Comments on: Bat Pujols Second

By: Liam

Liam — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:17:52 +0000

Regarding “it is a waste to bat your 2 best hitters back to back” : I’m convinced that bunching up your best hitters is the way to score runs. The trick is what to do when you have fewer than 9 great hitters to bunch up (assuming Micah Owings pitches), or two of them.

By: CFIC

CFIC — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 01:52:11 +0000

I rather enjoyed reading this, I wish Tony wouldn’t always bat Albert #3, because he moves every one else around so much, why not experiment with having Albert bat 2nd or at cleanup? my personal observations/gut feeling is that Albert misses out on a lot of opportunities batting third, my intuition tells me that there would either be more rbis with him batting cleanup, or he would have more PAs batting second, either way I would be fine with that (like you said, you can flipflop Albert and Lego with the 2 and 4). I really like Ludwick batting third, it just sounds weird having him bat leadoff imo. Also, I’ve always felt like it is a waste to bat your 2 best hitters back to back… so why put Pujols and Holliday at nearly the same place in the lineup. I think any of Yadi, Lopex, or Rasmus would work well batting 5th

By: Red in Chicago

Red in Chicago — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:32:52 +0000

I would like to see Molina bat second against lefties. A pretty convincing case was made for this in a thread a couple of months ago at VEB. His OBP is third on the team. Yes, he is a double-play threat. But he gets good jumps and is presumably good at running over the second baseman.

Against rights, to break up the lefthanded hitters, you could either have Ludwick, Molina or Freese bat second, depending upon Tony’s Magic 8 Ball.

Against lefts:

Lopez
Molina
Pujols
Holliday
Ludwick
Freese
Rasmus
Pitcher
Ryan

Against rights:

Schumaker
Ludwick
Pujols
Holliday
Rasmus
Freese
Molina
Ryan
Pitcher

By: Shane

Shane — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:12:28 +0000

I also voted for Lopez to bat second. I do like this theory though. I wish there was a way to test it without actually doing it in a real game.

By: Liam

Liam — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 06:45:12 +0000

Call me old fshioned, but I want Razzle in an RBI spot, so would flop him and Skip in your v. RHSP order.

I could be converted pretty easy. Nothing beats a game leading off HR, and I don’t think we’ve had one of those in at least four years.

By: mojowo11

mojowo11 — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:32:34 +0000

I voted to bat Felipe second, but I did this as if the assumed question were actually “Given that we already know that Pujols and Holliday are a lock at 3 and 4, where should Felipe bat?” Either way, I agree — it doesn’t really matter all that much.