Kimmi

Nah, I'm pulling for the US all the way. The WBC has kept me entertained while waiting for the season to start.

Batting order is another topic that has been researched from virtually every angle, including using different stats and right lefty splits. OBP remains the biggest single factor, followed by slugging. As far as the optimal line up goes, the 3 best hitters should hit 1,2, and 4. I know you want the best hitter in the 3 spot, but that is not where the best hitter should bat. The biggest mistake that managers make in constructing their line ups is in undervaluing the #2 spot.

Perhaps the idea of 'comfort' is overblown, but we are always hearing about how baseball players are such creatures of habit and about how superstitious they are. I tend to think that they'd prefer consistency in a lineup up rather than being shuffled around regularly. That's just my opinion, of course. Either way, the 'tweaking' of the line up that fans often talk about has such little effect on the overall team scoring that, by comparison, comfort level is probably not overblown.

It's cool that you don't buy it. Most people don't. I disagree with putting a good OBP guy in the #9 hole, but I do agree with you about the L/R thing. The consensus is that managers can gain more of an advantage by splitting the lefties and righties in the line up than he can by putting batters into their 'prototypical' spots. As far as line up protection goes, the pitchers do tend to pitch differently to batters who are protected versus not protected, but the batter's offensive output is no better or worse.

This is what good teams do. They win a lot of blow out games. The closer the score, the more the outcome is due to randomness and not skill.

Always a pleasure to read your posts sk. Good point about pitchers working from the stretch using a separate skill. I agree with everything you posted about the bullpen guys. There is strong evidence that most pitchers, even the best ones, should not face a lineup the 3rd time through.

Really? I thought it was one of the more simplistic and straightforward articles on the topic. If nothing else, the scatter plots by themselves pretty much tell you everything you need to know. Mumbo jumbo aside, it's still a pretty convincing article.

Last night's game was another good game. PR won it in the bottom of the 11th, with that new rule of putting a runner on 1st and 2nd to start the 11th inning or later. Seriously, baseball doesn't get much better than this.

From the Baseball Prospectus book, Baseball Between the Numbers: Protection is overrated. There's no evidence that having a superior batter behind another batter provides the initial batter with better pitches to hit; if it does, those batters see no improvement in performance as a result. Additionally, it's very rare that a situation arises in which run expectation drops after the pitching team walks the batter at the plate. Therefore, if the pitching team does walk a batter because it would rather pitch to the following man, it is almost always making a mistake by opening the door for a big inning. The situation changes late in close games as the importance of a single run begins to trump that of many runs, but even in those situations, the difference between the two batters would have to be extreme. In short, most of the hand-wringing and scrutiny of batting orders is for naught. Batting order simply does not make that much difference. Managers tinkering with lineups so rarely shun convention that most of their changes would affect their teams' output by only a few runs over the course of a season. Sorting a lineup in descending order of OBP yields the most runs, but players with high SLG can offset a low OBP as early as third in the lineup. The conventional lineup's most egregious flaw is that it costs the game's best players about 18 PA per lineup spot per season. If Barry Bonds led off instead of hitting fourth, he would see about 54 more PA per year, adding perhaps 10 runs to the Giants' offensive output. Teams without a player of Bonds's caliber could gain about 10 runs (1 win) a year by routinely batting their players in order of descending OBP. Furthermore, managers worrying about protecting their best hitters need not fret. Situations in which the pitcher would gain by walking the initial batter to pitch to the following man are so rare that employing an optimal lineup order would eliminate nearly all of them. Intentionally walking any batter in a correctly ordered lineup is nearly always a bad decision.

There has been quite a bit of research done on the topic of batting order, and the conclusions are pretty much the same. It just doesn't matter as much as most people think it does. The 15 runs, which is actually 16 runs (I misremembered), comes from research done by Tango and Lichtman, among others. Here is what an article from Fangraphs says about it: Tango and MGL have often pointed out (following Pete Palmer, as Tangotiger noted yesterday) that even one of the worst imaginable single lineup moves — having the pitcher hit in the cleanup spot — would cost an average of 16 runs a season (about 0.1 runs a game).

