April 30, 2024 • 30 mins
Jimmy did a deep dive this week on the impact of leadoff walks, the best leadoff hitter that doesn't bat leadoff, running on contact at third base, and the highest and lowest pitches that have been hit in 2024!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to Jimmy's Three Things today. Three things
I'm looking at leading off innings. If you got a
lead off walk, does that really mean you're gonna score?
Is that really true? Which teams are good at that?
Which teams are bad at that? The contact play where
runners on third base are just running as soon as
the balls hit, no matter what. I looked into that
because it frustrated me. And then we'll end it with
(00:20):
maybe the highest and lowest pitch hit so far this season,
keeping tabs on that. Thank you very much for tuning in.
If you enjoy these shows and you find yourself watching them,
please subscribe to the channel. And a reminder that Jimmy's
Three Things is a production of Dan Patrick Productions, John
Boy Media and Workhouse Media. Sip of my coffee and
then off we go. All right? We had a comment
(00:49):
on two episodes ago. There's a comment on YouTube from
Josh Varnon who said, deep dive idea, what team is
the best slash worst at score if they get a
lead off walk. I feel like people always talk about
lead off walks being killers, but would be curious to
see who is actually really making those lead off walks count.
And who gets burnt by them the most. Now, this
(01:12):
data I don't know how to publicly find. I can
finagle my way in and out of a lot. I
could not figure it out. So I reached out to
our dear friend Katie Sharp, the Queen of Stats, and
she ran a query for me to find this info.
And then I got a ton of supplemented info as well.
So as of today, April thirtieth, almost a month into
(01:33):
the season since it started on the twenty eighth, let's
see what we got. Now, there's a lot of data here,
and I'll just you know what I'll do. I'll just
hide all this stuff for now because it's clogging it
up and it's a mess to look at. So this
is the leaderboard, and to let you know what it is,
(01:54):
the New York Mets have the most leadoff walks, so
they have the most innings where the first batter walks
thirty one times. This has happened thirty one innings. The
leadoff batter has walked for the New York Mets fourteen times.
They have not scored a run that inning. Seventeen times
(02:15):
they have scored a run that inning. That puts them
right around average for percent of leadoff walk scored or
leading to an inning where they score. The team that
has the highest percentage is San Diego Padres. They have
twenty seven innings where the leadoff batter got walked, and
(02:36):
nineteen percent of the time they've scored a run in
that inning. So do not walk the leadoff hitter when
you're facing the Padres. Seventy percent of the time they score.
That's pretty high. The Colorado Rockies also now, they don't
have a lot of leadoff walks. They only have sixteen.
That puts them in the lower tier, but sixty eight
(02:56):
percent of the time when they do get one, they
score because they're like, hey, we should take advantage of this.
It was a very nice gift. We don't get this
gift a lot. Let's really buckle down, so they do.
Yankees are Yankees, Twins and Atlanta are tied for third
(03:18):
in percentage. Sixty percent of the time they get a
leadoff walk, they score a run in that inning. So
those are the best teams. Now, the worst teams percentage
wise are the Houston Astros. And you might say, a
that makes sense. They're having a really poor season. They're
not playing well well they're tied with the Cleveland Guardians
(03:41):
for having a great season wins and loss wise. Both
those teams have had sixteen innings with the leadoff walk
and have only scored three of those innings, for an
eighteen point eight percent leadoff walk scored percentage. If that's
what we're gonna call it, they're the worst in a landslide.
They're at eighteen point eight percent. The Pittsburgh Pirates are
(04:03):
in third with a twenty seven percent time. And if
you just want to look at raw data, the most
runs the most innings where you gotta lead off walk
and they scored is the Padres nineteen, the Mets seventeen,
the Yankees fifteen, and then the Brewers in Phillies tied
(04:24):
at thirteen apiece. I wanted to see if this correlated
to anything, So, like, the team that is the best
at this percentage wise is the Padres, but they are
not that good at runs per game. They're fourteen and eighteen.
They ground into a lot of double plays, so I thought, oh,
(04:44):
maybe that's what's going on, but that doesn't really matter
because they score. I was trying to find any correlation
between all this data that I could. Does it matter,
does it mean anything? Because with the Astros and the
Cleveland being at the top of bad that kind of
weirded me out. What did I find? I forget? So
the teams that score the most runs per game are
(05:08):
the Braves and Baltimore, and they both don't have a
lot of leadoff walks, and they because those teams just
don't have a lot of walks. Those teams on the
season don't walk a lot, but they have a lot
of hits. So they have Those two teams average the
(05:29):
most runs per game five point six and five point five.
They're both having good years, winning records. And this is
runner this is the leadoff runner reaches. So reaches I
did leadoff batter has a hit, a walk, a hit
by pitch, or reaches on an error. So they just
get on base. And the Orioles aren't even good at that.
(05:54):
They're like middle of the pack to below average with
getting on base. The Braves are above average but not
the best in the league. But the Braves are really
good in batting average, on base percentage, slugging ops when
the when leading off an inning, but they're not getting
any individual category. They have a ton of doubles, They
(06:16):
have four reach on air of the Braves and three
hit by pitches. Maybe that helps them. Or the Orioles
have five hit by pitches and three reach on error,
that helps them too. In the small sample size, the
team that has the leadoff batter of the inning reach
the most, so not just walks. The Mets had the
most reached via walk. They just have that they reach
(06:38):
the most is the Dodgers. The Dodgers are the best
in a lot of these stats. The Dodgers are you know,
I highlighted red means you're top of the list, or
you know, in just grading scale. So they're not the
highest runs per game, but the Dodgers are way up
there and runs per game, they're up there, and wins,
(06:58):
they're up and left on base because when you get
everyone goes on base, you get traffic every inning. And
then they have one hundred and four innings where the
first batter of the inning has reached. They've done that
with seventy three hits, twenty six walks, three hit by pitches,
and two errors. They have an eight to fifty seven
(07:19):
ops first batter of the inning. Who's the best. There
they are, and then you got Braves Diamondbacks, Giants, Toronto.
