Diamondbacks’ Batters With Biggest Positive Impact with Runners on Third Base.

Bottom Line Up Front.

This season through 18 August, with runners on third base Geraldo Perdomo made the most impact. He made the most impact with two outs, and made the second most impact behind Ketel Marte with less than 2 outs. That might be surprising because looking at all PAs in all innings, his .339 wOBA was only sixth highest on the team and his .767 OPS was only seventh highest on the team. In any case, with runners on third base, it would take an extraordinary matchup advantage before I would pinch hit for Geraldo Perdomo!

Special commendation goes to Gabriel Moreno for leading the team with a total of 5 sacrifice flies and sacrifice bunts with runners on third base. Interestingly, although Geraldo Perdomo only had a total of 3 sacrifices with runners on third base, he led the team with a total of 9 sacrifices without a runner on third base.

Three batters were great contributers with runners on third base with 2 outs: Dominic Fletcher, Pavin Smith, and Lourdes Gurriel, Jr.. Focusing on third base runners, that makes them clutch batters.

Ketel Marte was a great contributer with runners on third base and less than 2 outs.

Rounding out the list of batters who made an impact (in positions 6 to 9) were Jake McCarthy, Gabriel Moreno, Emmanuel Rivera, and Christian Walker.

One surprise was that Corbin Carroll did not make the list of top 9 contributors with runners on third base. For all PAs, his .362 wOBA and his .846 OPS were the second highest on the Diamondbacks (behind Christian Walker). Although his performance was better in clutch situations, it appears those situations less often included a runner on third base.

With runners on third base, the top five contributers got more hits in the air (fly balls and line drives) than hits from ground balls. Before 2 outs, the had 1.5 hits in the air for every hit from a ground ball. When 2 outs were reached, they got 2.17 hits in the air for every hit from a ground ball.

The top five batters with runners on third base did something interesting. With less than two outs, they got relatively more hits from ground balls compared to all the team’s batters. With two outs, they got relatively more hits from fly balls and line drives compared to all the team’s batters. Do they change their approach at the plate based on the number of outs? Although that seems like common sense, maybe that idea conflicts with another common sense idea that the batter takes what the pitcher offers (regardless of the number of outs).

The Data.

The following table shows the top 9 contributors.

2023 Season through 18 August. Data from Baseball Savant.

Looking at hits of the top five batters (first 8 innings and with runners on third) and comparing those hits to all Diamondbacks’ hits (all innings and all situations), is there a difference in their ratio of balls in the air (fly balls and line drives) to ground balls?

• With 2 outs. Top 5 batters’ ratio was 2.17. All batters’ ratio was 1.63.
• With less than 2 outs. Top 5 batters’ ratio was 1.5. All batters’ ratio was 1.89.

The Methodology.

If a player was no longer a Diamondback, he was excluded.

Excluded players were Carson Kelly, Josh Rojas and Dominic Canzone.

I limited my data to the first eight innings.

I ignored the ninth and any subsequent innings, because in what could be the last inning of the game, the difference in number of runs each team scored can change behavior of both teams (batters, pitchers, and fielders). Also, in extra innings the ghost runner makes scoring more likely, which has a huge impact on strategy of batters, pitchers, and fielders. This is one article that ignored the ninth and any subsequent innings.

My data included wOBA.

wOBA weights each type of event that the batter gets on base with an estimate of the contribution to scoring runs. That’s my focus : Which batters make the most contribution to scoring runs?

My data included sacrifice flies and sacrifice bunts.

“OBP refers to how frequently a batter reaches base per plate appearance. Times on base include hits, walks and hit-by-pitches, but do not include errors, times reached on a fielder’s choice or a dropped third strike. (Separately, sacrifice bunts are removed from the equation entirely, because it is rarely a hitter’s decision to sacrifice himself, but rather a manager’s choice as part of an in-game strategy.)” — MLB.com

The formula for wOBA shows that it did not give positive credit to batters for sacrifice flies or sacrifice bunts.

Because the data looked at batting with runners on third base, wOBA not including sacrifices was a problem.

With a runner on third base and less than 2 outs, an adjustment was added to account for the value of sacrifice flies and sacrifice bunts in scoring the runner on third base. Instead of wOBA, the adjusted wOBA is equal to wOBA+[(SF+SB)/PAs]. In this article, I will call it 3BwOBA.

My analysis included two demarcation lines.

My goal was to determine how much extra value that specific Diamondbacks contributed. I expected batters to perform better with less than two outs compared to two outs. The reasons are 1) sacrifices can score the runner, and 2) the runner can score from third even if the batter gets called out at first base.

Therefore, I set demarcation lines at wOBA=.300 for runner at third base and two outs, and 3BwOBA =.500 for runner at third base on less than 2 outs. The values of the demarcation lines could be debated because they are based on my opinion. In any case the values of the lines are an important assumption in the analysis.