PHOTO CREDIT: Milwaukee Brewers
Keston Hiura
Keston Hiura.
The Brewers have managed to tread water through the first third of their abbreviated schedule despite an array of early challenges, starting at the top.
The leadoff spot has been a revolving door of poor production for the Brewers this season. Through 20 games the players who have batted in that spot have a cumulative .175 batting average with a .275 on-base percentage and .225 slugging, good for a .500 OPS that ranks dead last among the 30 MLB teams. The Brewers’ lack of success in that position is not from a lack of trying, as they’ve already shuffled eight players into the top spot in the starting lineup:
- Eric Sogard, who might be the Brewers’ most likely candidate to match a traditional leadoff batter skill set, has started there eleven times and batted .154 with a .283 on-base and .179 slugging.
- Ryon Healy’s brief run with the team included two starts in the top spot in the order despite his career .298 on-base percentage.
- Ryan Braun started in the leadoff spot on Sunday for the first time in five years and only the second time in his 14-year MLB career.
- Omar Narvaez became only the fifth catcher in the Brewers’ 50-plus year history to start a game in the leadoff spot when he did it on Saturday.
- Ben Gamel, Avisail Garcia and Brock Holt have each also done it once.
- Lorenzo Cain started two of the Brewers’ early contests there before opting out of the 2020 season.
While the importance of lineup construction remains an open debate around the game, one fact is indisputable: Putting a batter in the leadoff spot brings them to the plate more often than their teammates. Through Sunday’s games the players in the top spots in MLB batting orders have come to the plate 2821 times, an average of 4.6 times per game. For contrast, #5 hitters have batted 2562 times (less than 4.2 per game) and #9 hitters have batted 2275 times (3.7 per game). As such, struggles in the leadoff spot are magnified by increased opportunity.
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Highly Productive Players
For the Brewers these woes are also significant because their offense relies so heavily on two highly productive players, Keston Hiura and Christian Yelich. Struggles in the leadoff spot mean fewer opportunities for the Brewers’ best hitters to drive in runs. Hiura has batted most often in the second spot in the lineup this season and he’s come up with the bases empty in 59 of his 88 plate appearances this season (67%). That’s more than ten percent higher than the MLB average.
The Brewers’ struggles at the top of the order are also part of the reason they’ve often had to play from behind in 2020. They’ve scored just two first inning runs in the season’s first 20 games. Only one batter has driven in runs in the first frame this year: Avisail Garcia doubled in a run on August 3 and hit a solo home run on August 11. MLB teams are averaging .47 runs in their at bats in the first inning this season, and the Brewers average .10.
The news is not all bad for the Brewers’ lineup: They rank in the top 10 among MLB teams in production from the #8 and #9 spots, which lately have been occupied by Luis Urias and Orlando Arcia. After a long wait to get on the field Urias has been especially productive in his early at bats, picking up nine hits in his first six games as a Brewer and hitting a triple on Sunday. The Brewers are likely reluctant to put too much pressure on the 23-year-old or too much weight on his performance in a small sample size but given their struggles at the top of the order Urias may have an opportunity to play his way into a prominent role pretty quickly.
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