There was one outlier. What was it? It was Miami Marlins
had a weird outlier season. If I'd go, let's see losses.
(07:40):
Miami Marlins have the most losses. They the only red
Miami has on their column, which means they have the
most of these is grounded into double plays. That didn't
really make sense to me because they don't have a
high on base percentage, they don't have a high left
on base, they don't have a high get on base,
but they ground into a lot of double plays. So
(08:04):
what a terrible formula. I think that that's groundball hitting
machine over there in Miami. If you only hit singles,
you're gonna get double plays. But that was a big
outlier over there. And then I don't know if if
anyone else wants to look at this data, you can.
(08:25):
I can share a link to it. But yeah, I
couldn't find much else correlation the top five in leadoff,
top five in all these categories. I did this and
color coded the team names to see if there was
any Like Atlanta is runs per game and on base percentage.
Basically on base percentage matters, right, So on base percentage
(08:46):
is gonna help you out. The Dodgers are in the
top five of wins, runs per game, walks on base percentage,
and left on base. Left on base is a circumstance
of just like total left on basis circumstances of how
good are you this rabbit hole. So there's that info.
This rabbit hole of leading off an inning led me
(09:10):
down my own rabbit hole that so this is still
topic one. I wanted to see who's the best leadoff
hitter that isn't leading off right now? So I went
to Baseball Savant and I searched. I will tell you
there is a caveat here that I don't know how
to get around when I searched this, because I went
to Baseball Savant, this page right here, and this is
(09:31):
what I did. I did player type batter, and then
I did I did runners on base, no runners, and
outs no outs. So the only caveat here is if
the leadoff runner hits a home run the next batter,
(09:52):
his results would come up in this search even though
he's not leading off the inning. But I don't know
how to circumnavigate that. They don't have like a metric
to not do that. So in this search result that
did happen, But I don't know how many times that
really matters. And you know, if you give up a
first batter, you give up a solo home run. As
a pitcher, you're like, all right, wash it away. Inning
(10:14):
starts now. So basically you're the leadoff hitter. This is
what I found. Actually, I don't know what I found
here yet. I didn't dive through this. I just started
the video. But I'm gonna find the best leadoff hitter
that isn't batting leadoff. So they start a lot of innings,
but not the first inning. Even though those people are included.
Kyle Schwarber has the most played appearances where he leads
(10:34):
off an inning at sixteen. He's got sixteen hits, nine walks.
His on base percentage is pretty good. It looks like
Garcia in Kansas City. He's their leadoff hitter and he's
got the worst on base percentage. So who's got a
great on base percentage? Minimum played appearances? I did twenty
that isn't batting leadoff. We have a two way tie
between Blake Perkins in Milwaukee and Mike Takman in Chicago.
(10:59):
Those guys both have over five hundred and twenty they
have five hundred twenty four on base percentage when they
lead off an innings, but they're not batting lead off
for their teams. And then Pete Alonzo has a five
p sixteen on base percentage when leading off innings and
he's done it thirty one times. You know, did the
Mets need to go to the Schwarber the Schwarber method?
(11:21):
Does Alonzo need to be leading off? Probably not? But interesting,
Mookie Bets is leading off and he has the fourth
highest on base percentage with fifty six played appearances. He's
got four to eighty two. Francisco Lindor higher on base percentage.
So who leads off for the Mets? Nimo, Mets twenty
(11:43):
twenty four, Mets twenty twenty four Mets batting orders. Nimo
leads off, and then it looks like it's Lindor, then Marte.
Then so now it's Nimmo, Marte, Lindor Alonzo, but then
they switched it up recently. Okay, Well, Alonzo leads off
a lot of innings. I guess when they go down one, two, three,
since he's in the four hole, and then he's not
(12:07):
coming up with many on but he's getting on base
only four hits. Oh no, no, eleven hits for repeat,
four hits for then door. All right, let's keep going.
Justin Turner, he's got a really good on base percentage.
He's not leading off. Who else, Marte seeger, who's got
the most hits when they lead off an inning? To
(12:30):
tell Marte? Yeah, that Diamondbacks numbers in the in the
first sitting of the game are incredible. Mookie Jose Kwan Schwarber,
Luisa Rise Stanton is going to be the first one
that comes up that isn't leading off for his team
that has twelve hits. So I think that's the most
(12:51):
hits by a not too start an inning that's not
leading off, and that's again the four hole hitter. So one, two,
three innings, he's getting decent amount of time up. He's
got thirty three play appearances, twelve hits, three sixty four
and base percentage when g leads off. What say what?
Zero walks? WHOA, that's got to be the that's got
to be the best on base percentage with zero walks.
(13:11):
All right, So over twenty played appearances, filter by condition,
let's go less than three less than three walks who's
got the best on base percentage with less than three
walks when they lead off Corey Seeger four forty four?
(13:32):
Will Smith? All right, but Stan had thirty played appearances.
We got a butterknife. This a lot. We're gonna go
greater than thirty played appearances less than three walks? Well two,
ve got four hundred on base percentage. She only walked
twice leading off Gunner Anderson. They don't walk a lot?
And then Stanton, does anyone else even have zero walks?
(13:57):
But good numbers. Even if I go back to twenty
played appearances and we go is equal to zero. So
zero walks. Okay. There are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight players who have twenty or more played appearances at
(14:19):
the top of an inning to start an inning and
have zero walks, And of those Will Smith and Trey
Turner have the best on base percentages. Then John Carlos, Stan,
Trey Turner eleven hits. Oh what about least strikeouts? Juan Soto, Yeah,
only one strikeout, He's pretty good. Will Smith, Alex Verdugo,
(14:42):
Adley Rushman, Alex Bragman, though his stats aren't great, all right,
So there you go. There's leadoff hitters that aren't leading off.
