Who will protect Braun when Fielder goes?

[BREWCREW5]

I think that most of us can agree that Fielder will either be gone by Saturday or by next February. I remember that Jenkins numbers seemed to really suck when Sexson left. Braun has not had a great year by his standards. I am betting that batting in front of Fielder has got to help tremendously.

[dadofandrew]

Protection is overrated, if not a complete myth. Pujols' numbers have stayed steady over the years, and he's often had no one behind him.

[Funketown]

I remember that Jenkins numbers seemed to really suck when Sexson left. Braun has not had a great year by his standards. I am betting that batting in front of Fielder has got to help tremendously.

Don't forget that Jenkins turned 30 the year after Sexson left. I'm pretty confident that age and other factors had more to do with it than Sexson's departure.

 

As for protection, I'll just reiterate what's been said on here before. There is little, if any, evidence that protection has a significant effect on player performance.

[Baldkin]

http://www.sabernomics.com/sabernomics/index.php/2004/09/the-protection-externality-it-doesnt-exist/

 

“But what about [insert possible excluded variable]?” Well, we

controlled for a heck of lot of potential outside influences: platoon

effects of the batter and the on-deck batter, the base/out

configuration, the quality of the pitcher, the score differential, the

inning of the game, and the park in which the game was played. Given the

number of observations we are convinced that protection is a myth; it

doesn’t exist.

[Schlitz001]

Protection exists in the sense that pitchers will pitch differently to certain hitters based on the situation and who is hitting behind them, but the overall statistical difference in production of a player is generally not affected by his placement in the lineup. There probably won't be a player like Fielder hitting behind Braun in the future, however it will probably be the second or third best hitter in the lineup and not make a significant difference in how Braun is pitched to.

 

Just for fun (Small sample warning)

Braun batting 3rd in 2029 PAs - .948 OPS

Braun batting 4th in 228 PAs - .637 OPS

[chadomac]

If you have an disciplined hitter, I would agree that protection doesn't really matter. Too bad Braun isn't even half the disciplined hitter Pujols is.

[Eddiehitsthefoulpole]

If we hang on to Weeks I think that he will move to the middle of the order.

[YoungGeezy]

1) No one will protect Braun like Fielder. Fielder is a feared hitter in the league and an elite player. No one on are roster come close to the presence Fielder holds IMO.

 

2) No matter who it is will go to prove that Braun is not a 4 hitter, not a player to carry the team, and that he was in fact was been merely Robin to Fielder's Batman. I like Braun as much as the next but I am not going to kid myself. Just look at this season, he was not good at all in the 4 spot... teams don't give him the same great pitches they did when he was in front of Fielder. Not to forget that Hart may have started to get going in the 6 spot but he really took flight hitting 2nd when Fielder was 3rd. Maybe it had nothing to do with it but could have.

-Also no need to bring up Pujos because he is not a Braun, he is in the elite of the elite category which Cabrera, Mauer and very few others are at. The are just that good that it does matter who is in the lineup, they will just rake. Braun is good but he is not that good

 

3) Hart if not traded would be best option. No chance Weeks moves down IMO. They have been stuck on the thought that Weeks is a leadoff hitter and have yet to give it up. No matter how many more RBI's he'd be able to drive in, I just can't see them making the change even though I think he'd be a really good 3 hitter.

[TooLiveBrew]

1) No one will protect Braun like Fielder. Fielder is a feared hitter in the league and an elite player. No one on are roster come close to the presence Fielder holds IMO.

 

Is Fielder's protection part of the reason for Braun having his worst season thus far as a big-leauger? Or would Braun's OPS be even below .800 if Fielder wasn't hitting behind him?

[Invader3K]

I am part of the crowd that says the idea of protection is way overblown.

 

Whatever is "wrong" with Braun this season, it isn't due to protection (or lack there of) anyway.

[BrewCrewForever]

I too am not a fan of protection. It is one of those baseball "myths". Really no evidence that it exists.

[Flood Pants]

I remember that Jenkins numbers seemed to really suck when Sexson left.

Actually, Jenkins 2005 season was very very good. 0.888 OPS. This was better than Carlos Lee's that year, 0.811. And if you think back to that season, Jenkins started off poorly and then majorly heated up, while Carlos did the opposite. I don't remember who batted in front of who, but it seems that there was no protection going on in that scenario.

[JohnBriggs12]

I too am not a fan of protection. It is one of those baseball "myths". Really no evidence that it exists.

Before making a statement like that, you should do some research.

 

Roger Maris hit 39 HR in 1960 batting mostly 4th behind the most feared hitter in the AL at the time, Mickey Mantle. In 1961, Ralph Houk (may he RIP), flip flopped Mantle and Maris so Maris batted 3rd and Mantle 4th. That resulted in Maris hitting 61 home runs. The following year, 1962, Mantle was injured and missed a month of that season. During the month Mantle was out, Maris batted a paltry .182. Mantle was the great and feared hitter. Maris was a lesser player, a pull hitter who could take advantage of the short porch in Yankee Stadium. Pitchers feared Mantle.

 

It's true, as has been pointed out that the games greats, like the Pujols, Mantles, Aarons, are not affected at all by who hits around them. They produce regardless. But guys who are a not in that category tend to benefit batting in front of a true great.

 

Now the question Brewer fans need to ask is whether Bruan is truly a great hitter. If he is, it won't matter. So far the evidence has been stark that Braun is a much better hitter batting in front of Fielder. As a number 3 hitter, Braun has a career .946 OPS. As a number 4 hitter, his OPS is .637. I don't think you can completely say this is just a statistical fluke.

