2010 Red Sox Lineup, According to OTM Users
by Randy Booth on Mar 1, 2010 12:07 PM EST
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PrintIt took a little bit, but we officially have the Over the Monster "this is what I want" lineup. Gotta' love democracy.
Here's how the lineup looks:
- Jacoby Ellsbury, lf
- Dustin Pedroia, 2b
- Victor Martinez, c
- Kevin Youkilis, 1b
- David Ortiz, dh
- Adrian Beltre, 3b
- J.D. Drew, rf
- Mike Cameron, cf
- Marco Scutaro, ss
I think Nos. 1 and 2 are locked for the season. Nos. 3 and 4 are interchangeable. No. 5 really depends on how Mr. Ortiz produces in the spring, early in the season and his overall health. Nos. 6 and 8, in my opinion, could be swapped. Drew could bat anywhere between 6-7 as well, so the bottom half. No. 9 is right, but when Ellsbury or Pedroia see some time off, Scutaro would probably see time in the leadoff spot or two-hole.
What do you think, Red Sox fans?
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Wow
For all the talk of “lost offense” that is a good looking line-up. I would probably swap Drew and Ortiz, but Tito is probably going to go with Papi to help his confidence and keep the LRLR pattern going.
Yeah, I think that the lineup we came up with is more 'prediction'
and not necessarily ‘optimal based on what we think is the mathematical best’.
I.E., I predict that Tito will use exactly that lineup to open the season. I’d PREFER to move VMart down a bit and Drew up.
But it looks pretty good no matter how you shuffle them.
I tend to agree...
I think a lineup of
Ells, Pedroia, Drew, Youk, V-Mart, Ortiz, Beltre, Cameron, Scutaro might be best although I’m not sure how many more runs you could expect from it
Bill Hall
" OH NO, NOT AGAIN"
"That was a lot of fun… You just keep pounding balls into the gap. The one thing you don’t want to do is hit a home run. That’s a rally-killer." Jeff Francoeur
'Not sure I'd change it much against lefties, though.
Unless Cameron gets on a hot streak and/or Ortiz struggles against lefties.
Otherwise, the splits for most of the guys don’t seem to indicate much of a need to shuffle too much from that.
Here's what will happen against lefties, IMO
1. Ellsbury LF
2. Pedroia 2B
3. Youk 1B
4. VMart DH
5. Beltre 3B
6. Drew RF
7. Cameron CF
8. Scutaro SS
9 Tek C
About 25% of SP are lefties right? That sounds like a good number of starts to give to Varitek, given that his splits are much better against lefties than righties:
Year, (vs. lefties), (vs. righties)
2009 (.231/.336/.471) (.200/.304/.358)
Career (.280/.360/.468)(.250/.337/.422)
Against a tough righty (Verlander, Greinke...)
I would shift Taco to center and put Hermida in LF
"That was a lot of fun… You just keep pounding balls into the gap. The one thing you don’t want to do is hit a home run. That’s a rally-killer." Jeff Francoeur
I wonder - against "tough" pitching
how much better Hermida does than Cam.
LOL – everybody sucks against the top-20 pitchers! (I always hate when the mediots argue “But they won’t be able to hit against top pitching!”)
Still, folks gotta get some rest and Hermida is gonna need some ABs.
You're right
I should’ve said a righty with a combination of a big FB and a good breaking ball (slider).
"That was a lot of fun… You just keep pounding balls into the gap. The one thing you don’t want to do is hit a home run. That’s a rally-killer." Jeff Francoeur
I like it
Obviously, Hermida will only start against righties, and probably take the place of Cameron. Ellsbury and Drew (especially) will need days off as well. I’d like to see Hermida do well this year, but I don’t see him getting more than 100 or so ABs, and it’s hard to get a rhythm going without some solid playing time. Sadly, I’m not as optimistic about Hermida as many other people are.
I dunno
Rocco managed to get 162 PAs last year- and that was with his injury problems. With Drew and Cam getting older, I’d be kinda surprised to not see Hermida break 200 PAs.
Certainly not a given he’ll break out, but he should be serviceable, and there’s a chance we could see something closer to his 2007. I’m working on a writeup about him.
Okay - that's all based on the "Ortiz struggles against Lefties" clause
And its legitimate, to get VMart a rest.