Did we get did we get to a conclusion there?
Who's the best that's not? It's Blake Perkins and Mike talkman, right, Yeah,
where's Perkins been hitting? She's good? Perkins had he hits.
(15:08):
He's moving up to fifth and six now. And then
if we go to the Cubs, Happer leads off. Chicago
Cubs talkman, ooh, he's up to the two hole now,
so they know what's going on. It's getting on base.
Good job, talkman, all right. Topic number two, the contact
(15:30):
play at home plate. The Yankees been frustrating me, but
baseball's freshening me as little kids you grow up, you're
on third base, wait to see it go past the
infield before you break for home, or dance off third
to get the fielder's attention to maybe distract him before
he throws it to first, and dance off again. If
there's runners on second and third, run on contact and
(15:54):
the trail runner on second will sprint to third. So
even if they get you out, you still have a
runner on third and blah blah blah blah, they're just
running an ounce and after the press con after the game,
this happened with the Yankees, and Boone addresses this a lot.
I might ask him about this on today's Talking to Yanks.
He says, it's a fifty to fifty chance. So what
I did a big query, let me find it. I
(16:17):
did a big query on this one, and I got
a lot of info. What I did was I searched
my first search. This is what I searched. Runner on
third runner, not on first, because we can't have it
has to be not a four situation where the runner
can stay put groundball to the infield when the defense
(16:38):
is shifted, so they are infield in or corners in,
and you're down by one or you're tied. So that
seems complicated, but it's basically the tying run or the
go ahead run is on third base. The infield is
playing in corners in or infield in. So the infield
(17:00):
is saying we're coming for you. We're trying to stop
the run. That's our goal, and the runner runs home. Okay,
well actually that's the second part the and then I
had to do another one runner on third runner, not
on second. And then I had to delete duplicates because
I didn't know how else to do that because you
(17:21):
can have a runner on second, third, but you also
can have a runnerund first and third. You just blah
blah blah. You guys get what I'm saying. So I
did that search right, and then I got all the
info and it gives you all these results for every
team over the last three years twenty twenty one of
Shitz and the ruling WHOA, I don't know if that
(17:42):
turned on or not. So I did that search. I
have the search here and it gives me. I don't
know how many over twenty twenty one to twenty twenty four,
five hundred and twenty four instances, but there's a lot
where the runner doesn't break for home, so I didn't
want to count those. I only wanted to count when
the runner runs home. And then I was able to
(18:05):
take their descriptions they have here and sort it and
control fine or put a condition and if the word
says scores, that means the runner from third scored. So
I put all those in green, and then I put
out at home because that's the two options if the
runner takes off from third, either he's scoring or he's out,
(18:29):
and that's an easy way to sort it. So even
if he takes off, the infielder bobbles it, decides he
doesn't have a play. He doesn't throw it home, he
just throws it the first Well, the runner still scores,
so it's still included in the survey. So I got
rid of all the rest. So I just had red
and green. I believe I have just Yankees here or something. Yeah,
(18:53):
just have the I have it sorted. But I can
do all teams, select all, and then I went through it.
Which teams have been good at this the last three years?
Which teams have been bad? And the stats here, and
look at my algorithms, right, look at this, look at
this count. If this is this and this is this,
I'm smart. I know my Google sheets. I'm so not smart.
(19:16):
But anyway, San Francisco Giants, they don't run the contact
play that much. This has happened in the last three
seasons for them, or twenty twenty one, two twenty three,
three seasons of a month, four times, and four times
they have scored. Zero times. Have they've been thrown out
at the plate trying to score on an infield single
(19:39):
to tie or take the lead. Zero times. They don't
even risk it. They're been thrown out. Good job Arizona
really good. They've scored ten times, they've been thrown out
at home once they got speed. That's pretty good. The
Dodgers are awful at this. The Dodgers have been thrown
(20:01):
out ten times when it's the tying run or the
go ahead run, the infield's playing in, a ball is
hit to the infield, they just run home, and ten
times they've been thrown out. Only three times have they
been safe. Oakland is not a good percentage, not that many.
The Yankees try it a lot. So I think the
Yankees have looks like the Rays, and that makes sense.
(20:23):
They run like crazy. They have the most eighteen times, yes,
eleven no, so that's thirty times they've attempted it. Where
the Yankees are twenty one, the Baltimore's twenty one. Was
it just the fucking Ale East at twenty? Okay, well
let me just do this equals Oh, who has the
most instances. It's got to be the Rays, that makes sense,
(20:46):
and then the Rays of twenty nine, Pittsburgh's twenty six,
speedy young team Colorado nothing to lose, Okay, anyway, the
Yankees have been thrown out eleven times and have been
saved ten times, but I wanted to go look at
the footage because I still was like, I think there's
caveats here that don't apply to the situation. And I'll
(21:09):
show you here. This is all of the Yankees thing
in that result that I downloaded. Red means they got
thrown out. Green means they were safe. I deleted six
or I deleted three. My bad, I deleted this one,
And you guys can let me know do you agree
or disagree with deleting these because I didn't think they
fit the criteria.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Midfield, they're still looking for instructions. He shows pun, he
lays it down. Here comes the runner.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
There's the way for the Yankees. So that's not really
the contact play. That's a suicide squeeze or a safety squeeze.
The runner very much knows what's going on. The batter
is trying to place it in the spot that's very
difficult for them to for it to happen. So I
eliminated that that one. Another ikf at bat inside so
(22:00):
that one gets past the third baseman. It hit his glove,
so Baseball reference UH has it as a hit to
the infield. But even if the runner held there, he
would have scored because it goes to the outfield. So
I eliminated that one.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Hey, nice pick now rolling out of the glove of
Gallow on a flip.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And that's another situation where he might have been running
on contact. I don't think that inhibited Gallow's ability to
get that ball. And I think if he the runner
waited to watch the play, he would have ran home
and scored anyway. So I took those three out. The
results had those as run scores, so it's taking three away.
