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Jerry Crasnick on ESPN.com says these are (in order) the best leadoff hitters in MLB right now. In your opinion, who's the best?

Jose Reyes 67 (37.64%)
Grady Sizemore 53 (29.78%)
Johnny Damon 2 (1.12%)
Ichiro 43 (24.16%)
Rafael Furcal 0 (0.00%)
Jimmy Rollins 6 (3.37%)
Alfonso Soriano 2 (1.12%)
Hanley Ramirez 3 (1.69%)
Ryan Freel 0 (0.00%)
Other (who?) 2 (1.12%)

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178 votes | 10 featured comments
Jerry Crasnick on ESPN.com says these are (in order) the best leadoff hitters in MLB right now. In your opinion, who's the best? | 10 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Mick Doherty - Thursday, April 26 2007 @ 01:02 PM EDT (#166636) #

For the record, Crasnick lists Reed Johnson as the first of his "Honorable Mentions" ahead of David Eckstein, Luis Castillo, Dave Roberts and Brian Roberts.

P.S. Anyone notice who's leading off for the Tigers these days? Interesting!

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Mike Green - Thursday, April 26 2007 @ 01:44 PM EDT (#166642) #
The Tigers were facing a lefty, and so moved Granderson.

I voted Sizemore as the best current leadoff hitter.  Reyes is a more valuable property, but his ability to reach base at the rate you'd like to see out of your leadoff hitter is not as sure as Sizemore's, in spite of Reyes' great start to 2007. I didn't notice that Reyes had a W/K rate over 1.0 until now.

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Lee - Thursday, April 26 2007 @ 01:52 PM EDT (#166645) #
OK, I'll take a shot. In my opinion, EqA is the best measure of any hitter's value. However, considering the traditional role of a leadoff hitter as "table-setter" (although I've seen studies to suggest that batting order doesn't matter much; i.e., the same nine hitters will score roughly the same number of runs, on average, regardless of the order in which they hit), OBP should also be considered on its own. Speed, as measure by SB and SB%, is also nice to have in such a role, but that gets rolled into EqA. By this line of thinking, a quick check of the numbers confirms my suspicion that the only reasonable answer to this question, at least out of those mentioned in the poll, is Grady Sizemore. He gets on base basically as well as, or better than, any of the others, and is overall the best hitter; his career EqA is the highest of the bunch. His lead in career EqA over some of the others isn't huge, but last season, he put up a .301, which was much better than most of the field (he did just edge Soriano's .300 EqA last season, but Sizemore's OBP was much higher).
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Mike Green - Thursday, April 26 2007 @ 02:05 PM EDT (#166649) #
EqA may be a very good measure for hitting prowess generally (as are GPA and wOBA).  For leadoff hitters, the optimal weighting between the ability to get on base and the ability to drive the ball is significantly different than for #3 hitters, say, and each of these "combined measures" is not quite as accurate as an evaluation tool.  Not that this affects the judgment in the particular case of Reyes vs. Sizemore...
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Ryan Day - Thursday, April 26 2007 @ 03:37 PM EDT (#166669) #

Sizemore's the best hitter of the bunch, but he's so good he should probably be a #3. (And Soriano should probably be a 4 or 5, but why beat a dead horse?) And Reyes may be the best by the end of the season, but right now he's got a career .327 OBP.  So I'm going to stick with Ichiro.

 

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Magpie - Thursday, April 26 2007 @ 06:05 PM EDT (#166683) #
A leadoff hitter may only be assured of leading off an inning once a game; but all of his at bats are going to come in front of your power hitters. And so the ability to simply get on base is magnified; the ability to cash in runners is diminished (good, because he's hitting behind the part of the order least likely to be setting the table).

So far this season, Reyes and Ramirez have been the best. Going forward, I'll take Reyes. He's made impressive progress improving his strike zone judgement, and I don't expect Sizemore to be a leadoff hitter too much longer.

Off career accomplishment, or Established Level of Ability - Suzuki.

This is a question again! The Rickey Henderson era is over. For two decades, no one even bothered to ask this one.

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Andrew - Thursday, April 26 2007 @ 07:14 PM EDT (#166686) #

Jimmy Rollins is prooty good. He gets on base more than Reyes, and is faster when you factor in his SB%. He has interesting power considering his frame and I guess that speaks to his ability to hit really well.

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Nolan - Thursday, April 26 2007 @ 08:27 PM EDT (#166691) #

This is a question again! The Rickey Henderson era is over. For two decades, no one even bothered to ask this one.

I wasn't around for the early part of these decades [well, I was, but evaluating lead-off hitters was not one of my concerns] and was wondering if Tim Raines ever "dethroned" Rickey, even for a short time, as the pre-emminent lead-off man?

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HippyGilmore - Thursday, April 26 2007 @ 08:52 PM EDT (#166693) #
Gotta go with Reyes, because I think Sizemore is slightly miscast as a leadoff man.
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Lee - Friday, April 27 2007 @ 12:35 PM EDT (#166717) #

And so the ability to simply get on base is magnified...

So far this season, Reyes and Ramirez have been the best.

If you want to go just by OBP, Reyes is OBPing .440 to Sizemore's .430; both are very high, and essentially meaningless since they are over only 20 games or so. Going by career OBP, Sizemore is way the heck out in front; even last year, when everyone was talking about how Reyes was finally coming around and getting on base like he should, he was 21 OBP points lower than Sizemore. Also, keep in mind that Sizemore plays in a vastly superior league.

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Jerry Crasnick on ESPN.com says these are (in order) the best leadoff hitters in MLB right now. In your opinion, who's the best? | 10 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.