Does this Mean Anything?

Earlier tonight, we were wondering if Dusty Baker has always batted a lousy (but fast!) CF in the leadoff spot, or if that was some special torture he dreamed up for Reds fans.

I ran through the history of Dusty Leadoff Men, and found that – yeah, he almost always bats his CF first.  In 16 seasons (counting this one), Dusty’s CF has been his most common leadoff man (or nearly so) 13 times.  One other season, he had 3b David Bell(?) leading off (along with Tom Goodwin) until the Giants acquired Kenny Lofton to lead off and play CF – something you can’t criticize.

What really convinces me that this is Dusty’s default lineup configuration is that he sticks with it, whether his CF is good or bad at getting on base.

Here’s a breakdown of the leadoff and #2 OBP for all of Dusty’s teams, along with where the leadoff man ranked, compared to the rest of the lineup.  For example, the 1993 Giants’ leadoff hitters had a worse OBP than any other hitter’s spot in the lineup.

You can see that Dusty shows no regard whatsoever for putting good OBP at the top of his lineup.  Only 3 times (of 16) has a Baker team gotten top 3 OBP performance from their leadoff man.  And his respect for the #2 spot is no better.

The odd thing is I can’t ascertain any pattern – that ’93 team won 103 games and the 02 squad won pennants – both with atrocious leadoff hitting.  Meanwhile, the same nonsense fails for the Reds.  Maybe we just need an enhanced Barry Bonds.

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