I brought this up in the game thread, but I wanted to explore it further. His .236 BA and .315 OBP are far too low for a leadoff man IMO. Only Beltran is lower in these areas (meaning every other player on the team does better). And while he has base speed, that hasn't translated into steals (0 for the year).
Springer has actually led off an inning 70 times this year and has a .337 OBP while actually leading off an inning. Still not where it should be. As an example, Correa has led off an inning 43 times and Altuve 30 times. So once you remove the actual first at bat of the game (the only time he is guaranteed to lead off), he essentially leads off an inning as much as other positions in the order.
Yes, that is one aspect that pertains to leading off. But you also put guys at the top because they often get an extra AB vs the guys at the bottom. And so you want your best guys there (generally speaking). So, is Springer in our top 3 or 4 players right now? This year? Is Springer the player we want to get an extra AB ahead of the players? The numbers say no IMO.
Maybe not move him yet since leadoff is where he's hit best, but he definitely should shorten his swing situationally. His base-running is beyond dumb... pickoffs and lack of SBs.
It is a reasonable question, but you have to think Springer will stay getting on base more given his history. While George doesn't steal, he is the guy I trust to take an extra base on a hit behind him.
In 2014-2016 Springer had about 750 plate appearances as a leadoff hitter (regardless of where he bats in any given inning). His OBP was .366 which would be second the team so far this season. So, yes. Based on a larger sample size, keep him where he is. Prior to the past 8 games he had moved his OBP up to .340 for the year. It's a long season.
Even a .340 OBP would rank him 7th on the team. Looking at numbers, Marwin would be a great leadoff guy IMO. Even Reddick or Bregman would be better. If Springer insists on taking a Home Run swing at every pitch, let him bat 5 or 6.
Baseball history has told us that judging a player by "right now", sans injury or the yips, is a route to failure. Never know when a guy will get out of a slump, enter a slump, etc. The question should be what do we think his true talent level is and where does that go. Even with slumps, projections still have Springer as the third best on base guy going forward. I don't see a guy I'd rather have leading off among current Astros except Altuve and Correa.
Valid point(s). But the route to success isnt found assuming a player will be what he was in the past either.
Ironically, that .340 OBP would be higher than Bregman and Reddick. My point about him moving his OBP to .340 is that he was on a 13 game stretch where he hit .333 and had an OBP of .413 and the Astros were 11-2 in those games. No one wanted to move him out of the leadoff spot during that stretch.
Agree with this. His true talent level is one of the best 4 players on the team and he should be batting there. He's been fine as a lead-off hitter before. I doubt something as fundamentally changed.
So basically, you are saying not to listen to yourself as all your data is in the past. If you look at data in the past to project the future, time and again, projections based on long samples of data and similar players outperform a 50-game sample size for most old school baseball stats. Fangraphs had a recent article that showed their preseason team projections outperformed team records over 50 games at predicting winning percentage for the last 112 games. It wasn't close even though preseason projections were made without knowing who would get hurt in the first 50 games of a season.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/springe01.shtml If you look at his stats , 2015 was his pinnacle year. Even his 2016 numbers were slightly down across the board compared to 2015. Now, in 2017, we see further regression (except HR's). So my reasoning is based on trends. This didnt begin this year but last year. Sure, statistical trends can fluctuate, even reverse themselves. But I cant predict the future, only look at trends tethered to the past.
I am reacting to 50 games (this year), and if you read my later post, some of what I am seeing began last year, so add another 160 games to my sample.
They really weren't - the differences between the two years were statistically insignificant - the result of 2 or 3 hits becoming outs or vice-versa over the course of 162 games.
