Dojji

No, there isn't a best way, there's an ideal way, there's a difference. The ideal way presumes that every event and even every team's baseball season conforms to average numbers, and we all know it doesn't, you should know Kimmi, you've argued yourself redfaced with a700 over this very point all winter. If the ideal way in theory isn't demonstrably sufficiently better than the conentional way to prompt adoption among the minds of the 30 teams of leaders who stake their paychecks on this game and whose job it is to secure the best possible advantage for their team, then there must be some disadvantages, real or perceived, to pursuing the theoretical ideal lineup, and in that case any way in which it might be meaningfully termed "best" is irrelevant, academic at best, pedantic at worst

With 3-4 different sucking chest wounds in the lineup in 78 it really wouldn't have mattered very much where Lynn hit.

Alcides Escobar isn't really an exception. They led off with Escobar because their good OBP hitters were also their leading run producers and Ned Yost is a bit of a traditionalist. The Royals made a lot of brilliant decisions with their roster last year but leading off with Escobar is, let's just say it, not one of them. I actually think they had him leading off mostly because that way their worst hitter wasn't going to bat with men on base.

Except that for the most part your best hitters, period, are usually your best singles and doubles hitters. What having fast guys in the 1-2 slots does is feed the #3 and #4, who should be your top hitters in most categories, a few extra runs as they can take that extra base. You put them there because your 3-4 hitters are usually among your better hitters for average as well as power. The all or nothing guys need to be hitting lower in the order than 3 or 4 if you want to have a strong balanced lineup

Oh I'm not saying baby him. 23 isn't that young. Just remember that he's still a bit inexperienced and don't expect the moon and stars. I think he might have to have a couple corrections before he really comes into his own and we should be prepared not to be too disappointed when they happen.

I don't think 200 innings from Eddie is reasonable. 180 quality innings is my hope for the kid. This is still a player who's learning, he threw 170 innings last year, only about 120 of those in the bigs. It's not completely impossible for a guy like him with great stuff and right on the edge of getting it to do 200, but I think we shouldn't count on it just yet, I'm not sure the season long consistency for 200 is going to be there in a 23 year old. Be great if it was. In fact I'm a little skittish about Eddie if I'm honest due to some of the other pitchers of his caliber experiencing sophomore slumps before they really settle down and produce. I think it's dangerous to jump the gun here and put Eddie under an ace's expectations. He may well do it anyway, but I think we shouldn't put it on him until he shows he's ready.

Agreed, although I note that we're failing to discuss the single greatest injury risk on the team at the moment, who happens to be our second baseman. I mean it's easy to point fingers at guys like Hanley and Sandoval who if they've ever performed at all, it wasn't for us, it's harder to point the same fingers at a guy who was once so reliable for us that we can no longer count on. I think the steady deterioration of Pedrioa is a bigger problem to this team at this time than a guy like Sandoval or Hanley who you can easily set aside if they simply don't perform.

first where he will average the most plate appearances

Well one reason why is that the rosters get constantly adjusted over the course of a season. The team you finish the season with may not have all that many players in common with the team that started the season thanks to an injury to this guy, a trade of that guy, a promotion of this rookie, etc

Actually IIRC the Royals were picked to make the playoffs last year after their brilliant postseason performance of the year before. Last year wasn't the first time KC turned the magic on in September.

Granted but the statement I was responding to was "we have no #2, abloo hoo hoo all the world is forever ended." Even you know that that is a nonsensical statement

It lacks a legit 2 yes, but there are a couple candidates who could step up over the year. Making this kind of sweeping statement is not justified.

I'd caution restraint on Rodriguez, he's got excellent stuff but he isn't proven over a full season yet. I have a lot of hope in him, and I agree that we can *hope* for great things. But let's not pretend he's a sure thing yet.

Agreed. But we have seen players appear to regress, and then revert to career levels. One good example was Mike Lowell. It's not high odds, but it shouldn't be ruled out entirely either.

