whole career, folks, not just 28 at bats in the middle of a season, and, oh, the journey of suffering and tears it took to get me there. As for the data itself, there are only three spots where he's got enough at bats for me to want to draw any sort of conclusion, and even with those I don't see much there, there. Is there a difference between the first, third, and fifth spots? Sure. Enough to make me assign causality, especially when considering that the last two years of his career, which you could argue are his two best, were spent almost entirely in that first spot in the order? No. So how you decide to do that using 28 at bats is beyond me, even if by this point, I should be used to such failures.
End of rant.
*****
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". . . you had to bat Bonds leadoff to get him out of the middle of the lineup, where he killed you. But now you're wasting your 32 homeruns in the leadoff spot, where they are often hit with noone on base, and you're paying top dollar for a power hitter who's batting leadoff. And thus Bonds kept getting traded. . ."
But it is relatively easy to do. Problem is, sports reporters never seem to have a friend with access to MiniTab or some other stats package...
There is only one significant difference, and that is that Soriano has slugged significantly worse in the #2 spot than in any other spot.
However, there is no significant differences in how he has averaged or on-based with respect to spot in the order.
(I have to admit that it was a surprise, that in 31 ABs, he'd have a significant difference in the #2 spot on anything, but a .258 slugging in 31 AB is significantly different from his .517 overall slugging average.)
Now, that doesn't mean it is causal. And the writers you quoted did not say anything about the #2 spot or slugging (just average).
On the other hand, Soriano has not, nor ever shall, have an entire season of an OBP of .355 or higher. Really, there shouldn't even be a debate of where he belongs - 5 or 6 hole - despite the fact that there clearly is.
3 Thanks for running the numbers, Brent. I'm glad my feeling that this is a moot point is backed up when some analysis gets done.
I totally love, by the way, the mental picture of Conlin or Plaschke asking one of their friends to determine the statistical significance of differences between split results. Sadly, I fear it's more like "There's 35 points difference between his batting average in the leadoff spot versus the three hole! How can you tell me that's not significant!"
Science. It's not just for breakfast anymore.
I can't finish this comment because I just fell on the floor in hysterics from --
Who would you like to see hitting leadoff for the Cubs? I agree that Soriano is better elsewhere, but increasing Ryan Theriot's PAs doesn't seem like a good solution to the lineup dilemma.
That said, if things don't work out on that front, I'd be inclined to give Fukudome a shot. He's got that patient approach you're looking for, has decent speed, good bat control, and while he has some pop, he doesn't have so much that you feel like you're wasting it. In fact, here's what my lineup probably looks like, with some assumptions made about who gets roster spots:
Fukudome
DeRosa
Lee
Ramirez
Soriano
Soto
Pie
Theriot
Add Roberts and the only change I'd make is to put him at 1 and Fukudome at 2. Of course, this lineup completely ignores the whole handedness issue, what with 5 straight righties (4 with Roberts in the mix), but it's not like there's a middle of the order guy on the roster who's left-handed anyway.
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