Jerry Manuel is crazy but his latest idea to bat Jose Reyes third while Carlos Beltran is out, isn’t crazy. It actually makes a lot of sense. But first let’s look at the arguments against it:
1) Castillo sucks.
2) Your fastest guy should bat first so he can get on steal bases and score on two outs.
3) Getting the early lead on so-called “Reyes runs” is a big psychological advantage for Mets pitchers.
Well Castillo does suck, I strongly believe this. But he had a great year last year. His on-base percentage was .387, which is better than anything Reyes has ever done, even in his best season. Now if you want to say he won’t be able to repeat that, I can’t argue, but you can’t prove it either way, you just have to see.
But that brings me to my next point. Saying the fastest guy should bat leadoff is a relic from a bygone era of baseball thought which included such gems as you judge a hitter by his batting average. Sophisticated baseball thinkers say the lineup order is really not all that important. But instead of speed first, the most important thing out of a leadoff hitter is on-base percentage. Also, the stolen base is incredibly overrated as a run producing technique especially because Reyes gets caught stealing more than you would like.
As for the psychological advantage, generally so-called mental benefits and intangibles are things people use when they have no real facts to support their argument.
And here’s the biggest reason why this Reyes experiment might work. With Beltran out he’s no worse than the third best hitter in the Mets lineup. They can’t afford to waste his bat buried behind the 8th and 9th place hitters.
All that being said there are two reasons I wouldn’t make this move. First of all, with Beltran hopefully coming back soon I wouldn’t cause so much commotion for a temporary fix. And Reyes is not patient enough, doesn’t see enough pitches to be a third place hitter.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
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3 comments:
Grandpa Shell just reminded me that Manuel will probably bat Pagan leadoff and Castillo second. I don't like this idea as much because Pagan wouldn't get on base as often as Castillo. But while Beltran is out if Pagan has to play, he has limited value everywhere else in the lineup too.
btw, you are overlooking something by dismissing intangible/mental benefits as a statement. Sometimes, these statements are made by ex-players, who based on their experience understand certain things about the game which cannot be explained to someone who has no first hand experience. In those cases, it is not that there is no evidence to support what they are saying, rather the evidence is their opinion based on their personal knowledge and experience in the game.
You don't win games by distracting pitchers. You win games by scoring runs. If distracting pitchers resulted in runs scored we'd see it in statistical analysis.
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