Derek Bell + Sam Horn = Mark Bellhorn?

When's the last time you could, if ever, make a credible argument that a guy with a .229 average is his team's most valuable player? I'm still stifling a laugh as I write this, because that guy is journeyman second-baseman Mark Bellhorn -- but right now he's making Theo Epstein look like a genius. Or so it would seem. Here's Bellhorn's numbers since being thrust into the lead-off role:

21ab 1r 4h 1hr 1bi 7bb 9so .414 OBP .381 SLG .190 AVG

Not bad, not bad. I know it's only a week's worth of games, but look at that on-base percentage. And marvel at those walks! That has been the key for Bellhorn so far this season, who doesn't make consistent contact (hence the abysmal batting average) but is showing that he knows how to judge a pitch. Right now, he's on pace to break Ted Williams' team record for walks, which is simply astonishing. But before we all go patting Epstein on the back for the master stroke, let's take a look at what former Billy Beane acolyte Paul DePodesta and manager Jim Tracy recently engineered in Dodgertown, shifting Milton Bradley into the lead-off role while Dave Roberts (who has been very effective) rubs Ben Gay on his joints. Here's Bradley's numbers at the top of the batting order:

18ab 1r 5h 1hr 1bi 2bb 4so .350 OBP .500 SLG .278 AVG

Hey, wait a second here -- that looks pretty similar to me. Bradley has reached 1st base on balls a lot less, but he has also struck out a lot less than Bellhorn. Bradley's OBP was actually excellent last year with Cleveland; he's chasing more pitches in a different (until recently) line-up slot with L.A. Has Bellhorn been sniffing incense and consulting with Tibetan monks on the art of plate discipline? Or has Milton Bradley been equally effective in sinking battleships and creating monopolies in exactly the same role?

What Epstein and DePodesta are doing is playing the percentages and (generally speaking) penciling the guy with the absolute best possible chance of reaching 1st base into that particular spot in the line-up. It's smart, because it's pragmatic. And it's certainly anathema to the conventional wisdom of batting the fastest guy on your team in the lead-off spot, with the hope that he can get on base and then motor over to 3rd with a clean hit or a sacrifice. Because Pokey Reese is that guy on the Red Sox, and it's very clear his .283 OBP is ill-suited to the lead-off role.

They're making the move that they should be making, but the obvious seems exceptional because of how entrenched baseball managerial dogma is and how eager we are in assigning a totemic importance to the idea of the lead-off hitter. The difference between the lead-off hitter and any other guy on the team is maybe 30-50 at bats over the course of the season. So the guy batting first in the order is likely to have about 10% more trips to the plate than whomever is slotted, say, 8th.

Interestingly enough, Tony LaRussa considered a more holistic approach to dealing with this same problem a few years back by rearranging the line-up card to bat his pitcher (in the AL, substitute your team's lightest-hitting middle infielder) 8th and shifting his catcher to the bottom of the line-up, with the idea that the #9 hitter might get on base and set the table for the lead-off hitter. That experiment didn't pull the Cardinals out of their collective funk, but the basis of LaRussa's thought there was to move the automatic out (any pitcher not named Darryl Kile) to the place where it could do the least damage and use someone with a better probability of reaching base in front of the lead-off hitter should he have the opportunity to lead off the inning instead.

I think the reason the media -- outside of Boston, the city that hypes -- isn't making a bigger deal out of this is the principle of parity. What's great about what Bellhorn is doing now is that he's getting on base and tiring pitchers out by taking more pitches. Mark Bellhorn won't break Williams' team record because he's, well, Mark Bellhorn. And over the course of a full-season, Bellhorn is the best possible choice for the Sox, but he won't/wouldn't be any more effective in that role than someone like Bradley. Probably less, when you consider career numbers. Is that self-congratulatory jerk Joe Morgan correct in reminding us how "streaky" all hitters can be "when finding an individual groove"? In this case, yeah -- it's something that the stats just don't take in account. But don't let that stop you from riding the hot hand, Theo.