Any good BBQ places open on Sunday?

Looking to put some down after the game on Sunday.

then talking about Alex Gordon we have to throw out his first few seasons...he's not that player anymore

it's the same thing with Alex Smith

on a stacked team...you're right, perhaps he's an ideal #2

on this team? He has to hit #3.

and alnorth, I just don't see it

I understand that the math probably shows that Barry Bonds would have been best served as leadoff since he got on base 60% of the time (that's a real stat one year)...

but it just defies logic IMO

I don't look at a lineup as an extrapolation over a 162 game season

every single game the objection is to win

are you going to win more games with your best .OPS guy at #1 or at #3 behind guys who are better hitters and get on base more than Jeff Francouer and Chris Getz?

I just don't understand how, potentially 1 MORE AB PER GAME (and that rarely works out that way) where, in the very same scenario it GUARANTEES one at bat with your best hitter hitting with no one on base no matter what...is a lineup that guarantees more victories over putting your best hitter who had over 50 doubles the previous year #3 behind two superior hitters and on base guys than the black hole of our lineup

I just don't see how you can argue when EVERY SINGLE MAJOR LEAGUE MANAGER EVER, even the forward thinking GM's like Billy Beane, never used this math to submit a lineup

Miguel Tejada batted 3rd.

Like Hootie says, the value of your SLG% diminishes greatly when you don't have OBP% people in front of you...

The very few additional at bats obtained by batting leadoff as opposed to #3 over the course of the year is minimal at best. The impact of the diminished return on the SLG% far outweighs it.

This is the one thing I don't think the saber heads understand, you can't just extrapolate everything out over the course of the entire season. Some runs and AB's matter more than others.

It's baseball, not a roto fantasy league.

Right, which is why I also used the last 2 seasons' stats in discussing the points.

the "math" just doesn't take into account in game scenarios

it's a lot easier to win a game when Alex Gordon comes up in the 1st inning and hits a 2 run HR and the pitcher suddenly has the lead which instills confidence

these "extra ABs", and they do exist...IMO, are negated by the fact that, NO MATTER WHAT, once every game our best .OPS guy is hitting with no one on base.

Now...if he leads off the game with a double I agree, he is going to score more often than not because Escobar and Butler are hitting behind him...

but the fact of the matter is...we need to count on Alex Gordon to be a run producer first, not a run scorer first.

he's not a superstar hitter at this point

Butler almost achieved that status after his great 2012. Gordon had a good 2012. His doubles line was amazing.

A guy that hits that many doubles doesn't belong as a leadoff hitter on a power starved team.

Of course he's going to thrive there. He would thrive at any spot in the lineup. The dude can rake.

...I just think our fans were so disappointed with the early years Gordon that when he finally worked at leadoff they didn't want to **** with it. Understandable. But once a guy figures it out and he has that many extra base hits, you just have to hit him 3rd with this particular lineup. It is going to produce the most runs. Runs win games.

Major league managers are very conservative in their approach to the game. They've always been years behind the statistical community, but you are starting to see them catch up.

I'd compare the lineup thing to 4th downs in football. All the math shows that coaches should be going for it on 4th down much more often. However, it is still being under-utilized due to years of conventional wisdom, and because no coach wants to risk their job doing something different.

math doesn't take into account anxiety or crowd effect on 4th down

it simply doesn't

math doesn't have the gray area professional sports has

That anxiety and crowd were also there on the previous 4th downs that the stats were based on.

Even leading off the game with a double serves to illustrate the fact that he would be better off batting third. If Cain and Escobar bat before him, percentages say that one of them will get on base. That double would have driven them in.

The way I see it, it comes down to this: you are better off having a single followed by a double than a double followed by a single...even moreso if you single then homer versus homering then getting a single. You increase your likelihood of scoring multiple runs simply by switching the order in which the hits come.

I was in favor of leaving Gordon at the top to start the season because I was hopeful the Royals could get decent production behind Butler in the 4-5 spots.

As the season has gone on and that has NOT happened, it became a little different. I didn't think Lorenzo Cain would be this productive at the plate.

I still don't like Escobar in the leadoff spot - OBP issues - long term, but now that the lineup has been shaken up, I think you roll with it for a little while and see what happens.

Bill James has done the math, and says your best hitter should hit #2.

Why not Hosmer short term? If Hosmer starts hitting for power swap him and Cain.

Hos
Cain
Gordan
Butler
Moose
Escobar
Salvy
Frenchy/Dyson
Johnson/Getz