So that leaves the Yankees with one two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
(22:45):
ten eleven times it worked and one two, three, four
fus six seven times it didn't work, Which isn't fifty
to fifty like Boone says. And if you want to
watch all of them, here you go. We'll watch watch
all of them happen. It's it's frustrating tie game bottom ninth.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
And that one is chocked that they're they're gonna come home.
The throw is in time as they get talk right
back the candy coming home with Jones, he's.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Tied down two broken back shortstop Taylor will not come home.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
An in comes Bowers.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
In a slow roller. Here comes Rizzo. The cry is
at first base, Rizzo, night you pick my Paul, Uncle,
but the throw is off kind of good y bounding
ball to trying to store them. Is the toe to
tail that comes out at home.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Donaldson grounds it to Nicky Lopez, who lofts his balance
and makes a throw too late.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
And a ground ball to short. Stanton is coming.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Home and they got it bri Into on the ground,
slowly hit third base, Castro coming home, Sir, I will
see how this pays off. A little trickler here Cossa
is charging.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Got the runner at a rundown coming home along was
able to find it.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Chase the torres back. Raffie applying to tag. There's a
ground ball is short. They're gonna come home.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
And the throw is in time as they the story
hit to the corner coming home? Is it bray you
The throw is in time, tagging out and Dowham up
the middle. They're gonna come home with the throw and
they will get wide.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
The two one a chopper slowly to first. Torklsen has
one play. He'll tag out Rizzo. He goutsh you grounded
the second India boots the ball.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
The game is time, Chuck scores, they get you out
at first, and that one's chopped the first they're gonna
come home with the throw and is out.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Right back to canal. He's coming home and they are
gonna get IKF grounded the third. Hermeier is coming home
and he will get IKF for the second out.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
So you can see it. It did induce some errors
and bad throws sometimes, but sixty percent of the time
or actually it was like sixty five or something, No,
sixty two percent of the time, it was just like
a real easy out. So I don't know if you're
a manager, where where do the percentages fall that you're like, ah,
(25:40):
not worth it? And where are they And is it
personnel based, because you know, like Rizzo scored a couple
on those, but Stan gets thrown out dead duck. I
mean even way too had speed one time was just
dead there. So I don't know. I don't know. It's
I think there's more that I got to look into there,
But I don't know if they run the percentages that
where they talk about fifty percent and when the infield's
(26:02):
in and it's like a tide game or a down
by one game where that run fucking matters in the
infield's coming home, because a lot of times if it's
you're losing by one, okay, let's just get the out.
We believe that we can score two runs, especially early
in the game, or you're up, you're up by by three,
(26:23):
you're just you just they just let them score and
they get the out late in the game. So I
don't those muddy up. The percentage is a ton anyway.
So that was the second thing I was looking into
because it's frustrated to me. I actually have like three
other deep dives that are in progress that I hope
I can come to fruition for you guys, because I
think they're really interesting, but they take a lot of
like trying to get me to be smarter than I am.
(26:47):
All right, Third and final quick thing, Let's find uh
the highest and lowest pitch to be hit. We did this.
We did this uh a couple of weeks ago. We'll
do it again. We're gonna go base hit season this season.
Let's go by battery. And someone told me I gotta
(27:09):
go player an event on my group and not that
and then change the included stats and we're gonna change
the plate the fuck changing my camera keeps turning off
of me. We're gonna change the included stats to include
plate X and plate Z and then search and this
(27:31):
will search all of the balls put in play for
a hit. I guess I wonder if we did not
a hit just put in play if that would be interesting.
But we'll do hits, home runs I think is interesting
as well. This is gonna take a while to search
as we as we get deeper into the season, we
(27:51):
keep doing this, it's gonna take even more. So am
I searching by No? I searched my player name player
an event. Okay, so let's go plate x minus one
seventy two on this single that Jake Frayley hit. Let's
take a look at that. This is the highest pitch
(28:13):
hit this season. No way play was that the most
outside pitch hit. It's gonna be the most outside pitch hit. Yeah,
that's pretty outside. Okay, And then so then this would
be or not even outside outside to a lefty off
the plate to a right to the right. Will Brennan
has the pitch on the other side, So the most
(28:35):
uh outside to a righty inside to a lefty and
a half games. No, No, it's the same thing. No,
it's not. I'm so stupid. Wow, he's join to bunt it.
It would have hit him. He gets a single on this,
(28:55):
that's crazy. It's gonna hit him in the belly. How
big that make this one? Okay, so that's way inside
you know, want to hit him. Now let's find plate
z Ozzy Albi's I remember this one got posted I
(29:16):
think right after I did it last time. The lowest
ball hit. Ozzie hit this one for a single. No
fucking way, SD card speed slow recording may stop. Apologize
for those watched on YouTube. My video out this entire
time was incredible. This guy's on fire red. That ball
(29:37):
is so low he just throws the bat down and
blocks it. That's awesome. Okay, and now let's go find
the highest ball hit by Nick Fortes against the Yankees.
Oh I remember this.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
There he goes chop through the vacated hold.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Means that is so high end outside. Look where Trevino
is setting up. Almost looks like a joke. That's what
they do in Little league. Okay, So there you have it.
That is the highest, that is the lowest, that is
the most on the first base side, and that is
the most on the third base side. Thank you very
(30:26):
much for tuning in to Jimmy's Three Things today. If
you want to tune in next week, we'll be here. Also,
send some stuff, send some suggestions and all that. Like
I said, I have some big ones that we're working on,
but it takes a while to putting together. But I
appreciate everyone trying to send in and again, tell you friends,
share the show, subscribe to the channel, keep this moving.
