I haven't done a Numbers Daily in a while (mainly because it generally relates to recently played games) so today I decided to dig up some numbers.
Ninth inning drama. Who can win it? Who do you want AB? Thats what I was looking for today, I looked at 9 current Mets and 2007 statistics in the 9th inning to see how they hit in those late innings. (Note: I could not separate data from close games in the ninth inning to blowouts) The percentages at the end are BA then OBP.
Reyes: 51 AB, 19 H, 2 2B, 2 HR, 8 RBI, .373, .448
Wright: 45 AB, 14 H, 3 2B, 2 HR, 12 RBI, .311, .411
Delgado: 41 AB, 11 H, 2 2B, 1 HR, 11 RBI, .268, .333
Beltran: 45 AB, 16 H, 4 2B, 2 HR, 12 RBI, .356, .423
Alou: 27 AB, 7 H, 1 2B, 0 HR, 5 RBI, .259, .259
Schneider: 36 AB, 7 H, 2 2B, 0 HR, 1 RBI, .194, .293
Castillo: 45 AB, 15 H, 0 2B, 0 HR, 3 RBI, .333, .348
Church: 36 AB, 8 H, 4 2B, 1 HR, 4 RBI, .222, .300
Chavez: 16 AB, 5 H, 1 2B, 0 HR, 4 RBI, .313, .476
That is a nice, dense block of numbers, so lets break them down. In terms of base runners, no surprise here, Chavez and Reyes are your men. They both have an OBP over .440. Also interesting is that Reyes hit 2 of his 12 homers in the ninth inning. Which is slightly more than he should have on average. (Same can be said about his RBI's)
In terms of who you want when runners are on base, you have look at the big men of the lineup. Wright, Beltran and even Delgado each had over 10 RBI's in the ninth inning. It is nice to know that when push comes to shove you can rely on your big bats in the lineup to get the job done. Granted with the .268 average in the ninth inning, Delgado would be #3 on that list of three I would want with the game on the line.
This leads me to my next point. Reyes, Chavez, Delgado, Beltran, and Castillo all had BA's in the ninth inning that was above their actually BA. (With Wright, he hit .311 in the ninth which is below his season of .325, but if your hitting above .300, then you are doing something right anyway).
