Yomiuri Shimbun, Tokyo

By Shuko Tsuji

November 1, 2018 – The last baseball game played this year ended with Ogai Kato hitting a lazy popup to short left field.  He was the 37th batter to walk up to the plate that game for the Evas.  The tying run was on second base, and the go ahead run on first.  There are always many different reasons given as to why a team wins or loses a game or series.  Last among those reasons, if even talked about at all, is batters faced.  At first glance, batters faced is most obviously a result of bad pitching and poor fielding.  The Steel Dragons led the league with an ERA of 6.15, so it is not a surprise to find them also in the lead with 6044 batters faced for the season.  However, upon a more careful observation, it is found that batters faced could very well be a strong key to winning more ball games instead of just an effect of bad pitching.

When a team faces 36 or less batters, their winning percentage for the 2018 LRS season is 78.9%.  The significance of that number is that the opposing team only made it through their lineup 4 times, at a maximum.  When the 37th batter walks up to the plate, that marks the leadoff batter hitting for the 5th time.  The winning percentage at that point is still 70.1%.  For the 38th batter, it lowers to 64.1%.  The number three hitter is the turning point at 52.9%.  If it comes to 40 batters faced, the cleanup hitter, the chances of still winning drop significantly to 36.6%.  These numbers continue to drop and if the opposing team gets through their lineup 5 times, winning percentage drops to below 10%.

What do these numbers actually mean though?  For one thing, it proves that batters faced is an important statistic, and it is directly linked to winning percentage.  It is not a coincidence that winning percentages start to fall dramatically at the top of the lineup, and the two sharpest drops are when the opposing team’s number 3 and 4 hitters are batting for the fifth time.  They are the typically the best hitters on the team, afterall.  Following that line of thought, what would happen if teams actually used this knowledge?  Mitsunari Suzuki, the Evas cleanup hitter was sitting on the bench with all of his 40 home runs and 1.024 OPS watching helplessly as Ogai Kato hit a little popout to left field.  While Kato is no slouch at the plate, one can only wonder what would have happened had Suzuki batted leadoff that night.  The leadoff hitter rarely leads off an inning after the first anyway.

There are also many other ways to think of this, but they all bring us back to facing less batters while pitching, and bringing more batters to the plate while hitting.  Base on balls, whether or not intentionally effect batters faced, as does defense, errors, double plays and almost every other facet of the game.

There is one very important caveat that is called the ludicrous Lupin exception.  They did an amazing job of not walking opposing hitters during the season, coming in second behind the Evas by only ten walks, the next closest team was 45 walks away, which did contribute to Lupin finishing with the fewest batters faced at 5375, eight fewer than the Celestial Warriors, but finished the season with only 66 wins.  They allowed the fourth most runs, had the third worst OAVG and ranked fifth in HR allowed.  Forcing bad pitchers to face hitters that they should have walked or pitched around only appears to trade walks for home runs and hits, thereby not helping your winning percentage very much if at all.

In conclusion, there is definitely some wisdom to be had in teams trying to reduce the number of batters that they face.  Improving a key defensive position or intentionally walking fewer batters may squeak out an extra win or two, especially in the BBG, where teams often walk the eighth batter to get to the pitcher.  Also, it is important to note that the difference between the third and fourth batter coming to the plate for the fifth time is 16.3%.  Would teams fare better if they move that same hitter to the number two spot, where the home team still has a 64.1% chance of winning?  The best batter on a team isn’t doing much good if he is on deck or in the hole when the final out of the game is recorded, just ask the Evas.  Or take a page from the history books.  Across the seas, long before the old MLB died, there was once a batter named Mickey Mantle.  If you haven’t heard of him, he hit 536 home runs and had a career OPS of .977 over 18 seasons.  He batted leadoff.  Lastly, as Lupin proves, simply facing less batters does not automatically net more wins, but with a good pitching staff, reducing the numbers of batters faced will help a team win more games.

Disclaimer on data gathering:  For the entire 2018 regular season, the amount of batters faced for the home team in the LRS was recorded, along with with whether or not that game yielded a win.  Extra-inning games and shortened games were not included, nor was the visiting team statistics  in order to ensure that there were always a full 9 innings of batters faced.