 

Personally, I think the departure of Fielder will likely not only affect Braun, but probably the entire lineup. Fielder's been lousy this year with men on base, but he does put fear in most opposing pitchers. While I've argued in other threads that Fielder is not a $25 million a year guy, he's still pretty close to that and the reason is that his presence in the lineup generally helps other hitters around him. There are not too many guys that you can say that about.

[Baldkin]

Come on, Briggs. One season doesn't mean it exists. Read the page I posted earlier in the thread.

But yeah, that Roger Maris sure had a horrible season the year he won the MVP in 1960.

[Invader3K]

You can find probably as many examples to support protection as you can find that it doesn't exist.

[1992casey]

That's why you use properly designed statistical study. Anecdotal evidence gets us interested, raises questions, and causes us to speculate. But it doesn't allow us to draw definitive conclusions.

[monty57]

Bladkin, from the article you referenced:

 

So, I did…or more correctly, Doug Drinen and I did. We’d been discussing the concept of protection for a while, but this summer we finally broke down and did something about it with play-by-play data. Using Retrosheet event files we were able to estimate the impact of every on-deck hitter on the current hitter from 1984-1992. The play-by-play data allowed us to control for the game situation during every plate appearance. While we were looking at protection, we were also curious in identifying another possible spillover, which we call the effort externality. While having a good hitter batting behind you might put more balls in the strike-zone, it doesn’t mean these pitches are of the same quality than with a poor hitter on-deck. It’s not that the pitcher just wants to avoid walking a batter when a good hitter follows. The pitcher wants to keep the hitter off-base any way he can. Pitchers are not dumb. They understand that putting more balls in the strike-zone increases the chance that the hitter will reach base via a hit, possibly with power. So, pitchers may reach back for a little extra gas in these situations. This means that a good on-deck hitter has reason to lower a current batter’s chances of reaching base via a walk AND a hit. If the effort effect is larger than the protection effect, then a good on-deck hitter can hurt rather than help the batter in front of him. Since the effect is ambiguous we need to go to the data.

 

So, according to this guy, there is an effect in that the pitcher will throw more strikes in an effort not to walk the batter in front of the great hitter. He seems to believe that the pitcher actually tries harder (throws harder, uses his best pitch more) in order to not allow the person in front of the great hitter to get on base. Therefore, if the hitter in front of the great hitter is not also a very good hitter, he would seem to get out much more. However, someone like Ryan Braun could definitely take advantage of a pitcher throwing harder (he loves fastballs) and throwing more strikes (he doesn't have great plate discipline). If I'm reading the preceding paragraph correctly, than it could add up to a perfect scenario for someone like Braun who destroys balls in the strike zone, but often swings at pitches outside of the zone.

 

Those players who would seem to be hurt would be players who like taking walks, as the chance for walks seems diminished, and players who just aren't that good, as the pitcher rears back and throws his best pitches in order to not have a player on base when the great player comes up. So, if you take everyone that played during an extended period (the impact of every on-deck hitter on the current hitter from 1984-1992) the results would be likely to even out, as some players will be helped while others will be hurt. What the author seemed to find is that the overall effect was that players hitting in front of a great player was hurt, which is interesting, but understandable, as there aren't that many "very good" or "great" players batting in front of other great players. Therefore, the average would sway to the negative (there are more people hurt than are helped).

 

But what it does show is that there is an effect ("having a good hitter batting behind you might put more balls in the strike-zone" and "The pitcher wants to keep the hitter off-base any way he can"). The interesting thing I find is that the protection can have either a positive or negative effect, and this effect would be simpy depend on the skillset of the batter hitting in front of the great player.

 

I also don't understand how the author determines that a negative effect proves non-existance ("The results lead us to not only reject the protection hypothesis, but also we find evidence that good on-deck hitters actually harm the hit and power probabilities of the current batter"), as a negative effect is an effect, and therefore must exist (a good on-deck hitter can hurt rather than help the batter in front of him). Of course when something helps some and hurts others ("For his “protectors” and “protectees” he finds mixed results."), the average should come out to somewhere near zero ("the magnitude of the spillover is tiny and for all practical purposes the effect is zero. Even very good (bad) hitters have only a very small impact on the batters who precede them")

 

So, from reading that article, I would say there is an effect. On some hitters, it is positive, and on some hitters it is negative. If you add up all the positives and all the negatives and average them out, the result is slightly negative.

 

The result for me would be to place someone who can hit strikes but doesn't have great plate discipline (Corey Hart, Ryan Braun) in front of a great hitter (Prince Fielder). I would not put someone who isn't a great hitter, but has good plate discipline in front of a great hitter, as it may have a negative effect.

[1992casey]

That's why you use properly designed statistical study. Anecdotal evidence gets us interested, raises questions, and causes us to speculate. But it doesn't allow us to draw definitive conclusions.

I should have added that you have to be careful about drawing definitive conclusions from statistical studies, too. Studies can be flawed, and even the ones that are well constructed can raise as many questions as they attempt to answer. If properly designed, studies are organized and objective. Anecdotal evidence can't claim that.

[DHonks]

logic supports why protection exists. With stud hitters coming up, a pitcher is more likely to attack the zone against the previous hitters.

[GAME05]

next time Brewerfan interviews a major league pitcher or a catcher, i'd really really be interested to hear what he'd have to say about pitching to a good hitter with a mediocre hitter behind him. there would be a lot variables to account for in any purely statistical study. not just a batter's OPS but do they tend to get more fastballs, etc... there's really a lot to have to account for. pure numbers aside, a pitcher or catcher would certainly know if pitch selection or just approach would be different.

 

but heck, maybe with nobody behind Braun, he ends up adjusting to become more of the disciplined hitter that Fielder has certainly become. i think if i had the choice, i'd take McGehee at bat after Braun takes a walk than Braun at bat with nobody on.