I would note that for his career, and for the second half of last year (not last year as a whole) I think I like Ortiz’ numbers against lefties a little better than I like Varitek’s against lefties.
I.E. – I don’t think your lineup is necessarily the optimal offensive lineup. A lot depends on which version of Ortiz shows up. But Varitek was decent against LH last year and maybe playing only every 4th-5th game he could be even better.
I’m not sure I’d flip VMart and Youk – I’d rather have Youk at 3 anyway. But I expect Tito to put VMart at 3 and leave him there.
well it depends on the game
But the fact that Varitek is looking terrible against righties means that you won’t want to play him much against them. So he’ll probably be playing against most lefties (I don’t expect him to start opening day for example, against sabathia) since they don’t happen to often.
Not that that lineup is better than the main one, but since Varitek will be playing some games, that lineup is better against lefties than it is against righties.
I expect Tek will be more a matter of who is pitching.
He’ll catch Beckett a lot, never catch Buchholz or Wakefield, etc.
USG
could well be
though i don’t think that makes the most sense. I don’t think he’ll end up being Beckett’s primary catcher.
I suppose if Beckett is going to come back next year, he'll have to learn to throw to other guys.
But then again, I don’t think Beckett is coming back next year.
USG
heh it'll be interesting to see
if they DO use him as Beckett’s personal catcher, they’ll be pretty much telling us no way they re-sign him.
Francona said before they intend to use a “more usual” rotation of catchers- or something along those lines, so I’d be surprised to see a personal catcher thing unless Beckett really struggles with vmart
Yeah, I think the fact that VMart was so comfortable with Wake last year
caused Tito to emit a mental sigh of relief. I don’t think he likes having specific catchers for specific pitchers.
Ortz vs Tek
Ortiz – Career vs. Lefties – 0.819 OPS….going back to 2007 (his last full good season) he had a 0.852 OPS vs. lefties, but the disturbing trend was his slugging split – 0.700 vs righties, 0.462 vs lefties. I believe this is around the time that the shift was placed??
Tek – Career vs. Lefties – 0.828 OPS
Tek, Ortiz are probably about a wash at this point against lefties although Tek tends to spray the ball more and Ortiz pulls drastically
I think my concern is more because last year
even with plenty of ‘rest’ after VMart showed up, Varitek still only posted a .347 wOBA against lefties (vs his career # of .371). And while Tek posted a .374 in 2008, that was in only 95 ABs. His wOBA vs LH is rather mediocre or poor otherwise until you go all the way back to 2005 (when it was very very good).
2004 .427
2005 .425
2006 .298
2007 .351
2008 .374
2009 .347
Ortiz was terrible against lefties last year too (.310). I’m not sure what it was after June 1 when he seemed to mostly return to normal. And of course 2008 was interrupted by injury. But if we go back to 2007 as our last ‘healthy’ season for him, he did post a .373 wOBA against lefties then and was very strong against them from 2005-07.
2004 .333
2005 .380
2006 .407
2007 .373
2008 .321
2009 .310
Those last two years are pretty … “ugh” is the only word that comes to mind.
But if it IS health related at all, I guess I just have more faith in if Ortiz is healthy, hitting like 2007 than I do in Tek resuming his 2005 form.
But that’s academic at this point. And the truth is that Tek is going to have to get some at bats in order to give VMart rest at C. And the logical thing is to take them from Ortiz against lefties until Ortiz proves that he can hit lefties again.
Lookin like
a pretty solid bunch. Great job Theo
Whoever said it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, probably lost.
I could see Scutaro move up to the top if he does well and Ellsbury struggles like he did to start last year.
Other than that, you know my opinions on Drew.
USG
Drew will be fine where ever
Some guys are affected by where they bat so they perform worse, but Drew obviously isn’t. So his value won’t be affected by wherever he bats. The only downside will be in his accumulation of counting stats but we all know those don’t really matter.
LOL didn't we just have this whole discussion already?
How many PAs difference does it make in each spot?
I know Drew has done well hitting in just about every spot he’s been put in (except lead off, oddly).
I personally would love to have Drew in at #3, or #5 at the lowest. But I’m not going to stress. Lets see how it plays out.
Maybe (see discussion on Drew’s ‘durability’ elsewhere) having him get a half a PA less per game means his back takes just a little bit less stress? Plus I do like Theo’s argument for using Drew’s high-pitch counts down in the 7-8-9 part of the lineup to prevent 3-pitch innings.
though if Scutaro continues his recent discipline trends
that should be less of a problem than it was last year.
