It didn’t take long for David Ortiz to ask for a “power” bat to protect him in the lineup after Manny Ramirez was traded. This was oddly timed last year as the team was returning Jason Bay to the lineup and was expecting big things from him. Now with Bay gone Ortiz has stuck to his mantra asking who is supposed to “protect” him now.
This is a mental thing for David, but protection is a very misunderstood idea. The first thing I would hope is that Ortiz would take it upon himself to become the protection. To stop expecting it of others and say “I can hit 35 homers have a .400 OBP and carry this team”. Outside of that we need to understand what is known about protection.
Early studies looked at different numbers and found lineup protection to be largely a myth. Some were small size studies. Others said any effect they found was so small to be considered a myth. So we should just ignore Ortiz’s statement and move on? Not yet.
This next study came from The Book, which I strongly suggest you read if you have any interest in understanding some of the hidden numbers and winning percentages in baseball. This portion of the book was reprinted at The Hardball Times. Let’s take a look at some of the major findings.
The first finding is unprotected hitters take more walks and strikeout more. This is expected as pitchers challenge them more and nibble more at the corners. So Ortiz was walked less and had a few less strikeouts in the protected slot in front of Ramirez. Here is where we get to what Ortiz wants to know:
The unprotected hitters have a wOBA of .395 (counting only balls that are hit), compared with .391 for protected hitters. The difference of .004 is not statistically significant.
This means that in power, average, and any expectation of “getting better pitches to hit” is not true. Ortiz would be better served to bat in front of a Jacoby Ellsbury where he should see an significant increase in walks and only a few extra strikeouts. No team would make this setup, but the point is there is no improvement in hitting or power from a supposed “protection”.
While we can see this shows an obvious change in approach from the pitcher it does not effect the results on balls in play for the hitters. The hitter will see a 20-25 percent increase in walks if unprotected and a 5-10 percent increase in strikeouts as well. The amount depends on how skilled the hitter is.
This result should not only raise the question about signing playes for supposed “protection”, but how does this change lineup protection? Ortiz could have increased his walks by 25 percent if he had been moved out from the shadow of Ramirez. Moving a player like Dustin Pedroia who has less walks to the protected spot should have resulted in better team result.
How about some actual data on Ortiz when Ramirez was not protecting him. Thankfully Paul at YFSF has looked everything up for me.
- With Manny: 16.0 PA/HR, 5.0 PA/RBI, 7.4 PA/BB, 5.7 PA/K
- Without him: 16.4 PA/HR, 5.2 PA/RBI, 6.5 PA/BB, 6.3 PA/K
The only thing that is off from our expectations based on The Book’s findings is that he struck out less without Ramirez when the averages said he should strikeout more. This means Ortiz was even better without Ramirez and should be begging to be the heart of the lineup. Of course this is all based on his best years and not what he is in 2010.
There is no doubt the Ortiz-Ramirez combination may have been one of the best 1-2 combos we will see in Boston, but that doesn’t mean this was the best setup for the two. We’ll never know for sure what would have happened, but we can know that going into 2010 that if Ortiz bats in the number five spot and is left “unprotected” it isn’t an acceptable excuse for any struggles and should be a reason he does better.