Darren, I'm not sure how to get the splits, but here's a question: How has Ellsbury been as a lead-off hitter outside of the first inning? Wouldn't that test your hypothesis.

I'd give Pedroia time in that role. He had a June swoon last year also.

Some support for Darren's theory, i.e. looking for situations where Ellsbury is going to have the pitcher come after him:

Leading off an inning career OPS: .714 in 350 at bats
Bases loaded OPS: .495 in 30 at bats
Men on 1st and 2nd: .623

Career OPS with 0 outs: .681
Career OPS with 1 out: 807
Career OPS with 2 outs: 834

I don't know how that compares with the rest of the league, but that's pretty strong.

Dustin Pedroia's career OPS leading off an inning, as opposed to a game, is .810, which is just a few points shy of his career OPS.

Career OPS with the bases loaded is over 1000, first and 2nd is .763

His OPS is worst with 2 outs, and best with 1 out.

So he might not match up as well with Darren's thinking about him, but still is a nice contrast to Jacoby.

How has Ellsbury been as a lead-off hitter outside of the first inning? Wouldn't that test your hypothesis.

Pretty sure I got this right. BBRef gives splits for batting in the first spot in the order and for the at bat leading off a game so just subtract the latter from the former, right? Anyway;

Ellsbury - Leading Off Game: .280/.329/.373
Ellsbury - Batting First Other: .280/.334/.367

His OBP should be significantly worse than you have it, it's 280/305/393 to lead off the game. The 334 is right for the OBP in the latter. 30 points of OBP is a lot, and in this scenario has nothing to do with the psychological effects of leading off.

Aw hell, I grabbed the wrong slash stats from my spreadsheet, let's try that again!

Ellsbury - Leading Off Game: .280/.305/.393
Ellsbury - Batting First Other: .280/.334/.367

The numbers I used originally were his stats overall in the leadoff spot.

That's definitely interesting. I'd would want to see the baseline numbers for the rest of the league - starting pitchers naturally tire over the course of a game, and so early game hitting stats for individuals tend to be depressed, iirc. And we're not going to have a sample from which one can draw anything resembling statistically valid conclusions until at least another season has passed. So the decision's got to be made on other data. It's definitely something worth watching.

The big thing for Ellsbury this year is his K-rate. He's struck out 26 times in 300 PA, compared to 80 in 600 last year. At this rate, he should be able to hit .300 pretty easily, and if Ellsbury's hitting .300, he's got more than enough secondary skills to be an asset in center field.

2009 AL Leading off Game: .264/.331/.387
2009 AL Batting First Other: .283/.351/.428

Hopefully I didn't butcher it this time.

2009 AL Leading off Game: .264/.331/.387
2009 AL Batting First Other: .283/.351/.428

Well, there goes that beautiful theory. Ellsbury's no different from anyone else. (or, better, if Ellsbury's different from other players in his relative inability to bat leadoff, it hasn't showed up in his statistics in a notable way.)

Those are two different groups of hitters. Leadoff hitters tend to be speedy slap hitters, no?

I think the "batting first other" group is guys in the leadoff slot in the lineup batting in innings other than the first.

I didn't do the math, but eyeballing B-Ref's splits page, it looks right. 331/387 for leading off the game, and 349/419 for leadoff hitters - if you subtract group A from group B, you should get something that looks like "AL Batting First Other".

EDIT: If anything, the OBP looks low for "batting first other".

From that page, it looks like it's just for the first AB of the game ("leading off game"). But maybe I'm misreading that too.

And hey, get over to the chatter.