Eh, the difference between drew at the 3 and the 7 is probably around 72 at bats over the course of a 162 game season.
Let’s say around 50 with a fair few missed games.
And I hate Theo’s argument. Sure, that keeps us out of small pitch count innings, but it actually presumably drives down the total number of pitches thrown against the Red Sox because the guy who takes more pitches gets fewer ABs.
USG
mis-typed - that should be "Tito's argument"
Yeah, you are probably right in the aggregate.
I might argue that the most important pitches to tack on are those in the 4-5-6 innings. The real goal isn’t to increase the pitch counts for the whole game – though that helps. The primary goal is to wear out the starter and get to the middle relief. You get to the middle relief by high pitch counts in the first 6 innings and you really don’t want to give the starter a freebie in innings 4-5-6. Wearing out the starter in the 8th just gets you a visit from the staff closer…
The extra at bat that the leadoff guys get over the back end of the rotation comes in the final wrap-around in the last PAs of the game. While that IS an important time to have your best hitter up if the game is close. It doesn’t really mean much as far as pitch counts on the starter go. And if the game isn’t close it doesn’t matter much at all.
But yeah – 72 ABs probably would a couple of HRs and a couple dozen runs+RBIs produced for Drew’s stat sheet.
Yea unless you play all 162 games
You can’t complain about batting order robbing you of ABs.
And as a preemptive strike, this is not me complaining about Drew’s durability because I don’t expect anyone to play all 162 games. But I am saying that playing more games is how I would increase ABs.
that's kind of illogical
you want your good players getting as many at bats while they’re in the game as they can. Just because someone isn’t in 162 games doesn’t mean they should be hitting low in the order. If we could have Pujols but only for 30 games a year, I wouldn’t put him in the 9 hole because of it.
He’s not staying out of games because anyone doesn’t want him to play, it’s to prevent injuries that will keep him out for an extended time. We’ve all recently seen what happens when players aren’t up front about being hurt.
I don't really understand the Pujols bit
I’m not saying that Drew should be low because he doesn’t play enough games. I’m just saying that if you were worried about a player not getting enough ABs, wouldn’t you play him more games before you move him up in the order?
So let’s use Ben’s numbers, the 3 spot adds 72 AB/ 162 games, or .4 per game. So playing one extra game would be the equivalent of batting 10 games at the 3 spot. That seems an easier way to increase AB counts, especially for someone who hits the same either way.
But once again, this is not a recommendation or a criticism. A think Drew already has the right amount of ABs to be optimally productive.
One thing is entirely under the managers control and has no possible adverse effects.
Why not optimize when you can?
USG
Not all missed games are because of injuries
Some are built in days off. So both options are somewhat under manager control.
So if you look at it on a season scale, Drew has multiple options to getting to his total AB count. And if you look at it on a game by game basis, Drew is more valuable in the later order because he is unaffected by position while others would be adversely affected.
I've already said that I think individual performances are almost completely unaffected by position in the lineup.
And the benefit of a full day off far outweighs the benefit of dropping one at bat per game. Arguably, in fact, there is no benefit from the later fatigue wise at all.
USG
Players have performed differently in different spots
Pedroia for example has said that he feels uncomfortable leading off.
Except for all of 2007.
Fun fact: Pedroia had an OBP of .391 in innings he lead off last year. More likely is that Pedroia just got thrown into the leadoff spot during a slump, and ended up making associations. Put him in the leadoff spot in the middle of a hot streak, and he’ll have no problems.
USG
It's not our associations I'm worried about
It’s his. The fact that that did happen put the idea in his head.
And this may sick the dogs on me, but I do think slumps can be cause by mental blocks and lack of confidence, not purely statistical variance. I don’t believe in hot streaks, but slumps can be mental as well as statistical.
Even if they are
Clearly Ortiz received no benefit from batting 3rd last year. Why should we figure that moving him up in the lineup will make any difference?
USG
Well I have no problem with Drew at 5th
I voted for him there. I wanted to keep the L-R combo they seem to love.
But this all started with talk of moving him to 3rd, which I didn’t think would work best. And arguing to move him up two spots is an even smaller increase in ABs especially if it will come with a further piling on of Ortiz.