(30:47):
Thank you for tuning in, and remember Jimmy's Three Things
is a production of Dan Patrick Productions, John Boy Media,
and Workhouse Media. See you guys, enjoy the baseball.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Goodbye,
Hello, and welcome to Jimmy's Three Things today. Three things
I'm looking at leading off innings. If you got a
lead off walk, does that really mean you're gonna score?
Is that really true? Which teams are good at that?
Which teams are bad at that? The contact play where
runners on third base are just running as soon as
the balls hit, no matter what. I looked into that
because it frustrated me. And then we'll end it with
(00:20):
maybe the highest and lowest pitch hit so far this season,
keeping tabs on that. Thank you very much for tuning in.
If you enjoy these shows and you find yourself watching them,
please subscribe to the channel. And a reminder that Jimmy's
Three Things is a production of Dan Patrick Productions, John
Boy Media and Workhouse Media. Sip of my coffee and
then off we go. All right? We had a comment
(00:49):
on two episodes ago. There's a comment on YouTube from
Josh Varnon who said, deep dive idea, what team is
the best slash worst at score if they get a
lead off walk. I feel like people always talk about
lead off walks being killers, but would be curious to
see who is actually really making those lead off walks count.
And who gets burnt by them the most. Now, this
(01:12):
data I don't know how to publicly find. I can
finagle my way in and out of a lot. I
could not figure it out. So I reached out to
our dear friend Katie Sharp, the Queen of Stats, and
she ran a query for me to find this info.
And then I got a ton of supplemented info as well.
So as of today, April thirtieth, almost a month into
(01:33):
the season since it started on the twenty eighth, let's
see what we got. Now, there's a lot of data here,
and I'll just you know what I'll do. I'll just
hide all this stuff for now because it's clogging it
up and it's a mess to look at. So this
is the leaderboard, and to let you know what it is,
(01:54):
the New York Mets have the most leadoff walks, so
they have the most innings where the first batter walks
thirty one times. This has happened thirty one innings. The
leadoff batter has walked for the New York Mets fourteen times.
They have not scored a run that inning. Seventeen times
(02:15):
they have scored a run that inning. That puts them
right around average for percent of leadoff walk scored or
leading to an inning where they score. The team that
has the highest percentage is San Diego Padres. They have
twenty seven innings where the leadoff batter got walked, and
(02:36):
nineteen percent of the time they've scored a run in
that inning. So do not walk the leadoff hitter when
you're facing the Padres. Seventy percent of the time they score.
That's pretty high. The Colorado Rockies also now, they don't
have a lot of leadoff walks. They only have sixteen.
That puts them in the lower tier, but sixty eight
(02:56):
percent of the time when they do get one, they
score because they're like, hey, we should take advantage of this.
It was a very nice gift. We don't get this
gift a lot. Let's really buckle down, so they do.
Yankees are Yankees, Twins and Atlanta are tied for third
(03:18):
in percentage. Sixty percent of the time they get a
leadoff walk, they score a run in that inning. So
those are the best teams. Now, the worst teams percentage
wise are the Houston Astros. And you might say, a
that makes sense. They're having a really poor season. They're
not playing well well they're tied with the Cleveland Guardians
(03:41):
for having a great season wins and loss wise. Both
those teams have had sixteen innings with the leadoff walk
and have only scored three of those innings, for an
eighteen point eight percent leadoff walk scored percentage. If that's
what we're gonna call it, they're the worst in a landslide.
They're at eighteen point eight percent. The Pittsburgh Pirates are
(04:03):
in third with a twenty seven percent time. And if
you just want to look at raw data, the most
runs the most innings where you gotta lead off walk
and they scored is the Padres nineteen, the Mets seventeen,
the Yankees fifteen, and then the Brewers in Phillies tied
(04:24):
at thirteen apiece. I wanted to see if this correlated
to anything, So, like, the team that is the best
at this percentage wise is the Padres, but they are
not that good at runs per game. They're fourteen and eighteen.
They ground into a lot of double plays, so I thought, oh,
(04:44):
maybe that's what's going on, but that doesn't really matter
because they score. I was trying to find any correlation
between all this data that I could. Does it matter,
does it mean anything? Because with the Astros and the
Cleveland being at the top of bad that kind of
weirded me out. What did I find? I forget? So
the teams that score the most runs per game are
(05:08):
the Braves and Baltimore, and they both don't have a
lot of leadoff walks, and they because those teams just
don't have a lot of walks. Those teams on the
season don't walk a lot, but they have a lot
of hits. So they have Those two teams average the
(05:29):
most runs per game five point six and five point five.
They're both having good years, winning records. And this is
runner this is the leadoff runner reaches. So reaches I
did leadoff batter has a hit, a walk, a hit
by pitch, or reaches on an error. So they just
get on base. And the Orioles aren't even good at that.
(05:54):
They're like middle of the pack to below average with
getting on base. The Braves are above average but not
the best in the league. But the Braves are really
good in batting average, on base percentage, slugging ops when
the when leading off an inning, but they're not getting
any individual category. They have a ton of doubles, They
(06:16):
have four reach on air of the Braves and three
hit by pitches. Maybe that helps them. Or the Orioles
have five hit by pitches and three reach on error,
that helps them too. In the small sample size, the
team that has the leadoff batter of the inning reach
the most, so not just walks. The Mets had the
most reached via walk. They just have that they reach
(06:38):
the most is the Dodgers. The Dodgers are the best
in a lot of these stats. The Dodgers are you know,
I highlighted red means you're top of the list, or
you know, in just grading scale. So they're not the
highest runs per game, but the Dodgers are way up
there and runs per game, they're up there, and wins,
(06:58):
they're up and left on base because when you get
everyone goes on base, you get traffic every inning. And
then they have one hundred and four innings where the
first batter of the inning has reached. They've done that
with seventy three hits, twenty six walks, three hit by pitches,
and two errors. They have an eight to fifty seven
(07:19):
ops first batter of the inning. Who's the best. There
they are, and then you got Braves Diamondbacks, Giants, Toronto.
