Ryan Braun named Baseball America ROY

[DesertCat]

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I wouldn't get too caught up in this, the batting order doesn't make that much difference. In fact, I think the most significant impact the BO is to get your better hitters more PAs, so having Young bat leadoff probably is better than having a worse hitter with a better OBP leadoff. There's value to getting the HR hitter more PAs overall.

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I know studies say that order doesn't matter much but my mind has trouble accepting this. Maybe I should read some of those studies so I can refute or accept their conclusion.

But either way, if you believe OBP = 3*SLG, or at least that OBP is much more important than SLG for scoring runs, CY was not even one of our top 5 hitters this year so he should bat 6th.

I would think an optimal lineup would be close to

Batter OBP/SLG
Orlando Hudson .376/.441
Conor Jackson .368/.467
Mark Reynolds .349/.495
Eric Byrnes .353/.460
Chris Young .295/.467

Of course next year it's reasonable to assume that CY's OBP will be close to .350, so you can start batting him higher. But not lead-off.

[mosdef]

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couldnt agree more, leadoff hitters shud have an obp of at least 350 imo.

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It doesn't work that way - you need to choose from among the players you have, you don't get to choose the players you want for each spot in the order. What if your only guy with .350 OBP is also the only guy with .500 slugging %s and you have an arbitrary "rule" that your leadoff guy must have an OBP of .350 and your cleanup hitter must have a .500 slugging?

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Same thing with jimmy rollins, his obp was only like 330-340 but he hits so many home runs, hed def be more effective further down the lineup.

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Why do you say this with no justification? If you replace him at the top of the order with someone with higher OBP and lower HR, you have:

- a net LOSS of expected HRs hit by the lineup; plus
- a net GAIN due to Rollins having (presumably) more opportunities to be a good hitter with runners on base

Observing the gain in the second bullet point without developing an argument that it exceeds the loss in the first bullet point doesn't allow to draw the conclusion you are drawing.

[mosdef]

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I know studies say that order doesn't matter much but my mind has trouble accepting this. Maybe I should read some of those studies so I can refute or accept their conclusion.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't make the mistake of exagerrating the conclusion - if you bat your worst hitters first and you best hitters last there is a pretty strong impact on the expected runs scored. When people say "batting order doesn't matter" what they mean is that the importance of having a "traditional" lead off hitter batting first, a "traditional" number 2 batting second, etc. is severely overrated and that you can shuffle everyone by a couple of spots in the order and it makes little difference. Batting order does "matter" when you go out of your way to give your worst hitters the most plate appearances, but the studies don't claim to deny that. They merely point out that having a 3 hour argument about whether Manny and Big Papi should go 3-4 or 4-3 is stupid.

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But either way, if you believe OBP = 3*SLG, or at least that OBP is much more important than SLG for scoring runs, CY was not even one of our top 5 hitters this year so he should bat 6th.

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I agree with this - you're catching the general idea that your best hitters should hit near the top.

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I would think an optimal lineup would be close to

Batter OBP/SLG
Orlando Hudson .376/.441
Conor Jackson .368/.467
Mark Reynolds .349/.495
Eric Byrnes .353/.460
Chris Young .295/.467

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Seems about right, but I also think you could shuffle those top 4 any which way and gain or lose 0.05 expected runs per game or something like that.

[Vyse]

nevermind that you also have to combine projection with actual performance -- mark reynolds won't put up those numbers next year and shouldn't be expected to continue to do so during the actual season, so why bat him 3rd.

[DesertCat]

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nevermind that you also have to combine projection with actual performance -- mark reynolds won't put up those numbers next year and shouldn't be expected to continue to do so during the actual season, so why bat him 3rd.

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If he can't hit 3rd next year, we are so screwed!!! No, seriously, we have a team with a lot of young guys who need to develop their game more to be strong contributers. We just need to give them more time to develop and find out who's a bust and who's a stud, and ignore the fluky playoff run we had this year that was at least two years pre-mature. Reynolds is probably the biggest candidate for a bust, he has poor plate discipline, and has been very lucky. But he is only 23, so no one can predict if he'll improve and start to "get it" or not.