I have said earlier that I think Drew’s ability to perform anywhere as an asset. I don’t believe every player has that asset. And as statistically inclined as I am, I think shifting the order around like that is completely throwing the human elements of confidence and comfort out. I’m not ready to do that because not all players have that ability like Drew.
It's not any smaller an increase than the change from 7th to 5th.
And unless you were suggesting Drew 5th, Ortiz 3rd, then there’s no “further piling on” of Ortiz.
But really, though, where is the evidence that Ortiz does better batting 5th? Obviously, career numbers will bear that out, but having actually watched last season, I know Ortiz was only moved back up to 5th once he worked his way out of the slump batting 6th and 7th.
USG
I was saying pushing Ortiz down further is piling on
He’s probably the one who would be affected most by being dropped. This is a tough season for him, and screwing with his confidence wouldn’t help.
And I was saying that if I don’t believe that increase in ABs from 7th to 3rd will offset human effects, then I definitely don’t think the smaller increase from 7th to 5th will offset them.
well right but like I said, they keep him out when they do to keep him from getting injured
and missing more games. If playing an extra game cause a slightly tight muscle to get pulled, he could miss several more games because of it. They aren’t keeping him out of games because he isn’t good enough for him.
Well ABs are not entirely risk free
Limiting ABs is not quite as important as limiting innings in the field but there is the possibility for injuries while batting. Otherwise Ortiz would have never missed a game. So increasing AB/ game might also increase the risk.
Excepting, of course, for sitting out games, which has been proven to be a legitimate help over the season.
Everyone accepts that fatigue sets in over a 162 game season, and that most players need days off. But to dodge an at bat because you’re afraid of injury?
USG
I don't know where you got that
All I was saying was that both aspects of baseball have a risk of injury. The posts seems to believe that increasing ABs has no injury risk which I believe is false.
OK, but the problem with injuries is that it takes away ABs.
So taking away at bats to avoid a minute chance that the guy gets hit by a pitch in order to increase his ability to then face that chance later on makes no sense whatsoever.
Taking away at bats to avoid long-term fatigue which exponentially increases injury risk and lowers actual production in the at bats a player does get is an entirely different monster.
USG
I think we are starting to confuse
motivation with beneficial side effect.
I don’t think we are saying that it is preferable to give Drew fewer at bats. Just maybe that it isn’t all bad if we trade half a Drew at bat late in the game for half an at bat with any of the current 1-5 hitters.
Looking for silver linings is all.
OK, but it just seems like a lack of optimization to me.
It is better to have more at bats from your best players.
The only effect of switching the batting order is to give Drew more at bats in exchange for ABs from Martinez and Ortiz.
Since a Drew AB is worth more than a Martinez or Ortiz AB, it therefor makes sense to make the switch. No adverse side effects, all bonus.
USG
well, I'm only playing devil's advocate here
because you must know by now that I totally want Drew to get as many ABs as possible.
But I might argue from a pacing perspective that there is additional risk for some types of injuries from swinging a bat. Drew in particular has chronic lower back problems and those are aggravated by swinging the bat, not by playing in the field.
Its non-deterministic, but each swing brings with it a chance of twinging his back – causing him to then lose a couple of days of playing time. So there is risk associated with each AB.
I.E. you are not completely correct in saying that there is “no adverse side effects”.
Its all about weighing that risk against the benefits. You point out the benefit of a Drew AB vs a VMart/Ortiz AB and I totally agree with that. I’m just not sure that its all that meaningful on the margin for a game – because it is really less than half an AB for a game. And the particular half AB we are talking about is always at the end of the game. So sliced up that way – while I would agree that the value still outweighs the risk, its not ridiculous to be mindful of the risk.
Fortunately, Drew loves to take a walk – so that mitigates that risk quite a bit since he can get on without taking as many actual swings.
Presumably the benefit of a Drew AB outweighs the risk of an injury resulting
Just by virtue of the fact that he’s TAKING at bats.
USG
I think the argument comes down to how you see batting order
If you believe batting order is set to maximize season ABs or ABs per game, then it would seem to make more sense to move Drew up as high as possible.
But if you think that batting order is meant to optimize scoring opportunities for each particular game, then him being higher might not matter.
But now I've just confused myself
Because if it is the second option, then the order should really be a series of OBP guys followed by power/ run producers.
