What is your lineup prototype?

[Dojji]

This is not a thread about the Red Sox lineup. This is a thread about your personal philosophy on how a lineup should be constructed.

 

I'll go first to provide an example.

 

1: Your best combination of speed and OBP

2: Contact hitter with useful speed, to move the 1 hitter and set the table himself

3: Complete hitter. This is where the 5 tool guy goes if you have one, if you don't, your best offensive player goes here (not necessarily your best power hitter -- there's a distinction. For example, I would bat Youkilis over Gonzalez here). I also like the idea of putting a doubles hitter here over a pure slugger, especially if you have real speed in the 1 and 2 holes

4: Best power hitter

5: Best hitter who hits on the opposite side of the plate from 4. If you have Gonzo in 4, #5 should probably be one of your righties.

6-7: Offensive misfits. Ideally you want power here, but these are basically going to be the guys with something to give offensively, but not enough, or not in the right way, to hit higher, or else they could fill roles that are already being filled by another player.

8-9: Defensive players, rookies, replacements and projects. Every lineup has 'em occasionally, 8-9 are the spots in the lineup where they wind up. If you don't have to hit them regularly above 8th, then you're doing pretty well even if one regularly fills your 9 hole..

[ORS]

One without Yamaico Navarro, Che-Hsuan Lin (sp?), Nick Green, or Daniel Nava in it.

 

EDIT: Seriously, though. Guys who can get on without very good power at the top, followed by guys with power who can get on, followed by guys with power who can't get on, followed by those middle of the field types who can do neither.

[DirtDog]

I don't understand the difference whether a guy is a 5 tool player or not in the #3 position. I don't think defense really plays a factor where a guy bats. As long as you put the guy with the best OPS in the #3 spot you're all set.

[BSN07]

From my personal experience of building a lineup for my team I found that adding length to the lineup worked best overall for our team. Our coach in the previous seasons had basically taken the best 5 hitters and stacking them at the top of the lineup. We where one of the better offense's in the class, but our bottom got exposed at key points during the game and it haunted us often. I took over the team and decided to re work it all. Well almost all, our 3-4 hitters stayed the same.

 

Our LO hitter from previous years struck out too much for my liking. SO I replaced him with a high OBP player that lead the team in Doubles. Our #2 hitter was one of the better contact guys on the team, and hands down best bunter. 3-4 are our mashers. #5 was the former LO hitter. #6 good contact hitter. #7 our former #5 hitter. #8 was probably our weakest hitter(he had his best year this year though) and #9 was our rookie. So what I did was basically stack 2 lineups on top of each other. We out scored the 2nd place by 61 runs and added 44 runs total to our teams total from the previous season. Teams absolutely hated playing us. Pitchers hated it. I'm having trouble remembering a game that after we won the other team's coach or pitcher would come over and have a chat after the game and tell us it was miserable playing us. The Pitchers bitched about never to seemingly get a break. We chewed pitchers up and spit them out all year. Needless to say after we won the Championship, no team was sorry to see us leave the class and head to the next one up lol

 

Just so no one call BS http://www.knbsb.nl/la/overview.php?LevelID=115&CompID=1132&Full=1

 

We had 2 L's last year. A hiccup early on. And the last game of the season. We had already won the Championship and let our young guys play it out while the rest of us got drunk in the dug out lol

[Dojji]

I don't understand the difference whether a guy is a 5 tool player or not in the #3 position. I don't think defense really plays a factor where a guy bats. As long as you put the guy with the best OPS in the #3 spot you're all set.

 

I want a 5 tooler in the #3 position because that's a combination of power and setting the table for the cleanup guy with another runner when the power fails to come through. People underestimate the 3 hole as a speed position.

[ORS]

Of the 5 tools, only 3 are offensive. Here are the 5 tools:

 

Hitting for average

Hitting for power

Speed (on the bases, and in the field)

Throwing ability

Fielding ability

[Dojji]

So it should be obvious those 3 tools is what I was talking about here. Since we're, you know, talking about lineup construction.

 

God people. Give you any excuse and you'll out-picky-pointless-detail an entire bureaucratic department.

[Sox]

1- OBP & speed

2- very good at moving the runners over & a doubles machine

3- power & average

4- the homeruns leader of the team

5- a power guy who doesn't have as much power as the 4th, but higher OBP for the players behind him

6- good power, not that good average

7-8- leftovers

9- a #1 type player, but not as fast or as good as the #1 player.

 

of course if the lineup is very deep (Red Sox 2011), three table setters & then three sluggers would be even better, but there aren't that many teams with a very deep lineup.

[Divinity]

1. Best on base batter, generally fastest as well

2. Best at moving the lead off runner over. Typically your best bunter.

3. Best overall hitter

4. Best power hitter.

5. 2nd best power hitter.

6. A lead off type hitter.

7. A number 2 type of hitter or someone in a slump that needs to rebuild their confidence.

8. Could be the weakest hitter or another spot to put someone that needs building confidence.

9. Traditionally has been the weakest batter in the batting order (i.e. good defensive player but not a great hitter), but you want someone who's not too slow to avoid slowing up the people following them in the batting order (the top of the order where you have your fastest runners).

[ORS]

I love the confidence building. Baseball for therapists, lol.

 

Guys hit 7/8 because they aren't as good as guys that hit 1-6, not because they lack confidence.

[SCM33]

My prototype applies to a team with the cash to spend like the BOSOX.

#1, a guy who can get on base. Speed is nice, but the leadoff hitter leads off the game by getting on base and setting the table for the meat of the lineup. Simple as that. A leadoff hitter is only the leadoff hitter ONCE a game usually.

#2, a guy who is the second best hitter on the team. Usually a guy who does not have the power to hit #3.

#3, A hitter who is the best overall hitter on the team, power included.

#4, The teams slugger. A guy who hits tape measure shots and has better OB% skills than the hitters below him.

#5, A player who is a cleanup hitter for most teams. Unfortunately, the redsox have the resources to spend on a top tier cleanup hitter, so the #5 hitter is really a #4B

#6, #7 are a mix and match of power, contact and speed. These players are interchangeable depending on lineup strength and mathcups.

#8, is the guy who is the worst offensive player in your lineup.

#9, a player who could be a leadoff hitter, but lacks the OB% skills to hit leadoff. I would prefer this player to have a nice combination of speed and OB skills to turn over the lineup. The days of the worst offensive player hitting 9 are dead IMO, not when you have the resources the RedSox do.