How Important Is Batting Order? Sabermetrics Glossary for Fantasy Baseball (2025)

Welcome RotoBallers to our overview of batting order. This article is a deeper dive into batting order, and is part of our ongoing series "Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball."

In this article, we'll quantify the differences between lineup spots for fantasy purposes. Along the way, we'll clearly and concisely answer questions like "How many plate appearances will Player X lose if he's demoted from second to fifth?" and "What is the best lineup spot for RBI?"

You can find our entire sabermetrics glossary, which includes links to many other sabermetric stats as part of this series. Each stat deep dive will be released over the next few days. Stay tuned!

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How Important Is Batting Order? Sabermetrics Glossary

You may wonder why there aren't any advanced stats for predicting counting stats like runs and RBI. The answer is simple: modern sabermetrics reject the idea of a "clutch RBI guy" and, therefore, don't bother inventing predictive metrics for it. Runs and RBI are team-dependent stats and are unhelpful in ascertaining a given player's real value.

That might work for statheads, but fantasy managers frequently see 40 percent or more of a player's value tied to his RBI and run totals. We have to care about them. Drafting hitters from strong offenses can help, but as you'll see, an even bigger advantage can be found by looking at a player's slot in the batting order.

Don't believe it? Here is a closer look at how to analyze a batter's lineup slot for fantasy purposes.

Lineup Slot & Counting Stats

In the table below, each batting order slot's plate appearances, runs, and RBI are presented from the 2024 season. The final number is simply R + RBI, an approximate measure of that slot's overall value to a fantasy team.

Each batting order slot loses around 500 PA compared to the slot before it. If we divide this total by the 30 current MLB clubs, we get a difference of around 17 PA between consecutive hitters on one team. That may seem insignificant, but it compounds. For example, there is an average of 34 PA separating a team's leadoff man from the three-hitter.

Counting stats like RBI requires an opportunity to accumulate, and hitters earlier in the batting order have more opportunities.

RBI are highest from the cleanup spot and trend downward in both directions. Leadoff hitters only get more RBI than the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth spots despite the largest PA total. This is because they never have runners on base for their first PA and need to rely on the weaker eighth and ninth hitters to get on in front of them after that.

Runs peak at the leadoff slot and decrease from there. This decrease is not linear, as only 110 runs separate fourth and fifth while third and fourth are separated by 254. The largest run fluctuations vary from year to year, so the difference has no predictive value. For runs, fantasy managers want to stick to the early batting order slots where teams cluster their best hitters.

Finally, the R+RBI column refutes the idea that a team's heart of the order is 3-4-5. It's actually 2-3-4, the only lineup slots to eclipse 5,100 R+RBI. The first slot is great for runs scored, and the fifth spot offers a respectable 4,636 R+RBI. After that, production falls off a cliff even among strong offenses.

This means that a player in the middle of a weaker offense is likely to outproduce a player on the periphery of a stronger one. Platoons, injuries, and lineup shuffling can change these numbers, but in general, the earlier the slot, the better for fantasy purposes.

The Practical Impact of Batting Order

Most would agree that Jackson Chourio had an extremely successful 2024 season for the Brew Crew. He posted a triple slash line of .275/.327/.464 with 21 HR, but his 79 RBI were relatively low for a strong hitter with pop.

Was he a terrible clutch hitter? Nope, his .302 average with runners in scoring position was better than his overall average. He didn't wilt under the pressure.

Was Milwaukee a poor offensive team? Negative, the team finished sixth in MLB with 777 total runs. That's a solid offense that shouldn't have adversely affected Chourio's RBI totals.

Indeed, the answer lies in Chourio's batting order slot. 343 of his 573 PAs came hitting first, eighth, or ninth, forcing him to rely on the club's less productive hitters to set up RBI opportunities. Chourio is projected to leadoff in 2025, so his RBI will likely lag behind what we might expect again.

Conclusion

To conclude, counting stat production depends on opportunity and team support. Players that bat early in the order tend to get more of both, though leadoff men give up RBI potential for increased runs scored. If you want to learn more about applying sabermetrics within a fantasy context, keep reading our series!