2022 Ongoing Lineup Thread

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, ShoelesJoe said:

When the facts on the ground change good managers change their thinking accordingly. If your cleanup hitter who led the team in HRs a year ago sucks eggs this year then you move him out of that spot until he gets his head on straight. If your #9 punch ‘n judi SS with a career .600 OPS puts up a .900 OPS for a month you move him up in the lineup until he cools off. 
 

This is not rocket science. Good managers arrange lineups so that their best hitters get more ABs and their worst hitters fewer. Hyde isn’t doing that because he sees Mountcastle and Mateo as who they were last year rather than who they are right now. 
 

If the Orioles make the playoffs it will be by the hairs of their chinny chin chins. We need every game, and Hyde’s lineup management is likely going to cost us games we can’t afford to lose. 

But again, you are assuming that if you put him in a diferent position, that he will succeed the same.

Maybe he will..maybe he won’t.  We don’t know.  You can argue that you can try it but the argument is as good, if not better, to not mess with it.

Either way, it’s a poor reason to bash the manager because he’s leaving a former poor offensive player in a spot where he is thriving.

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, Sports Guy said:

But again, you are assuming that if you put him in a diferent position, that he will succeed the same.

Maybe he will..maybe he won’t.  We don’t know.  You can argue that you can try it but the argument is as good, if not better, to not mess with it.

Either way, it’s a poor reason to bash the manager because he’s leaving a former poor offensive player in a spot where he is thriving.

If you would like to provide evidence that where a hitter hits in the order tangibly changes his performance I'd like to see it.

 

[Sports Guy]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

If you would like to provide evidence that where a hitter hits in the order tangibly changes his performance I'd like to see it.

 

I’m good.  

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I’m good.  

Right.

So in the absence of evidence we should not assume an effect.

Right?

[Aristotelian]

5 minutes ago, ShoelesJoe said:

 

If the Orioles make the playoffs it will be by the hairs of their chinny chin chins. We need every game, and Hyde’s lineup management is likely going to cost us games we can’t afford to lose. 

It is actually incredibly unlikely that lineup management will make a major difference. Mateo got a huge hit last night. Maybe we lose the game if that's Mountcastle. These things even out over 1000's of ABs. Especially when you have a lineup that consists of basically 1-9 all hitting .240-.260 and .700-.750. 

[Sports Guy]

10 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Right.

So in the absence of evidence we should not assume an effect.

Right?

You can assume anything you want.  It’s a free country.

[Frobby]

The gist of this entire thread for many posters seems to be:

1.  Play your nine best players everyday and never give any of them a day off, because we’re in a playoff race, dammit!

2.  The batting order should be micromanaged on a daily basis depending on who’s been hot or cold for the last 1-4 weeks.

I don’t agree with either point, and it’s been shown that batting order has a minimal impact on offensive production in any event.  

[NCRaven]

4 hours ago, Frobby said:

The gist of this entire thread for many posters seems to be:

1.  Play your nine best players everyday and never give any of them a day off, because we’re in a playoff race, dammit!

2.  The batting order should be micromanaged on a daily basis depending on who’s been hot or cold for the last 1-4 weeks.

I don’t agree with either point, and it’s been shown that batting order has a minimal impact on offensive production in any event.  

Good points.  It’s also true that Hyde can only play the roster that he has at that point in time.  His bench isn’t very good, but it’s the only bench he has.

[Aristotelian]

4 hours ago, Frobby said:

The gist of this entire thread for many posters seems to be:

1.  Play your nine best players everyday and never give any of them a day off, because we’re in a playoff race, dammit!

2.  The batting order should be micromanaged on a daily basis depending on who’s been hot or cold for the last 1-4 weeks.

I don’t agree with either point, and it’s been shown that batting order has a minimal impact on offensive production in any event.  

Hyde really should make his 1-9 based on OPS in the previous game. For example, based on last night's game, Stowers and Mountcastle go to the bench due to going 0 for 4. The Tuesday lineup is 1. Santander RF 2. Mateo SS 3. Urias 3B 4. Rutschman C 5. Odor 2B 6. Hays LF 7. MullinsCF 8. McKenna DH 9. Nevin 1B. If anyone goes 0-for tonight, Chirinos is the next man up. 

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Aristotelian said:

Hyde really should make his 1-9 based on OPS in the previous game. For example, based on last night's game, Stowers and Mountcastle go to the bench due to going 0 for 4. The Tuesday lineup is 1. Santander RF 2. Mateo SS 3. Urias 3B 4. Rutschman C 5. Odor 2B 6. Hays LF 7. MullinsCF 8. McKenna DH 9. Nevin 1B. If anyone goes 0-for tonight, Chirinos is the next man up. 

Half the posters will probably think you’re serious. 

[ShoelesJoe]

12 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

But again, you are assuming that if you put him in a diferent position, that he will succeed the same.

Maybe he will..maybe he won’t.  We don’t know.  You can argue that you can try it but the argument is as good, if not better, to not mess with it.

