FanPost

Does the prototypical leadoff hitter still exist?

Much has been made of the Cubs' woes at leadoff this year, mainly due to Schwarber suddenly forgetting how to hit for average. A lot of fans have been pining for a prototypical leadoff hitter like Fowler was for us last year, but in the wake of even Fowler not falling into that category this year, I want to find out how many prototypical leadoff hitters there still are out there, if any. The prototypical leadoff hitter, of course, is a guy who has a high OBP, steals a lot of bases, and doesn't hit many home runs. Let's (wildly unscientifically) go team by team, and look at their most used leadoff hitters for this year, shall we?

Team Player GS@LO AVG OBP SLG HR SB/CS
ARI A.J. Pollock 33 .299 .337 .455 2 11/2
ATL Ender Inciarte 63 .300 .353 .411 2 10/5
BAL Seth Smith 36 .264 .344 .444 6 2/0
BOS Mookie Betts 35 .269 .352 .466 9 11/2
CHC Kyle Schwarber 36 oh no yikes hmm 11 0/0
CHW Leury Garcia 20 .300 .349 .461 6 6/5
CIN Billy Hamilton 58 .238 .290 .302 1 28/5
CLE Carlos Santana 35 .214 .310 .391 8 2/0
COL Charlie Blackmon 65 .331 .379 .614 15 5/4
DET Ian Kinsler 47 .250 .338 .367 4 2/2
HOU George Springer 59 .275 .347 .537 18 0/3
KCR Alcides Escobar 25 .184 .209 .242 1 1/2
LAA Yunel Escobar 38 .276 .333 .412 5 1/3
LAD Logan Forsythe 18 .202 .339 .263 1 1/0
MIA Dee Gordon 54 .278 .325 .349 0 21/3
MIL Jonathan Villar 44 .213 .283 .342 6 14/4
MIN Brian Dozier 57 .256 .352 .453 11 9/5
NYM Michael Conforto 41 .293 .412 .592 14 1/0
NYY Brett Gardner 53 .261 .345 .487 13 7/1
OAK Rajai Davis 31 .213 .266 .326 2 9/4
PHI Cesar Hernandez 57 .277 .336 .399 5 6/3
PIT Adam Frazier 31 .288 .358 .400 3 4/4
SDP Manuel Margot 44 .259 .305 .389 4 5/5
SFG Denard Span 38 .253 .299 .392 3 0/2
SEA Jean Segura 43 .341 .391 .462 4 7/6
STL Dexter Fowler 48 .239 .329 .450 9 3/1
TBR Corey Dickerson 41 .337 .375 .608 15 1/3
TEX Delino DeShields 24 .293 .352 .361 1 14/3
TOR Kevin Pillar 52 .261 .316 .427 8 9/4
WSH Trea Turner 45 .268 .300 .429 6 22/3

Well that was fun. Let's separate the teams into arbitrary tiers!

  • Prototypical leadoff hitter!!!: ATL, BOS, TEX
  • Almost there, but needs a higher OBP: MIA
  • Easy Ed's nightmare, a high OBP slugger at leadoff: COL, HOU, MIN, NYM, NYY, TBR
  • Just using a decent OBP guy with low power (not a bad approach): BAL, PHI, PIT, SEA
  • Switched to Matt Carpenter last week: STL
  • Stubbornly using a guy who sucks at leadoff because he's a gifted base stealer: CIN, MIL, TOR, WSH
  • Have been consistently using Jason Kipnis for a while, but he's even worse: CLE
  • Planned leadoff hitter didn't work out or got injured, 5 or more guys used at leadoff: ARI, CHC, CHW, LAA, SDP
  • ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ : LAD, DET, KCR, OAK, SFG

So, to wrap up: I found two guys with this method who fall into the category of "prototypical leadoff hitter" in all of MLB, and one of them has been used at leadoff in less than half of their games this year. I said yesterday that I would be shocked if someone found me three players. Needless to say, these results weren't exactly surprising to me. Mookie Betts is a special case as he is a good base stealer in addition to being a slugger, so he could arguably be placed in the "slugger" tier. I didn't mess up on Alcides Escobar's slash line. Oh, and a special note to Oakland in particular: Please stop that.

Really, the main point I wanted to make here is that the "prototypical leadoff hitter" is practically extinct, and to beg for everyone to stop blaming this team's issues on the fact that we don't have one. We're not underperforming because of a lack of Dexter Fowler.

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