Fair enough point. I was just reading the data on perfect lineup and it said: 1- best hitter for OBP of your 3 best hitters/least power of 3 best hitters 2- one of your top 3 hitters, best combo of obp and slugging 3- 5th best hitter 4- best slugging of too 3 hitters 5- 4th best hitter 6-9- descending order of quality. Also said idea lineup construction vs awful lineup construction is worth 1 win over course of season in WAR terms.
So based upon the “ideal lineup construction” for the Astros I guess here is what I’d say Bregman Alvarez Altuve Springer Correa Brantley Yuli Chirinos Reddick I mean, if you think about this exercise on some level it does show how little lineup construction matters. You could arrange the Astros top 7 hitters in any order and it’s a mother****er to try to get through.
Yes, if every team had a bunch of hitters like the Stros do, filling out the lineup card would be a swiss ****ing watch.
More or less right I’d say. One more caveat- don’t hit your best hitter third. That was baseball “by the book” for 100 years and apparently that’s doing it wrong. Too many plate appearances with nobody on and two down.
I think the converse is also true- if you don’t have the bats it doesn’t matter which order you hit them in either. I like talking about batting order. It seems like it should matter. The numbers typically say for it to actually matter you’d almost have to be engaging in intentional self defeat.
The first 7 can pretty much be in any order. No matter what though Alvarez should be hitting somehere in the 4 or 5 spot just because he's the most dangerous clean up guy on the team.
This I disagree with. That's when you need to manufacture runs however you can. You may prioritize speed, or bat control/contact in certain spots, power when you think guys might be on, with no regard for walks or K's, etc...basically an old-school lineup. Of course nobody does this anymore really, but still. Look back at what the Royals did.
He actually grew up on the same street as we did in Houston. His nickname as a kid was Bimbo. I didn’t know him much, he Is my brother’s age, about four years older than me.
And he actually provided me with possibly my greatest astrodome memory of my childhood. A 2 out walk off HR against the mets. Unreal. 1986. I was actually 13
We were at his three triple game. But my favorite moment was when they had a couple of crazy extra inning games in a row against the Dodgers. In the second game, he had to play left field for a bit. Dodgers had a runner on third and they hit a sinking liner to left. Reynolds awkwardly caught it and the runner tagged. Reynolds made a ‘shortstop’ type of throw and got the runner at home. The replay caught Lasorda in the dugout as the throw went by and he was mouthing the words...”how did he make that effing throw?”
Ha- I didn’t even do right left it just worked out that way. I was going by “the book” where it says hit your 5th best hitter third and your 6th best 6. It’s so impossible with this Astros team to differentiate these guys, and they have different skill sets, but are all great. If I had to rank them best to worst-all healthy I think I’d go: Alvarez Bregman Springer Correa Altuve Brantley Yuli Chirinos Reddick That’s just my personal opinion honestly you could shuffle the top 6 in any order and I wouldn’t argue with you.
Didn't Hinch joke about drawing names from a hat when it came to who gets a rest day? I 'd do that to set my lineup every game. If Chirinos is batting first, so be it. So many holy phenoms in the roster.
Bregman asked why he wasn’t starting one day and Hinch told him that he put all the names in a hat and pulled one. Bregman said ‘so you pulled mine’ Hinch replied, ‘no, I pulled Correa, so I put it back in and drew again’.
