Throughout many games this season, you would hear Steve Berthiaume and Bob Brenly state that when Jon Jay gets on base, the Dbacks win. While there was certainly some truth to this, this could likely be said about anyone at the top of the lineup. When leadoff batters get on base, teams have a better chance to score runs and therefore win games. Unfortunately, Dbacks leadoff hitters and even #2 hitters failed the team. The top two spots in the lineup are why the offense sputtered for much of the season.

This the production the Dbacks got from these two spots in the batting order compared to the rest of baseball:

Average OBP OPS BB% .264 .332 .760 7.9% 13th 16th 14th 20th

This is essentially league average production, but also does not tell the entire story. At one point in the season, Paul Goldschmidt was given consistent plate appearances in the 2 spot in the batting order. While in the 2 spot, he had a 1.104 OPS over 220 PA’s. If you take away his production, the numbers get real ugly:

Average OBP OPS BB% .250 .315 .702 6.3%



Top of the lineup hitters are supposed to get on base so the big bats in the middle of the lineup can drive in runs. Unfortunately, the big bats just never had people on base to drive them in. Dbacks #3 and #4 hitters ranked 28th in PA’s with runners in scoring position. This is unfortunate because the Dbacks #3 and #4 hitters (Goldschmidt, Peralta, and Pollock combined for over 70% of the PA’s in these two spots) were actually very productive this year.

Average OBP SLG% OPS .270 .348 .491 .839 9th 7th 5th 6th

Guys like Goldschmidt, Peralta, and Pollock can only do so much in terms of actual run production. They need batters to be on base, so they can drive them in. The top of the lineup just was not getting on base or getting into scoring position. Among all major league hitters, Paul Goldschmidt was 57th in PA’s with runners in scoring position. He was 87th in AB’s and was not even first on the Dbacks.

Anyone know who led the team in at bats with runners in scoring position? Ketel Marte did. Yes, the same Marte who hit 6th or 7th in more than half of his plate appearances. The same Marte who had a solid, but not spectacular OPS of .768 this season. Is he really the player you want taking those kinds of AB’s? Of course not.

Paul Goldschmidt actually led in PA’s by 5 over Marte, but also had a runner reach scoring position in 16 more games than Marte did. So Marte had a higher rate of PA’s than Goldschmidt on a per game basis. Nick Ahmed also had a higher rate than Goldschmidt. In fact, the Dbacks #6 and #7 hitters had more PA’s with runners in scoring position than the #3 and #4 hitters.

How is a team supposed to score runs when its worst hitters are getting a good portion of the PA’s with runners in scoring position? It’s not. The Dbacks offense was just strange and backwards. In the end, its lack of top of the lineup production was the main driving force for the season long struggles and inconsistencies.