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Tuesday, July 01, 2003

By Brian O'Neill, Post-Gazette Columnist

Baseball has been built on a mountain of statistics, but only with the arrival of the computer age has the stats geek thrived. Today is the first in an occasional series of columns looking at the Pirates through the eyes of a numbers junkie.

Hitters such as Pirates first baseman Randall Simon aren't supposed to be very good. The thinking fans' favorite batting stat is OPS -- on-base percentage plus slugging percentage -- and by that standard Simon is woeful.

As of Monday morning, Simon was 25th among all National League first basemen in OPS, and dead last among the 15 with least 165 at-bats. With all the plate discipline of a kid who has put his last quarter in a Whack-a-Mole game, Simon rarely takes a walk. He only has eight after 231 plate appearances. He also doesn't have a lot of pop for a guy in a power position. Simon's 19 extra-base hits have him tied for 14th among the league's first basemen.

So why is he seventh in this crowd with 40 RBIs?

There are countless variables in baseball, but here's the key one. Simon hits better with men on base.

"Clutch hitter" is no longer a very popular term. Forget what your grandfather told you about Tommy Henrich and the 1949 Yankees. Modern baseball thinkers such as Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland A's, don't want to hear about it. Batting is batting. Period.

But consider the number .343. That is what Simon is hitting this year with runners in scoring position. That also is what he has hit with two outs and runners in scoring position. That also is what he hit the three previous seasons with runners in scoring position. That is so cool.

His scoring-position average tops the Pirates, and among those 15 first basemen mentioned earlier, Simon is fourth behind Todd Helton (.413), Robert Fick (.364) and Fred McGriff (.351).

I thought I had an explanation for this: Simon hits a disproportionate number of grounders. (His ratio of groundouts to fly-ball outs is 1.75, which puts him eighth on the Pirates behind five pitchers and the ultralight-hitting Abraham Nunez and Rob Mackowiak.) A left-handed hitter, Simon has a better chance of hitting a grounder through the hole between first and second if the first baseman is holding a runner on.

But then why has Simon hit only .250 this year when there's only the runner on first? That's about the same as his .252 average when nobody is on.

It's only when the guy on first has company that Simon cooks. He's hitting .320 if runners are on first and second, .615 if runners are on first and third and .750 with the bases loaded. He's hitting .455 if there's a man on third with less than two outs.

Simon also has been more likely to hit for power with runners in scoring position, which doesn't have diddly to do with grounder placement. His .597 slugging percentage is second only to Matt Stairs' .613 in that situation. Five of Simon's seven home runs have come with men aboard. Four were three-run homers. (For comparison, only 24 of the Pirates' 58 other homers came with anyone on.)

Throw in the fact that Simon leads the Pirates in homers (2) and RBIs (8) in late-inning pressure situations, and we appear to be looking at a clutch hitter. His last hit was a 15th-inning solo homer that won the game June 20. It came with torn ligaments in his right hand. Simon has been on disabled list since.

Does all this timely hitting make up for Simon's other deficiencies? No, you'd rather have a first baseman who doesn't make outs so often and who hits more homers and doubles. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't appreciate what Simon can do.

The Pirates' team batting average is .258 and .258 with men in scoring position. When fans mutter "we really need a hit here," Simon has been better than almost anyone.