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Atlanta Braves: assessing the leadoff and cleanup lineup spots for 2019

By Clint Manry

ATLANTA, GA - AUGUST 28: Ender Inciarte #11 of the Atlanta Braves converses with Ronald Acuna Jr. #13 during a pitching change after failing to catch a two-run homer by Brandon Lowe #35 of the Tampa Bay Rays in the sixth inning at SunTrust Park on August 28, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
ATLANTA, GA - AUGUST 28: Ender Inciarte #11 of the Atlanta Braves converses with Ronald Acuna Jr. #13 during a pitching change after failing to catch a two-run homer by Brandon Lowe #35 of the Tampa Bay Rays in the sixth inning at SunTrust Park on August 28, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) /
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(Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) /

Lead-off Nominees

The beauty of the internet these days is that you can find data for everything! There’s this awesome site called Baseball Savant that tracks all sorts cool baseball data.

As we seen from the Beyond the Boxscore definition, speed was an important characteristic for a lead-off hitter.

Here are the top-10 fastest players (by sprint speed) on the most recent Braves’ roster:

  1. Ronald Acuna Jr    (29.6 ft/sec)
  2. Lane Adams          (29.5 ft/sec)
  3. Dansby Swanson (29.4 ft/sec)
  4. Peter Bourjos        (29.1 ft/sec)
  5. Ozzie Albies           (28.7 ft/sec)
  6. Charlie Culberson (28.4 ft/sec)
  7. Danny Santana     (28.2 ft/sec)
  8. Adam Duvall          (28.0 ft/sec)
  9. Ender Inciarte       (27.9 ft/sec)
  10. Preston Tucker     (27.1 ft/sec)

The top-4 are extremely close as you can see, but Lane Adams and Peter Bourjos are no longer with the Braves, so we can cross them out. Peter Bourjos is in the Los Angeles Angels’ organization, Danny Santana is in the Oakland Athletics’ organization and Preston Tucker is a free-agent at the moment.

This leaves us with Ronald Acuna Jr, Dansby Swanson and Ozzie Albies left in the top-five fastest players on the team. I think we all could have pretty much guessed this, or at least came close.

Now that we have our fastest guys, we need to move on to the next preferred requirement for a lead-off hitter – ability to get on base.

I’m going to use Fangraphs for this and look at the players who got on base the best (min.140 PA) with the Braves in 2018:

The players that are also in the top-5 in sprint speed will be in italics:

  1. Freddie Freeman (.388 OBP)
  2. Nick Markakis      (.366 OBP)
  3. Ronald Acuna Jr.  (.366 OBP)
  4. Johan Camargo    (.349 OBP)
  5. Tyler Flowers       (.341 OBP)
  6. Kurt Suzuki           (.332 OBP)
  7. Charlie Culberson (.326 OBP)
  8. Ender Inciarte       (.325 OBP)
  9. Ozzie Albies          (.305 OBP)
  10. Dansby Swanson (.304 OBP)

The Braves’ fastest player that gets on base most frequently is outfielder Ronald Acuna Jr.  He was actually tied with Nick Markakis for second-place in on-base percentage for the Braves, while also pacing the team in sprint speed.

I am not saying that these two aspects should be the end-all for deciding who should lead off innings for the Braves. This is just a small and simple exercise to get a better understanding of what the Braves have available.

However, Acuna showed some huge upside while batting in the lead-off spot in 2018. Take a look at his numbers, once again,  provided by Fangraphs:

  • 67 games
  • 301 PA
  • .328 BA
  • 19 HR
  • 1.042 OPS
  • 175 wRC+
  • 47.2 hard-hit%

I’m no expert, but I think Acuna would be fantastic as the lead-off hitter for the 2019 Atlanta Braves. He not only has experience there, but he also crushes the ball when leading off.

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