2020 Lineups

[CanadianHalo]

Fletcher
Trout
Rendon
Ohtani
Upton
La Stella
Adell
Catcher
Simmons

 

If we’re serious about winning and La Stella picks up where he left off last season then Pujols better get comfortable on that bench.

[stormngt]

On 12/13/2019 at 1:12 PM, the14thjoey said:

In 2019, Jared Walsh and Matt Thaiss were better options.

In 2018, Jose Fernandez was a better option.

In 2017, Cron, Cowart, and Valbuena were better options.

In 2016, Marte was a better option.

None of these guys were long term solutions, but they all had better performances than Pujols in those respective seasons. I'm one of the last guys to say move on from an aging vet and I wasn't calling for him to lose his job in those years, but it would be disingenous to say we never had options. We did. This year I'm calling for him to lose his job because Rendon pushed him out. Fletcher, La Stella, Simmons, and even Rengifo were clearly better last year and most likely will be this year if given a shot. 

Jared Walsh and Matt Thaiss played better than Pujols last year?  I must have drunk more tha. I realized last year.

[stormngt]

On 12/13/2019 at 4:05 PM, Randy Gradishar said:

Trout and Rendon at 1 and 4 (either order) actually makes a lot of sense. Best OBPs leading off the 1st and 2nd.

F the book!  No way in hell you want a scenario were Trout and Rendon don't get an AB in the first inning!

[Pancake Bear]

One of the biggest improvements we can make on offense is benching Pujols every day Ohtani plays. He shouldn’t play more than 3 days a week unless there’s too many injuries. Pujols needs to be the primary pinch hitter for his final two years. 

[Pancake Bear]

29 minutes ago, stormngt said:

F the book!  No way in hell you want a scenario were Trout and Rendon don't get an AB in the first inning!

What about Ohtani? Do you have all three of them in the first? Who leads off?

[Lou]

3 minutes ago, Pancake Bear said:

What about Ohtani? Do you have all three of them in the first? Who leads off?

Fletcher leads off and Ohtani bats 4th.

Done. 

[Pancake Bear]

13 minutes ago, Lou said:

Fletcher leads off and Ohtani bats 4th.

Done. 

If Fletcher and La Stella are both rocking a .350 obp next year, I alternate them leading off based on whether the pitcher is a lefty or righty. 

[stormngt]

43 minutes ago, Pancake Bear said:

What about Ohtani? Do you have all three of them in the first? Who leads off?

I do not believe Ohtani is the same type of hitter as Trout and Rendon.  Ohtani would be a good cleanup hitter.  He can drive in runs when the first three get on base and he fits nicely as a 2nd inning leadoff hitter if we go 123 in the first.

With further thought have:

Trout

Rendon

Ohtani 

Simmons

Upton

Catcher

La Stella

Fletcher

Trout leads off and gets the most at bats

Trout also has two good on base guys in front of him in the bottom of order.

 

[Cosmo_Kramer]

10 hours ago, Ace-Of-Diamonds said:

Ohtani needs to DH as much as possible screw the LH, RH platoon gig. Pujols is DH against LH when and only on the day before or after Ohtani pitches and I hope that eventually Ohtani gets to hit while pitching and the game after as well.

Agreed. I want Ohtani to bat as much as he feels comfortable. But I think the times he sits will mostly be against LH.

[Cosmo_Kramer]

1 hour ago, stormngt said:

F the book!  No way in hell you want a scenario were Trout and Rendon don't get an AB in the first inning!

If Rendon bats 4th, he will get a PA in the first inning when someone gets on base. I'd prefer that scenario over him batting 3rd with 0 on and 2 out.

[Pancake Bear]

5 minutes ago, Cosmo_Kramer said:

Agreed. I want Ohtani to bat as much as he feels comfortable. But I think the times he sits will mostly be against LH.

Where there’s flexibility, yeah, I guess, but I think generally it’s going to have more to do with how many days a week he feels comfortable batting. 