Something like
1) Ellsbury 2)Pedroia 3)VMart 4)Youkilis 5) Ortiz then 6) Scutaro 7) Drew 8) Beltre 9) Cameron
It would be like having an A top of the order and a B top of the order. I need to sign off, I’m confusing myself.
See, I still think Drew fits in 3rd best in that second group.
He’s the perfect combination of OBP and Power coming before the guys who combine that with average to knock guys in.
USG
Yea I agree ideally
but niether beltre or cameron had good enough obp to be a 2nd 2 hole hitter. If we were actually going for this strategy, we would probably redo our lineup.
Id like Drew @ 2
Pedroia
Drew
Vmart
Youk
Ortiz
Beltre
Ells
Cam
Scut
Which is why I didn't advocate him playing more
The arrangement of batting order is a theoretical exercise to determine the amount of ABs in a season. A lot of other factors affect it also. I was just saying that I think most decision makers think of batting order as a game by game decision and games played as an aggregate ABs decision.
It seems like the great disagreement stems from how you view batting order
If you believe batting order is set to maximize season ABs or ABs per game, then it would seem to make more sense to move Drew up as high as possible.
But if you think that batting order is meant to optimize scoring opportunities for each particular game, then him being higher might not matter.
I agree Ben,
but don’t you want to get the most out of your lineup? Drew has proven successful in the bottom 3rd of the lineup, and I’m not sure Ortiz could do that confidence wise in the 7 spot. That obviously shows Drew is the better, and far more versatile player, but you can’t sacrifice what Papi is capable of by putting him in a position he would have a difficult time succeeding in.
IMO
Whoever said it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, probably lost.
by David Harnden on Mar 1, 2010 2:12 PM EST up reply actions
Stolen from BentoSox in the #7 batting order thread.
In 376 games in his career that he batted 3rd, his line looks like this
BA/OBP/OPS
.298/.415/.963
R/HR/RBI
275/80/232
In 190 games in his career that he batted 5th, his line looks like this
BA/OBP/OPS
.303/.411/.958
Now, that’s assuming the batting order actually effect a player’s individual rate stats, and I don’t think it does. Instead, more likely it’s the fact that a guy gets a promotion to the #3, #4, #5 slots when he’s killing the ball, and a demotion when he’s doing poorly.
But either way, since when did hitting high in the lineup help Papi last year? Did the fact that he was batting 3rd really give him the necessary drive to succeed when he was still OPSing .600 in May?
USG
too small of a sample size and possibly washed out by whatever was causing his slump
(assuming it was one thing).
Its not like hitting low in the order helped Papi get out of his slump last spring either.
But overall, I don’t disagree with your expectation.
I like this lineup, mostly because I don’t see the last names like Varitek or Green in it. If Ortiz can get his swagger going early this lineup is going to be tough from top to bottom.
"We are not normal, We are Legends. People will tell their kids about us." - Deon Butler before Ohio State Game 2008.
I don’t remember where I read this, but Theo have said that with the way they’ve built this offense, he thinks that they’ll as potent as they were last year…And I trust the guy, I mean…. check the track record:
Red Sox wOBA the last years:
2005: .352
2006: .340
2007: .352
2008: .352
2009: .352
That. Is. Consistency!
"That was a lot of fun… You just keep pounding balls into the gap. The one thing you don’t want to do is hit a home run. That’s a rally-killer." Jeff Francoeur
i had to look up the year in which all others are judged by - 2004
2004: .358
2003: .364
one may see more consistency here, but i see a downward trend.
it seems a release or two and a couple of butt kicking’s is warranted.
I like it.
Lock ‘n’ Load.
Galactus does as he pleases. Because Galactus is drunk.
I have a five-tool player in my pants.
Dont listen to the early reports about
the red sox having a bad offense. First off if they play better defense and pitch, you might need to have a great offense. Second, Beltre is going to have a better year in a batters ball park. Look at the SB the red sox could have that will help produce runs. Trust me, this offense will not be like the yanks but their defense will save them in the end.
Error
“you might not need to have a great offense”
Red Sox 2010 Line-Up
I would strongly consider positioning JD Drew in 5th to let him know the team needs his production. Ortiz can move
to Drew’s spot (keeping the LH sequence) until he proves he can hit and produce in 2010.
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