FanPost

The Escobar paradox revealed

Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

This winter has provided many hot topics to talk about in the Royals world, but seemingly very little about needing to find a true lead-off hitter – as we all know Escobar’s on-base average is not ideal.

To analyze the impact Escobar has on run production, I tabulated runs scored as a result of an at-bat by batting order position.

For example, Morales bats #5, hits a homer that scores Escobar and Cain – so the #5 position results in #1, #3 and #5 scoring.

The first table shows all major league games played with the DH rule minus the Royals offense for the years 2011-2015 (source: RetroSheet.org event data files).

For ease of comparison, the numbers in all tables are scaled to 1000 games. Rows are batting order, columns are batters ahead in the batting order.

table1.0.jpg

Interpreting the table:

• #3 batter is most likely to drive in the #1 batter.
• #4 batter drives in most runs, hits most homers.
• Sum col: most runs score when #3/#4/#5 bat.
• Sum row: 978 is largely due to home runs, 1196 indicates a batter more often drives in the batter two spots ahead in the batting order.
• Batter's run production is largely based on what the three batters hitting in front of him perform.

The next table shows all Royals games in which Escobar did not lead-off - for comparison to league table above.

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Differences from League:

• #3 batter drives in most runs, hits most homers.
• Most runs score when #2/#3/#4 bat.
• Less homers, more importance on guy hitting two spots ahead.

The next table shows the games in which Gordon batted lead-off since he is often thought of as being a good lead-off hitter.

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Differences from League:

• Runs scored are shifted forward to #1/#2/#3/#4.
• More lead-off homers.

The next table shows the games in which Escobar batted lead-off.

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Differences from Gordon:

• Runs scored are shifted back to #3/#4/#5/#6.
• Fewer lead-off homers.
• Fewer #3 homers.
• Huge spike in run production at #5.


At this point in the analysis, the lack of homers from #1/#2/#3/#4 caught my attention. Also, note that many of the games that Escobar batted lead-off had Cain #3, Hosmer #4 and Morales #5.

The spike at #5 needed more analysis - runs produced at #5 are mostly impacted by the #3 hitter - which in this case is Cain.

The next table shows the games in which Cain batted third.

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Differences from Escobar:

• More lead-off homers, reducing runs scored at #3.
• Increase in runs scored by #4/#6.

The Explanation:

The #1 batter mainly impacts runs scored when #2/#3/#4 bat.

Gordon as the lead-off hitter produces more runs from the lead-off spot, but that reduces the run scoring opportunities for the primary run producers at #2/#3/#4 - in effect wasting some of their ability - not to mention wasting Gordon's run producing ability with the first at-bat of the game.

Escobar as the lead-off hitter is noticeably void of producing runs. Comparing the Escobar/Cain tables, the Royals magic starts to happen as Escobar is cleared from impacting the batting order.

The best you can say for Escobar is that he just doesn't get in the way. His value at #1 is that nearly all of his meager on-base ability is without power and can steal a base to increase the run scoring opportunities for #3, thus making Escobar the perfect #9 hitter.

The real catalyst is having Cain at #3 - good average, low power, fast runner, can knock in runners, can hit doubles or get to second with a stolen base, making him the perfect top-of-the-order guy (the year Omaha won the championship with Cain playing CF, he primarily batted second.)

Success with Escobar at #1 is really due to Cain's offensive profile at #3 which increased runs produced by #4 and #5, well above league average.

This FanPost was written by a member of the Royals Review community. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the editors and writers of this site.