[Cosmo_Kramer]

On 12/13/2019 at 4:05 PM, Randy Gradishar said:

Trout and Rendon at 1 and 4 (either order) actually makes a lot of sense. Best OBPs leading off the 1st and 2nd.

This is close to ideal. I like Trout at 2 and Rendon at 4 since Trout at 2 gives his slugging more value than at 1. And I like Trout at 2 over Rendon because he's the better player and he'll get more PAs at 2.

[Cosmo_Kramer]

5 minutes ago, Pancake Bear said:

Where there’s flexibility, yeah, I guess, but I think generally it’s going to have more to do with how many days a week he feels comfortable batting. 

Agreed

[stormngt]

24 minutes ago, Cosmo_Kramer said:

If Rendon bats 4th, he will get a PA in the first inning when someone gets on base. I'd prefer that scenario over him batting 3rd with 0 on and 2 out.

I prefer maxing his at bats per game. 

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

24 minutes ago, Cosmo_Kramer said:

Agreed. I want Ohtani to bat as much as he feels comfortable. But I think the times he sits will mostly be against LH.

He didn't last year and I don't expect that change this year. He will only not DH before and after his starts and the day he pitches. Although Maddon said he will consider him hitting on the days he pitches as well. He was above average from both LHP and RHP, granted he has more HR against RHP but his Ave. and OBP were very close to each other. As long as Pujols can play 1B Ohtani will DH and Pujols will DH on the days surrounding Ohtani's pitching starts.

[totdprods]

Joe Maddon is manager now there’s gonna be all sorts of weird lineups, alphabetical, numerical order, position number order, etc.

I like Rendon after Trout.

[Cosmo_Kramer]

48 minutes ago, Ace-Of-Diamonds said:

He didn't last year and I don't expect that change this year. He will only not DH before and after his starts and the day he pitches. Although Maddon said he will consider him hitting on the days he pitches as well. He was above average from both LHP and RHP, granted he has more HR against RHP but his Ave. and OBP were very close to each other. As long as Pujols can play 1B Ohtani will DH and Pujols will DH on the days surrounding Ohtani's pitching starts.

Misunderstanding. I worded poorly. Let me try to clarify what I meant.

I think Ohtani will mostly sit on days surrounding his start in order to keep him fresh. Think 2018, which is what you described. We agree on this piece.

But I think they'll also sit him other times for general maintenance. Similar to how Trout sometimes sits or DHs even when he's healthy. I'm not saying these will occur frequently. Maybe a few times total all season. My original statement was just saying these select few times he sits will probably be skewed to shield from LH.

Edit: To demonstrate what I mean, look at Ohtani's batting game logs for 2018. Look at the games where he pinch hits in an AL ballpark. Opposing SP tend to be LH. For example. April 10, 2018. Ohtani does not face LH Martin Perez. PH against RH Bartolo Colon.

Long story short, I think it'll be similar to 2018, but we'll see if Maddon gets creative.

[Cosmo_Kramer]

45 minutes ago, stormngt said:

I prefer maxing his at bats per game. 

So bat him leadoff

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

20 minutes ago, Cosmo_Kramer said:

Misunderstanding. I worded poorly. Let me try to clarify what I meant.

I think Ohtani will mostly sit on days surrounding his start in order to keep him fresh. Think 2018, which is what you described. We agree on this piece.

But I think they'll also sit him other times for general maintenance. Similar to how Trout sometimes sits or DHs even when he's healthy. I'm not saying these will occur frequently. Maybe a few times total all season. My original statement was just saying these select few times he sits will probably be skewed to shield from LH.

doubt it, he's only going to DH 3 or 4 games a week as is.

Edited December 15, 2019 by Ace-Of-Diamonds

[Cosmo_Kramer]

2 minutes ago, Ace-Of-Diamonds said:

doubt it, he's only going to DH 3 or 4 games a week as is.

