BP Analysis of Soriano at Leadoff

I know this probably belongs in the Brian Roberts thread, but...

BP's Analysis of Soriano as a Leadoff Hitter

Leading off a player who’s a threat to rap 100 extra-base hits in a season is crazy as it is, but it’s certifiably insane in the NL. Not only does the pitcher make outs 85 percent of the time, but he’s going to bunt a runner on first base over to scoring position as often as he can, negating the advantage of the extra-base hit over the single. Sure enough, last season, despite 33 homers, 42 doubles, and five triples, Soriano finished the season with just 70 RBI. In major league history, no player with 75 or more extra-base hits has ever finished with so few....

 

While this is hardly a rigorous sample size, it’s interesting to note that in the four years Soriano has batted leadoff, his teams have scored an average of 818 runs, but their unadjusted Equivalent Runs—the number of runs the team should have scored based on their totals of singles, doubles, home runs, walks, etc.—averaged 828.5 runs. In the two seasons Soriano batted in the heart of the Rangers lineup, the Rangers averaged 862.5 runs, even though their unadjusted EqR was only 841.5 runs. In other words, when Soriano batted leadoff, his teams underperformed their run expectations by an average of 10.5 runs. When he batted in the middle of the lineup, they outperformed their run expectations by an average of 21 runs.

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