Nas wrote:
Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
Nas wrote:
Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
Nas wrote:
Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
It's a "cute" manager move. Like intentionally walking a guy with the bases loaded. Even if it works out, it was idiotic. But the guy who did it gets talked about.
The manager should put the nine best guys on the field ordered from best hitter to worst and then get the fuck out of the way.
I disagree.
Could you expound on that?
If your 7-9 hitters are mediocre or suck, you're essentially screwing your #6 hitter by not providing them with any protection. You have to sandwich at least 1 mediocre hitter between your good hitters to maximize the effectiveness of your lineup. If not, you only have a lineup that is good 1-5.
The numbers show that the concept of "protection" is a myth. I get that it's conventional wisdom that you have a couple popgun hitters at the top and then the big bats drive them in. But realistically, how many times does that occur during the season?
I know this much. When I look at my team's stats at the end of the season and Tim Anderson has more at-bats than Luis Robert and Jose Abreu, I did something wrong. And my team almost certainly scored less runs that it would have if it were the other way around.
Putting your big bats first hasn't exactly worked either. Kind of like making a closer a setup guy. There is something mentally that goes on that makes them less effective.
Nobody's ever really done it though. I know Bill James has agitated for it in Boston, but up until now it's been a bridge too far. Just like using your best reliever in the highest leverage situations, e.g. seventh inning in a 2-1 game with one out and two on, rather than holding him for the last three outs of the game.
Baseball is a traditional hidebound game. Radical changes aren't readily accepted.
Anyway, an old school guy like LaRussa would argue that the lineup is constructed to win today's game rather than score the most runs over the course of the season. I don't disagree with that theoretically. What I don't believe is that any manager is smart enough to figure out which specific lineup is going to be best on a specific day and so just getting the best hitters the most possible at-bats seems to be the best idea.
I would have batted Frank Thomas leadoff. But the 60 or however many homers he would have hit leading off games would have been lamented because of the theory that Tim Raines and/or Ray Durham could have been on base. That doesn't take into account all the extra hits/homers Thomas would have gotten over the course of his career when he came up that extra time in a game that only occurred because he batted two spots higher in the order. And some of those hits would have been meaningful.