No clear favourite in battle for leadoff spot
Devon Travis may ultimately be best suited to hit first once he returns from injury
Among the handful of decisions Blue Jays manager John Gibbons must make before opening day is who will be his leadoff hitter.
In some ways, it hardly matters. Given the Jays’ offensive prowess, Gibbons could pick his lineup out of a hat and it still might score the most runs in baseball. But the leadoff spot is arguably his most important lineup decision, if for no other reason than they get the most chances to hit.
And those extra at-bats add up. Last season, the Jays’ leadoff spot had 21 more plate appearances than the second spot in the order and 139 more than the ninth spot. So to whom you give those extra chances can make a meaningful difference.
Managers used to just put their speedy slap-hitters at the top of the order. But as the importance of onbase percentage has gained greater appreciation, teams have started to think more creatively about lineup construction.
The argument against simply giving your best hitter the most at-bats is that, ideally, you want him coming up with runners on base. But really, the name of the game is not making outs and that should be the main consideration for choosing a leadoff hitter. Given how power-laden the Jays lineup is, stealing bases is rarely worth the risk. So you don’t need a speed demon.
At the same time, while base-stealing speed may not be required, good overall base running is, because you still want your leadoff hitter to be able to go first-to-third or second-tohome on a single, and be a scoring threat on any drive to the gap.
Gibbons has identified outfielders Kevin Pillar and Michael Saunders as his leading leadoff candidates — Pillar has even campaigned for the job — but neither is a consensus favourite.
Devon Travis would be the obvious choice if he wasn’t going to start the season on the disabled list. The 25year-old second baseman — who played just 62 games last year in his rookie season before injuring his shoulder — has shown strong leadoff attributes (albeit in a small sample size): he reaches base at a steady clip, has a high-contact rate and can run a little.
Gibbons showed off some progressive thinking last season when he hit Troy Tulowitzki in the leadoff spot upon his midseason arrival from Colorado. A middle-of-the-order slugger throughout his career, Tulowitzki had never before hit atop the order and when he struggled out of the gate, Gibbons bailed on the experiment. He says he has no plans to revisit it.
Unlike us, Gibbons must consider the human element in his decisionmaking and he said he wants players to feel comfortable about their spot in the order.
CASE AGAINST PILLER
He doesn’t get on base nearly enough and barring a dramatic change in his approach at the plate, that likely won’t improve. He had the fifth-lowest walk rate in the American League last season, which meant that even though he had the second-most hits on the Jays — behind only Josh Donaldson — Pillar’s on-base percentage was below the MLB average. He’s projected to be below the league average again this season.
CASE FOR PILLAR
When Pillar does get on base he’s a top-notch runner. Not only was he caught stealing just four times in 29 attempts, he was one of the most valuable all-around base runners in the game last season, posting the league’s second-highest BsR total (a formula developed by Fangraphs, which measures all aspects of base running — not just stolen bases, but also taking extra bases on hits and not running into outs — and then converts the calculation into a number of runs below or above average.)
CASE AGAINST SAUNDERS
His .301 career OBP is actually worse than Pillar’s and he’s coming off a season in which he played just nine games due to a serious knee injury.
CASE FOR SAUNDERS
His OBP since 2012 is much healthier than his overall career mark. That’s why his projections for the upcoming season are all above the league average. He has also been an excellent base runner in his career, though it’s unclear how that might change following last year’s knee injury.
OUTSIDE THE BOX
Based on on-base percentage alone, Jose Bautista — the Jays most disciplined and discerning hitter — should bat first. It’s not as if the Jays are lacking in sluggers to hit behind him, right?
If he needed to be sold on the idea, perhaps the extra plate appearances would help convince him.
Troy Tulowitzki, despite his apparent discomfort in the role, would also be a sensible choice. He’s a disciplined hitter with the 14th-highest on-base percentage in the majors since 2007.
While he will hit his share of homers, he doesn’t have the kind of power that Bautista, Donaldson and Edwin Encarnacion do. But the numbers show he’s a terrible base runner.
Russell Martin had the secondhighest on-base percentage in the National League in 2014, prior to joining the Jays.
But he’s a slug on the base paths and given the nagging hamstring injury he played through last season, it’s probably best to keep him from clogging things up ahead of sluggers like Donaldson.
Donaldson would probably love the idea of jumping on an opposing pitcher right off the hop and he would certainly be an offensive catalyst. He’s also a tremendous base runner.
But given how well he performed last season with runners in scoring position, hitting him first seems like a bit of a waste.