Protection for Prince?

[pmg4]

I wonder: is there statistical evidence that McGehee provides protection for Prince, getting Fielder more good pitches?

 

I was reading another thread when protection came up as a quantifiable stat. Does the middleman in a murderers row such as Braun-Fielder-McGehee both provide and receive protection?

[rluzinski]

i haven't read a study in awhile but lack of protection gets you a few more walks. That's probably not a bad thing though. That's the thing people don't appreciate.

 

if anyone can dig up the relevant studies, though...

[Baldkin]

http://www.baseball1.com/bb-data/grabiner/protstudy.html

[quote]The players hit slightly better when *not* protected.... ...The overall difference is thus three points of BA and 26 points of SLG (not 25 because of rounding).[/quote]And from "The Book" [url=http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/pitching-around-batters]http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/pitching-around-batters[/url] [quote]In terms of an alternative to intentional walks, pitching around a hitter accomplishes very little, as it merely increases the ratio of walks to non-walks without significantly affecting how well the hitter performs if he isn't actually walked. In other words, if you'd rather have a walk than whatever the hitter normally does if he doesn't walk, then you should walk him. If you'd rather have what he normally does, you should pitch to him normally.[/quote]

I just posted in the trade Hart threat.