There was one outlier. What was it? It was Miami Marlins
had a weird outlier season. If I'd go, let's see losses.
(07:40):
Miami Marlins have the most losses. They the only red
Miami has on their column, which means they have the
most of these is grounded into double plays. That didn't
really make sense to me because they don't have a
high on base percentage, they don't have a high left
on base, they don't have a high get on base,
but they ground into a lot of double plays. So
(08:04):
what a terrible formula. I think that that's groundball hitting
machine over there in Miami. If you only hit singles,
you're gonna get double plays. But that was a big
outlier over there. And then I don't know if if
anyone else wants to look at this data, you can.
(08:25):
I can share a link to it. But yeah, I
couldn't find much else correlation the top five in leadoff,
top five in all these categories. I did this and
color coded the team names to see if there was
any Like Atlanta is runs per game and on base percentage.
Basically on base percentage matters, right, So on base percentage
(08:46):
is gonna help you out. The Dodgers are in the
top five of wins, runs per game, walks on base percentage,
and left on base. Left on base is a circumstance
of just like total left on basis circumstances of how
good are you this rabbit hole. So there's that info.
This rabbit hole of leading off an inning led me
(09:10):
down my own rabbit hole that so this is still
topic one. I wanted to see who's the best leadoff
hitter that isn't leading off right now? So I went
to Baseball Savant and I searched. I will tell you
there is a caveat here that I don't know how
to get around when I searched this, because I went
to Baseball Savant, this page right here, and this is
(09:31):
what I did. I did player type batter, and then
I did I did runners on base, no runners, and
outs no outs. So the only caveat here is if
the leadoff runner hits a home run the next batter,
(09:52):
his results would come up in this search even though
he's not leading off the inning. But I don't know
how to circumnavigate that. They don't have like a metric
to not do that. So in this search result that
did happen, But I don't know how many times that
really matters. And you know, if you give up a
first batter, you give up a solo home run. As
a pitcher, you're like, all right, wash it away. Inning
(10:14):
starts now. So basically you're the leadoff hitter. This is
what I found. Actually, I don't know what I found
here yet. I didn't dive through this. I just started
the video. But I'm gonna find the best leadoff hitter
that isn't batting leadoff. So they start a lot of innings,
but not the first inning. Even though those people are included.
Kyle Schwarber has the most played appearances where he leads
(10:34):
off an inning at sixteen. He's got sixteen hits, nine walks.
His on base percentage is pretty good. It looks like
Garcia in Kansas City. He's their leadoff hitter and he's
got the worst on base percentage. So who's got a
great on base percentage? Minimum played appearances? I did twenty
that isn't batting leadoff. We have a two way tie
between Blake Perkins in Milwaukee and Mike Takman in Chicago.
(10:59):
Those guys both have over five hundred and twenty they
have five hundred twenty four on base percentage when they
lead off an innings, but they're not batting lead off
for their teams. And then Pete Alonzo has a five
p sixteen on base percentage when leading off innings and
he's done it thirty one times. You know, did the
Mets need to go to the Schwarber the Schwarber method?
(11:21):
Does Alonzo need to be leading off? Probably not? But interesting,
Mookie Bets is leading off and he has the fourth
highest on base percentage with fifty six played appearances. He's
got four to eighty two. Francisco Lindor higher on base percentage.
So who leads off for the Mets? Nimo, Mets twenty
(11:43):
twenty four, Mets twenty twenty four Mets batting orders. Nimo
leads off, and then it looks like it's Lindor, then Marte.
Then so now it's Nimmo, Marte, Lindor Alonzo, but then
they switched it up recently. Okay, Well, Alonzo leads off
a lot of innings. I guess when they go down one, two, three,
since he's in the four hole, and then he's not
(12:07):
coming up with many on but he's getting on base
only four hits. Oh no, no, eleven hits for repeat,
four hits for then door. All right, let's keep going.
Justin Turner, he's got a really good on base percentage.
He's not leading off. Who else, Marte seeger, who's got
the most hits when they lead off an inning? To
(12:30):
tell Marte? Yeah, that Diamondbacks numbers in the in the
first sitting of the game are incredible. Mookie Jose Kwan Schwarber,
Luisa Rise Stanton is going to be the first one
that comes up that isn't leading off for his team
that has twelve hits. So I think that's the most
(12:51):
hits by a not too start an inning that's not
leading off, and that's again the four hole hitter. So one, two,
three innings, he's getting decent amount of time up. He's
got thirty three play appearances, twelve hits, three sixty four
and base percentage when g leads off. What say what?
Zero walks? WHOA, that's got to be the that's got
to be the best on base percentage with zero walks.
(13:11):
All right, So over twenty played appearances, filter by condition,
let's go less than three less than three walks who's
got the best on base percentage with less than three
walks when they lead off Corey Seeger four forty four?
(13:32):
Will Smith? All right, but Stan had thirty played appearances.
We got a butterknife. This a lot. We're gonna go
greater than thirty played appearances less than three walks? Well two,
ve got four hundred on base percentage. She only walked
twice leading off Gunner Anderson. They don't walk a lot?
And then Stanton, does anyone else even have zero walks?
(13:57):
But good numbers. Even if I go back to twenty
played appearances and we go is equal to zero. So
zero walks. Okay. There are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight players who have twenty or more played appearances at
(14:19):
the top of an inning to start an inning and
have zero walks, And of those Will Smith and Trey
Turner have the best on base percentages. Then John Carlos, Stan,
Trey Turner eleven hits. Oh what about least strikeouts? Juan Soto, Yeah,
only one strikeout, He's pretty good. Will Smith, Alex Verdugo,
(14:42):
Adley Rushman, Alex Bragman, though his stats aren't great, all right,
So there you go. There's leadoff hitters that aren't leading off.
Did we get did we get to a conclusion there?
