In the past, the leadoff spot was not a place where one would find power hitters. In the 2000’s, little speedsters like Ichiro Suzuki, Juan Pierre, David Eckstein, and Chone Figgins found their names atop a lineup. None of these guys had pitchers concerned about losing a ball in the cheap seats when they were at the plate. There were a few power guys hitting leadoff, Alfonso Soriano put up some 30+ home run years in his Yankees days in the early 2000s, but it certainly wasn’t the norm.
Fast forward to 2018, and it is a whole different ballgame. Teams appear to be employing guys with some thunder in the number 1 spot in the order. Guys like George Springer, Brian Dozier, and Charlie Blackmon among others can put a scare into opposing pitchers. In fact, just last season, Blackmon set a record last season for most RBI’s as a leadoff hitter with 103, according to Thomas Lott of Sporting News, passing Darin Erstad’s record of 100 set in 2000. This is even more impressive knowing that Charlie Blackmon plays for the Colorado Rockies, which is a National League team. Therefore he has a pitcher hitting in front of him most of the time, in theory making it more difficult to pick up RBI’s.
Let’s look at some more numbers that show the leadoff power hitting trend. The number of hitters with 20+ home runs out of the leadoff spot in 2016 was 9. From 1999-2015, the season with the most 20+ HR leadoff hitters was 2007, when there were 6. In 2017, there were 3 hitters (Blackmon, Springer, Dozier) who surpassed 30 home runs. By comparison, from 1999-2015, there were 6 different leadoff hitters in TOTAL who accomplished this feat once over the entire 17 year span (Soriano had 4 such seasons). This season, as of June 21st, there are three players (Mookie Betts, Springer, Francisco Lindor) that already have 15 home runs out of the leadoff spot before the halfway point in the season, with Betts having hit 19, putting him on pace for 41 homers (!) as a leadoff hitter in 2018.
What might be the logic behind this decision to have more power in the leadoff spot? Could be that home runs in baseball are rising in general, as a record was set in 2017 for total home runs hit. Another strategic advantage of having a power hitter in that position is to possibly entice pitchers to pitch around the leadoff hitter in fear of serving up a long ball. This would in turn lead to more walks, which results in more scoring opportunities for the guys hitting second, third, and fourth. The three guys mentioned above that have hit 15+ homers as a leadoff hitter in 2018 (Springer, Betts, Lindor) are currently all tied for 3rd in the majors in runs scored in 2018 with 58. So these guys are also proving to be effective table setters as well as driving the ball out of the yard.
The last thing to be pointed out with Betts, Springer, and Lindor is the success their teams are having thus far. The Astros and Indians are both division leaders, while the Red Sox are leading the AL wild card and are just 2 games back of the division leading Yankees. So this is a strategy that seems to be working for the teams that are employing it.
So should more teams adopt the new model of batting a guy with home run power in the leadoff spot? It appears in recent times that starting games off with a power bat provides good results. We’ll see how this trend keeps up in the future.
Stats information taken from MLB.com
BaseballNerd 