No, if he's #5 he earned it because of a combination of last year's performance as a starter, and a very strong Spring

I didn't say Holt was a good option. I said he was a better option than Panda.

Umm no, according to Baseball Reference Sandoval has been hovering around replacement level defensively for most of his career, and he was below replacement level last year. Combine that with the offensive problems and we would have been better off going with Brock Holt as our everyday 3B

I think we shouldn't expect too much, but ought to be in with a chance this season. That's all I ask in the preseason. We'll see how things go.

It would be a good role for him if he could function in it. His performance in relief so far suggests otherwise. Put Wright in the rotation and he's a good #5, which is all we really need of him, and he still has his inning burning qualities and puts them to perhaps better use. I think Wright is a very good bet to outpitch Joe Kelly over 160 or so innings and again, I expect Wright to be in a position to challenge Kelly for his rotation spot if his Spring goes well. In the bullpen there's just too many situations you can't easily use him due to the passed ball problem, and it's not like he's so great a reliever in other aspects that that liability isn't a consideration. And when are you going to use him? When's your perfect go-to-the-knuckleballer situation? When a starter gets chased? When a starter gets chased there's men on base far more often than not, and very frequently that man is in scoring position having, for example, hit a bases clearing double that just opened up the inning against us, or having been walked there by a starter who's lost his command. That's exactly the situation you don't want Wright coming into So what do you do? Finish out the inning with another reliever and bring Wright into a clean inning? Congratulations, you've used Wright's durability to do 2 relievers' job with 2 relievers. I think Wright in the bullpen only makes sense as a starter-in-waiting who can quickly fill a rotation slot in case of injury. Knuckleballers seem to stretch out from relief to starting more easily, or at least Wake always did. That's a valid reason to have him in the pen. If you use him as a full time reliever you're wasting him, and you won't get very good relief innings anyway. It's like the Pirates using Wakefield in the pen -- it makes less sense the more you think about it.

I think Wright is poorly used in relief. His career splits show him to be both more effective and more comfortable as a starting pitcher. His ERA goes up by nearly a full run when he comes in out of the pen.

I wouldn't write Stephen Wright off entirely. In a starter role he was moderately effective last year, even if it was over a relatively narrow sample size. I think in a starter's stance Wright's ERA was (barely) less than 4 and he averaged about 6 innings a game over about 9 starts (actually 1/4 of a season), this while he was mostly used in a relief role. That's NTFB. I think he gets a chance if a hole opens in our rotation, and I think we'll be glad we gave him that chance. In fact I'd hold out at least a slender chance that Wright could beat Kelly out for the #5 spot in the rotation depending on how things go. We have to have a catcher that can deal with the knuckleball, but if we do, I think he could earn a big role for himself if he can sustain his level over a larger sample.

Of course one of the big problems with preseason win loss projections is there's no real way to factor in the need for, and plethora of, midseason roster moves. That's a huge issue with trying to see the season from before April, because the team that makes it to September can be different by up to 5-6 players, sometimes more, between rookie promotion, injury replacement, midseason trades, flops being RO'd and what have you

Have you seen the Canadian dollar lately? Last time it was this bad the Jets and the Nordiques didn't survive and the Oilers barely survived. Canada is not competitive right now, won't be until their dollar comes back. I'd be willing to be that a lot of Canadian owners are subsidizing their franchises right now to cover payroll, which is tied to the US dollar because the NHL is technically run out the US

Of course it was a stupid signing. It was a stupid signing like the Crawford signing was stupid. The initial premise was flawed but somewhat defensible, and matters were made worse by the stupendous decline the player experienced once joining the team. I disagreed with the initial decision to sign Sandoval, but you can't pretend that the fact that the bottom fell out of the guy the very first year he joined the team was in any way predictable or reasonable.

You misunderstand. I hated the Sandoval signing, I knew he was in decline and thought it was completely unnecessary even if he was productive. I just think it's a bit unreasonable to say that it was obvious he would decline that much that fast.