Who's the best that's not? It's Blake Perkins and Mike talkman, right, Yeah,
where's Perkins been hitting? She's good? Perkins had he hits.
(15:08):
He's moving up to fifth and six now. And then
if we go to the Cubs, Happer leads off. Chicago
Cubs talkman, ooh, he's up to the two hole now,
so they know what's going on. It's getting on base.
Good job, talkman, all right. Topic number two, the contact
(15:30):
play at home plate. The Yankees been frustrating me, but
baseball's freshening me as little kids you grow up, you're
on third base, wait to see it go past the
infield before you break for home, or dance off third
to get the fielder's attention to maybe distract him before
he throws it to first, and dance off again. If
there's runners on second and third, run on contact and
(15:54):
the trail runner on second will sprint to third. So
even if they get you out, you still have a
runner on third and blah blah blah blah, they're just
running an ounce and after the press con after the game,
this happened with the Yankees, and Boone addresses this a lot.
I might ask him about this on today's Talking to Yanks.
He says, it's a fifty to fifty chance. So what
I did a big query, let me find it. I
(16:17):
did a big query on this one, and I got
a lot of info. What I did was I searched
my first search. This is what I searched. Runner on
third runner, not on first, because we can't have it
has to be not a four situation where the runner
can stay put groundball to the infield when the defense
(16:38):
is shifted, so they are infield in or corners in,
and you're down by one or you're tied. So that
seems complicated, but it's basically the tying run or the
go ahead run is on third base. The infield is
playing in corners in or infield in. So the infield
(17:00):
is saying we're coming for you. We're trying to stop
the run. That's our goal, and the runner runs home. Okay,
well actually that's the second part the and then I
had to do another one runner on third runner, not
on second. And then I had to delete duplicates because
I didn't know how else to do that because you
(17:21):
can have a runner on second, third, but you also
can have a runnerund first and third. You just blah
blah blah. You guys get what I'm saying. So I
did that search right, and then I got all the
info and it gives you all these results for every
team over the last three years twenty twenty one of
Shitz and the ruling WHOA, I don't know if that
(17:42):
turned on or not. So I did that search. I
have the search here and it gives me. I don't
know how many over twenty twenty one to twenty twenty four,
five hundred and twenty four instances, but there's a lot
where the runner doesn't break for home, so I didn't
want to count those. I only wanted to count when
the runner runs home. And then I was able to
(18:05):
take their descriptions they have here and sort it and
control fine or put a condition and if the word
says scores, that means the runner from third scored. So
I put all those in green, and then I put
out at home because that's the two options if the
runner takes off from third, either he's scoring or he's out,
(18:29):
and that's an easy way to sort it. So even
if he takes off, the infielder bobbles it, decides he
doesn't have a play. He doesn't throw it home, he
just throws it the first Well, the runner still scores,
so it's still included in the survey. So I got
rid of all the rest. So I just had red
and green. I believe I have just Yankees here or something. Yeah,
(18:53):
just have the I have it sorted. But I can
do all teams, select all, and then I went through it.
Which teams have been good at this the last three years?
Which teams have been bad? And the stats here, and
look at my algorithms, right, look at this, look at
this count. If this is this and this is this,
I'm smart. I know my Google sheets. I'm so not smart.
(19:16):
But anyway, San Francisco Giants, they don't run the contact
play that much. This has happened in the last three
seasons for them, or twenty twenty one, two twenty three,
three seasons of a month, four times, and four times
they have scored. Zero times. Have they've been thrown out
at the plate trying to score on an infield single
(19:39):
to tie or take the lead. Zero times. They don't
even risk it. They're been thrown out. Good job Arizona
really good. They've scored ten times, they've been thrown out
at home once they got speed. That's pretty good. The
Dodgers are awful at this. The Dodgers have been thrown
(20:01):
out ten times when it's the tying run or the
go ahead run, the infield's playing in, a ball is
hit to the infield, they just run home, and ten
times they've been thrown out. Only three times have they
been safe. Oakland is not a good percentage, not that many.
The Yankees try it a lot. So I think the
Yankees have looks like the Rays, and that makes sense.
(20:23):
They run like crazy. They have the most eighteen times, yes,
eleven no, so that's thirty times they've attempted it. Where
the Yankees are twenty one, the Baltimore's twenty one. Was
it just the fucking Ale East at twenty? Okay, well
let me just do this equals Oh, who has the
most instances. It's got to be the Rays, that makes sense,
(20:46):
and then the Rays of twenty nine, Pittsburgh's twenty six,
speedy young team Colorado nothing to lose, Okay, anyway, the
Yankees have been thrown out eleven times and have been
saved ten times, but I wanted to go look at
the footage because I still was like, I think there's
caveats here that don't apply to the situation. And I'll
(21:09):
show you here. This is all of the Yankees thing
in that result that I downloaded. Red means they got
thrown out. Green means they were safe. I deleted six
or I deleted three. My bad, I deleted this one,
And you guys can let me know do you agree
or disagree with deleting these because I didn't think they
fit the criteria.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Midfield, they're still looking for instructions. He shows pun, he
lays it down. Here comes the runner.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
There's the way for the Yankees. So that's not really
the contact play. That's a suicide squeeze or a safety squeeze.
The runner very much knows what's going on. The batter
is trying to place it in the spot that's very
difficult for them to for it to happen. So I
eliminated that that one. Another ikf at bat inside so
(22:00):
that one gets past the third baseman. It hit his glove,
so Baseball reference UH has it as a hit to
the infield. But even if the runner held there, he
would have scored because it goes to the outfield. So
I eliminated that one.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Hey, nice pick now rolling out of the glove of
Gallow on a flip.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And that's another situation where he might have been running
on contact. I don't think that inhibited Gallow's ability to
get that ball. And I think if he the runner
waited to watch the play, he would have ran home
and scored anyway. So I took those three out. The
results had those as run scores, so it's taking three away.
