BSN Exclusive: Daniel Murphy's definition of lineup protection is the opposite of yours

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In one of my first forays into the world of analytic baseball writing,  I examined the concept of lineup protection.

In challenging the notion that there was no such thing because it wasn’t easily measurable in all cases, I found that Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki both saw dramatically different kinds of pitches depending on who was hitting behind them.

When serving as protection for each other, the pair saw fastballs and strikes at a higher rate. When players like Michael McKenry were hitting behind them, they predictably saw a lot more offspeed and breaking stuff out of the zone.

This has always been the way that lineup protection has been understood. If the guy behind the big scary power threat is a lot less scary, the pitcher doesn’t have to worry as much about walking a runner in front of him, allowing him to dance around the edges of the strike zone to the more talented player.

“There’s the element, when the pitcher looks over into the on-deck circle, even though Nolan’s in the box, he realizes that he’ll have to face Murphy,” says Rockies manager Bud Black of a current iteration of this concept yielding some fantastic results.

After missing most of the first month of the season with a broken finger, Murphy was a bit slow getting back into the proverbial swing of things, but over his last 25 games has solidified himself as exactly the kind of anchor in the lineup the Rockies were expecting when they acquired him last offseason.

In those contests, he is slashing .347/.382/.547 with three home runs and 23 runs driven in.

“I feel like I’m seeing the ball pretty well,” he says.

Of course, knocking in 23 runs over 25 games means getting a lot of at-bats with runners on base.

“It’s been really nice hitting in that five-hole,” Murphy continued. “It’s tough to count the number of opportunities I’ve had in the first inning and that’s always nice. The pitcher is already kinda on the ropes. It’s always good to hit with traffic out there.”

So I asked Murphy if he considers himself lineup protection for the league’s premier third-baseman.

“No, I think Nolan protects me,” he responded.

I’ll admit, that stopped me in my tracks for a moment.

Having spent a great deal of time and thought on this subject, it had never occurred to me that we may have been thinking of lineup protection in a backward fashion all along.

“If you were to pitch around me, then I’m protecting Ian,” he went on to explain. “So, if Ian hits in the first inning with the bases loaded, where are you going to put him? As you can see today, Nolan got pitched around in the first inning, as well he should have because he’s really good. So I think the protection comes from the front, not the back.”

The 34-year-old with a career .298 batting average has forgotten more about the strategies and fundamentals of hitting than most people will ever know. Spending just a few moments with him is like getting a crash course in a doctorate program on hitting baseballs. And the biggest point, he says, is that everybody in the lineup is protecting everyone else and that is what has led to the extraordinary results.

“I do think we’re doing a really good job right now of grinding out pitches, of trying to win every single pitch, and it’s starting to stack on top of itself,” he says. “It stretches throughout the entire lineup.”

Since this was the first time I had ever heard lineup protection described this way, I was curious if Arenado was on board.

“At first, I didn’t understand it,” he said. “But we talked about it and it kinda made sense to me. I could see why he thinks like that. The last thing you want to do as a pitcher is have guys on base, especially early in games. There are certain times when you might work around a guy for a better matchup, but when Murphy says that, I think about whenever Story’s on base, or Dahl, I feel like they have to throw me a few more pitches over the plate because the last thing they want is man on first and second with one out or nobody out.”

This is why, Arenado claims, he is as relaxed at the plate as he ever has been.

The Rockies offense looks completely revamped from a year ago despite boasting a lot of the same personnel. Some of this has been due to the influence of new hitting coach Dave Magadan but a lot of credit also goes to the wily veteran who has been famous for being on the cutting edge of hitting philosophies, most notably leading the charge in the launch angle revolution.

“He’s super smart,” says Arenado of Murphy. “He breaks down every little thing and I think that’s what makes him so good. It’s so much fun to talk to him about the game. He goes over so many details that a lot of times I don’t even think about. But it’s interesting and it’s important to understand.”

What this whole conversation really serves to highlight, is that trying to ever nail down the game of baseball to its absolute exactness will forever be a fool’s errand.

There will always be some things in the game that can be measured with near perfection, and there will always be concepts far too fleeting and ambiguous and complex to be captured in one number.

But whether or not you believe it exists at all or just in one way, it appears that in Daniel Murphy, the Rockies may finally have found the perfect person to protect, or be protected by, the best third baseman of a generation.