The Yakker

That doesn't smell like HcG.

I’d be amiss to let the day pass without providing my take on the Manny Ramirez PED (HCG — human chorionic gonadotropin-a female fertility drug that provides artificial testosterone) suspension, but I’m not going to dwell on the part of the story that every other media outlet is already hammering home. He’s out until July (50 games) and for his fantasy owners it’s sure to suck worse than a bull rider with a case of hemorrhoids. Enough said.

What I think is more worthwhile to discuss is the widespread thought that the protection a player like Manny offers the players around him in the lineup, mainly second baseman Orlando Hudson and outfielder Andre Ethier, are due for a pronounced decline.

Color me skeptical.

There have been significant research studies done on this very thought and you might find the results interesting. In 1992, David Grabiner looked at 25 players from the 1991 American League season who had as many at-bats with and without a slugger on-deck. He found no evidence that a better on-deck batter helped the preceding hitter. That was immediately followed by Dylan Wright’s study that relied on Grabiner’s guidelines to run the 2002 National League season through the ringer. At best he found mixed results, which is enough reason not to put your faith in the concept of lineup protection.

No offense to Grabiner and Wright, but I’m not familiar with them so I then set out to find a study from someone I know. That led me to the fine folks at Baseball Prospectus. In a column from Will Carroll, he talked about how both Ethier and retired second baseman Jeff Kent believed they saw better pitches when hitting in front of Ramirez.  Carroll draws a logical conclusion that by “better pitches,” the players are referring to both a higher percentage of fastballs and an overall higher percentage of pitches seen in the strike zone, regardless of type. Carroll then calls upon Prospectus’ robust Pitch F/X data to compare data before Manny arrived and after he was settled into L.A.

PRE-HITTING BEFORE MANNY
Fastballs: 61.7%
Cu/Sl: 23.7%
Changeup: 14.6%
Pitches per PA: 3.75
Pitches in the Generous Strike Zone: 55.5%

HITTING BEFORE MANNY
Fastballs: 62.7%
Cu/Sl: 23.0%
Changeup: 14.3%
Pitches per PA: 4.32
Pitches in the Generous Strike Zone: 56.6%

It proved that he saw the same variety of pitches and virtually the same number of those offerings fell in the strike zone.

In the 1985 Baseball Abstract, statistical guru Bill James concocted a study of Dale Murphy and Bob Horner and came to the conlusion that while Murphy hit better with Horner in the lineup than not, the result wasn’t reflected in the statistics.

So at this point I would say the jury is still out, but there is clearly evidence to disprove the concept of lineup protection. I would conclude that Ethier and Hudson may see different pitches in different counts, but the impact on their overall numbers won’t be pronounced. I guess we’ll revisit this when the HCG wears off.