So that leaves the Yankees with one two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
(22:45):
ten eleven times it worked and one two, three, four
fus six seven times it didn't work, Which isn't fifty
to fifty like Boone says. And if you want to
watch all of them, here you go. We'll watch watch
all of them happen. It's it's frustrating tie game bottom ninth.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
And that one is chocked that they're they're gonna come home.
The throw is in time as they get talk right
back the candy coming home with Jones, he's.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Tied down two broken back shortstop Taylor will not come home.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
An in comes Bowers.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
In a slow roller. Here comes Rizzo. The cry is
at first base, Rizzo, night you pick my Paul, Uncle,
but the throw is off kind of good y bounding
ball to trying to store them. Is the toe to
tail that comes out at home.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Donaldson grounds it to Nicky Lopez, who lofts his balance
and makes a throw too late.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
And a ground ball to short. Stanton is coming.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Home and they got it bri Into on the ground,
slowly hit third base, Castro coming home, Sir, I will
see how this pays off. A little trickler here Cossa
is charging.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Got the runner at a rundown coming home along was
able to find it.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Chase the torres back. Raffie applying to tag. There's a
ground ball is short. They're gonna come home.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
And the throw is in time as they the story
hit to the corner coming home? Is it bray you
The throw is in time, tagging out and Dowham up
the middle. They're gonna come home with the throw and
they will get wide.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
The two one a chopper slowly to first. Torklsen has
one play. He'll tag out Rizzo. He goutsh you grounded
the second India boots the ball.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
The game is time, Chuck scores, they get you out
at first, and that one's chopped the first they're gonna
come home with the throw and is out.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Right back to canal. He's coming home and they are
gonna get IKF grounded the third. Hermeier is coming home
and he will get IKF for the second out.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
So you can see it. It did induce some errors
and bad throws sometimes, but sixty percent of the time
or actually it was like sixty five or something, No,
sixty two percent of the time, it was just like
a real easy out. So I don't know if you're
a manager, where where do the percentages fall that you're like, ah,
(25:40):
not worth it? And where are they And is it
personnel based, because you know, like Rizzo scored a couple
on those, but Stan gets thrown out dead duck. I
mean even way too had speed one time was just
dead there. So I don't know. I don't know. It's
I think there's more that I got to look into there,
But I don't know if they run the percentages that
where they talk about fifty percent and when the infield's
(26:02):
in and it's like a tide game or a down
by one game where that run fucking matters in the
infield's coming home, because a lot of times if it's
you're losing by one, okay, let's just get the out.
We believe that we can score two runs, especially early
in the game, or you're up, you're up by by three,
(26:23):
you're just you just they just let them score and
they get the out late in the game. So I
don't those muddy up. The percentage is a ton anyway.
So that was the second thing I was looking into
because it's frustrated to me. I actually have like three
other deep dives that are in progress that I hope
I can come to fruition for you guys, because I
think they're really interesting, but they take a lot of
like trying to get me to be smarter than I am.
(26:47):
All right, Third and final quick thing, Let's find uh
the highest and lowest pitch to be hit. We did this.
We did this uh a couple of weeks ago. We'll
do it again. We're gonna go base hit season this season.
Let's go by battery. And someone told me I gotta
(27:09):
go player an event on my group and not that
and then change the included stats and we're gonna change
the plate the fuck changing my camera keeps turning off
of me. We're gonna change the included stats to include
plate X and plate Z and then search and this
(27:31):
will search all of the balls put in play for
a hit. I guess I wonder if we did not
a hit just put in play if that would be interesting.
But we'll do hits, home runs I think is interesting
as well. This is gonna take a while to search
as we as we get deeper into the season, we
(27:51):
keep doing this, it's gonna take even more. So am
I searching by No? I searched my player name player
an event. Okay, so let's go plate x minus one
seventy two on this single that Jake Frayley hit. Let's
take a look at that. This is the highest pitch
(28:13):
hit this season. No way play was that the most
outside pitch hit. It's gonna be the most outside pitch hit. Yeah,
that's pretty outside. Okay, And then so then this would
be or not even outside outside to a lefty off
the plate to a right to the right. Will Brennan
has the pitch on the other side, So the most
(28:35):
uh outside to a righty inside to a lefty and
a half games. No, No, it's the same thing. No,
it's not. I'm so stupid. Wow, he's join to bunt it.
It would have hit him. He gets a single on this,
(28:55):
that's crazy. It's gonna hit him in the belly. How
big that make this one? Okay, so that's way inside
you know, want to hit him. Now let's find plate
z Ozzy Albi's I remember this one got posted I
(29:16):
think right after I did it last time. The lowest
ball hit. Ozzie hit this one for a single. No
fucking way, SD card speed slow recording may stop. Apologize
for those watched on YouTube. My video out this entire
time was incredible. This guy's on fire red. That ball
(29:37):
is so low he just throws the bat down and
blocks it. That's awesome. Okay, and now let's go find
the highest ball hit by Nick Fortes against the Yankees.
Oh I remember this.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
There he goes chop through the vacated hold.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Means that is so high end outside. Look where Trevino
is setting up. Almost looks like a joke. That's what
they do in Little league. Okay, So there you have it.
That is the highest, that is the lowest, that is
the most on the first base side, and that is
the most on the third base side. Thank you very
(30:26):
much for tuning in to Jimmy's Three Things today. If
you want to tune in next week, we'll be here. Also,
send some stuff, send some suggestions and all that. Like
I said, I have some big ones that we're working on,
but it takes a while to putting together. But I
appreciate everyone trying to send in and again, tell you friends,
share the show, subscribe to the channel, keep this moving.
(30:47):
Thank you for tuning in, and remember Jimmy's Three Things
is a production of Dan Patrick Productions, John Boy Media,
and Workhouse Media. See you guys, enjoy the baseball.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Goodbye,
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