I agree that a manager should do everything he can to improve the chances of winning. One problem is that managers are not setting optimal line ups. They are setting 'traditional' line ups, which does not give them the best chance to score. My point, however, is that these line up changes make so little difference that a manager is likely better off leaving batters where they feel the most comfortable, rather than trying to play the numbers.

The first semifinal game, Netherlands vs. Puerto Rico starts in about 30 minutes. The second semifinal game, U.S. vs Japan, is on tomorrow night. The championship game will be played on Wednesday. Who's in???

For anyone so inclined to read this, here's a pretty convincing article that clutch is random. If you have the time, read the comments too. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/why-we-feel-how-we-feel-about-clutch/

None of us knows for sure what was in those medical reports. Dombrowski and team obviously didn't think it was that big of a deal. We'll find out soon enough if it was a big deal or not. At that time, Preller likely would not have accepted Kopech.

Fair enough. I can agree with that.

Yes, I do think there are varying degrees of pressure. And I would imagine that performing in front of scouts for a shot at making it to the big leagues has to be some pretty intense pressure. There might be some players who make it to the bigs who can't handle the pressure once they get there, but I really don't think those players last very long.

Valid point. But Kendrick also has an opt out in June. We might lose him either way.

The 15 runs difference is not looking at the pitcher in a vacuum or out of context. One thing about line ups is that the notion of 'protection' is largely a myth. Therefore, any effect of not having protection for your #3 hitter is overstated. Another thing to keep in mind is that every move that a manager makes to improve in one area causes some weakening in another area. Moving a pitcher to the #4 spot definitely weakens that spot, but your #9 spot is significantly strengthened, which in turn strengthens the top of the line up when it's turned over, offsetting some of the loss.

That is for the bolded statement. I think Swihart can develop into a more than adequate defensive catcher if given the opportunity to develop properly. I think he can eventually be the overall better catcher between him and Vaz. That said, if Vaz returns to the level of defense that he showed in 2014, then no, it is not being overstated.

Absolutely, but 15 runs is the difference you get when making the most egregious lineup error you can make. My point is that the line up changes that we often debate, like whether to bat Mookie 3rd or 4th, won't make much of a difference. If a manager wanted to completely go against the norm and make a truly optimal lineup, then he could probably win an extra 3 games. But as I previously posted, no manager is going to bat a Barry Bonds in the leadoff spot.

Vazquez' defense took a step backward last year, but he was still very good defensively. Don't sell his last year's defense short. I think that he was rushed back into the position before he was fully ready. Jason Mastrodonato‏Verified account @JMastrodonato 4h4 hours ago Christian Vazquez's pop time said to be 1.75 yesterday. Back to presurgery levels. "Not too many catchers who can do that" -- Dana LeVangie

I am not anti-Pomeranz. I think Pom will end up being a solid starter for us. Pom will likely not be ready for the start of the season and Kendrick is currently pitching well. I think Kendrick is the better option to make a few starts to open the season, not to replace Pom permanently in the rotation.

I didn't like giving up Espinoza for Pom, but that trade had to be done, IMO. We needed some stability in the 4 and 5 spots of our rotation, and Pom provided that. That said, once reports came out about Pom's arm issues, whatever they were, Dombrowski perhaps should have backed out of the trade.

Yes, batting order matters, but not nearly as much as most people think it does. All of the fretting about moving a player up or down 2-3 spots in the lineup is really not necessary. The difference between putting a pitcher in the clean up spot versus batting him 9th amounts to about 15 runs over the entire season. The difference between batting Mookie 3rd or 5th would be about 2 runs over the entire season. Descending OBP would be a simple and effective way to create a batting order.

Good read. It's one that the 'clutch' believers would appreciate.