Either way, it’s a poor reason to bash the manager because he’s leaving a former poor offensive player in a spot where he is thriving.

When Rutschman was first promoted Hyde had him batting 6th every night. 40 games later Adley was finally starting to hit, and BANG he's then moved up to the #2 spot in the order. Why would Hyde do that? Rutschman was clearly succeeding in the 6th spot so why fix what aint broke? Isn't it obvious that a hitter with Adley's skills helps his team more when he's batting near the top of the lineup then when he's near the bottom? Shouldn't it be just as obvious that a guy who's been putting up a .900+ OPS for the last 40 games helps his team more by hitting in the middle of the order (where he's more likely to come up with  men on base) than batting 8th or 9th every night? 

No, we don't know what Mateo will do if he's moved down to the 3/4/5 spots in the lineup, just as Hyde didn't know what Rutschman would do in the #2 spot when he moved him there after the ASB. Nobody has a crystal ball in this game. But what you can do is see what's happening now, and what's happened over the last month or two. If that was good enough to move Rutschman to where he is now, then it should be good enough to move Mateo as well. 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

7 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

Hyde really should make his 1-9 based on OPS in the previous game. For example, based on last night's game, Stowers and Mountcastle go to the bench due to going 0 for 4. The Tuesday lineup is 1. Santander RF 2. Mateo SS 3. Urias 3B 4. Rutschman C 5. Odor 2B 6. Hays LF 7. MullinsCF 8. McKenna DH 9. Nevin 1B. If anyone goes 0-for tonight, Chirinos is the next man up. 

 

[DirtyBird]

Let's Go!

CF- Mullins (L)
C- Adley (S)
DH- Santander (S)
1B- Mountcastle (R)
RF- Vavra (L)
3B- Henderson (L)
2B- Odor (L)
LF- Stowers (L)
SS- Mateo (R)
 

[DrungoHazewood]

10 hours ago, ShoelesJoe said:

When Rutschman was first promoted Hyde had him batting 6th every night. 40 games later Adley was finally starting to hit, and BANG he's then moved up to the #2 spot in the order. Why would Hyde do that? Rutschman was clearly succeeding in the 6th spot so why fix what aint broke? Isn't it obvious that a hitter with Adley's skills helps his team more when he's batting near the top of the lineup then when he's near the bottom? Shouldn't it be just as obvious that a guy who's been putting up a .900+ OPS for the last 40 games helps his team more by hitting in the middle of the order (where he's more likely to come up with  men on base) than batting 8th or 9th every night? 

No, we don't know what Mateo will do if he's moved down to the 3/4/5 spots in the lineup, just as Hyde didn't know what Rutschman would do in the #2 spot when he moved him there after the ASB. Nobody has a crystal ball in this game. But what you can do is see what's happening now, and what's happened over the last month or two. If that was good enough to move Rutschman to where he is now, then it should be good enough to move Mateo as well. 

Moving players around in the batting order is like taking homeopathic medicines, you know the ones that are like a drop of some obscure plant oil in ten gallons of water? It's not really hurting anything and some people really believe in it even if there's zero evidence it does anything.  But sometimes the placebo effect works, so why not?

No exaggeration whatsoever, if you bat your worst hitter first and your second worst third and so on, that'll cost the team 10 or 20 runs over 162 games.  You need an electron microscope to tell the practical difference between Rutschman batting 2nd and 5th.

Here's some math to support this.  Let's say you have Player A, and he leads off every day and gets 730 PAs. He creates 125 runs, or 0.17 per PA.  Player B is a defense-first shortstop who bats 9th.  He gets 600 PAs, as the difference between the #1 and #9 slots is about 130 PA/season.  He creates just 50 runs, or 0.08 per PA.  What happens when we swap them in the order?  Player B gets 730 PAs and creates 58 runs. Player A, stuck in the nine hole gets just 600 PAs and creates 102 runs.  The difference between the two scenarios is 14 or 15 runs over the full year.  That's the impact of a nonsensically extreme lineup choice, 14 or 15 runs over a full year.  Or a run every 11 games, maybe 2-3 runs a month.

Edited August 23, 2022 by DrungoHazewood

[DrungoHazewood]

I was trying to think of a team that cost itself the most runs with lineup construction, and the first thing that came to mind was one of the early 80s Pirates teams with Omar "The Outmaker" Moreno.  In 1982 he was the Pirates' everyday leadoff hitter despite hitting .245/.292/.315.  He got nearly 700 PAs from the leadoff spot with an overall OPS+ of 68, by far the worst on the team.  He stole 60 bases but was caught a league-leading 26 times.  He made 535 outs, which is 9th all-time. 1st is the 1980 version of Omar Moreno with 560.  535 outs is the equivalent of all the outs in 19.8 games.

The Pirates finished in 4th place, eight games out of first.  And probably cost themselves 10 or 15 runs just through poor lineup construction.