My edit overlapped with your post so I'm copying it below:

To demonstrate what I mean, look at Ohtani's batting game logs for 2018. Look at the games where he pinch hits in an AL ballpark. Opposing SP tend to be LH. For example. April 10, 2018. Ohtani does not face LH Martin Perez. PH against RH Bartolo Colon.

Long story short, I think it'll be similar to 2018, but we'll see if Maddon gets creative.

[GregAlso]

Caveat, Maddon will have crazy lineups. He likes going by the feel of the day and following the music he hears. So, any lineup here is taken with a grain of salt. 
 

What I did want to clarify is what “The Book” says about lineups. First, it acknowledges that lineup construction is minimal in its effect on run scoring. Second, it does give specific instructions on each position in the lineup. I’ll briefly recap that here. 
 

Leadoff:

This should be a high OBP guy. He will have the most ABs per year and you want to produce the fewest outs to maximize run scoring. It is best that you choose the highest OBP guy with minimal power as he will come to the plate, not just in the first inning, throughout the game with the least amount of runners on base. 

2nd:

The best overall hitter, via OPS or whatever metric is you’d like (WRC+, OPS+, etc), should hit here. He will get more ABs than any other spot but leadoff and he will have, on average, the same number of guys on base as the three hole hitter. Best to put guy with power and high on base skills earlier in lineup to maximize his times to the plate.

3rd:

It is best to have high slugging percentage guy here but OBP isn’t vital. Of the first 4 hitters he will come up with the second fewest guys on base, just behind leadoff. As many already noted in this thread the dreaded 2 out nobody on situation. You want high SLG because if he gets on you want him in scoring position for 4 hole who will have 1 on and 2 outs so you maximize chances at a run. 

4th:

Second best hitter, per OPS or any metric you prefer to measure overall hitting, should hit here. This hitter will come up in the most clutch situations where a hit is absolutely necessary for a run to be scored. He will get nearly as many ABs with RISP as the guy batting second and more than the guy batting third but generally in worse out situations so he needs a good SLG. He also may leadoff innings and will have more ABs than anyone lower in the lineup so high OBP is important. The number of ABs between third and fourth are negligible and the only reason this is the order is the number of times they come up with runners on base. 
 

I have forgotten the exact info on the remaining and don’t really want to pull my copy of The Book out. I vaguely remember that 5th is another high SLG guy and I think 6th is the second leadoff guy in the order but I could be wrong about that. 
 

The info provided by The Book is just based on looking at the situations Batting order positions have faced over the past 50 years of baseball. The Book is worth reading if you want to look at how to really utilize your team most effectively.  All the SABR teams follow this to one degree or another but again lineup optimization changes overall run scoring throughout a season by something like 10 runs or less, which means it might mean 1 win or not. It is very minimal. Point is we have a very good lineup and it is gonna be different each day because Maddon isn’t a by the numbers guy. Those of you who hated Scioscia for doing this are gonna feel the same way about Maddon, just go see old posts in the Cubs forum about this to commiserate.
 

Here’s my lineup, and I like to optimize

vs LHP

2B Fletcher

CF Trout

DH Ohtani

3B Rendon

LF Upton

SS Simmons

1B Pujols

RF Goodwin/Adell

C TBNL
 

vs RHP

1B La Stella

CF Trout 

DH Ohtani

3B Rendon

LF Upton

2B Fletcher

SS Simmons 

RF Goodwin/Adell

C TBNL

 

And of course there are a ton of variations for when Ohtani is about to pitch the next day or when La Stella plays 2B and Fletch sits, etc. 

[Warfarin]

For the sake of comparison, our 2019 opening day lineup was:

RF Calhoun, CF Trout, 1B Bour, SS Simmons, 1B Pujols, 3B Cozart, 2B LaStella, C Lucroy, LF Bourjos

What a difference a year makes

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

25 minutes ago, Cosmo_Kramer said:

My edit overlapped with your post so I'm copying it below:

To demonstrate what I mean, look at Ohtani's batting game logs for 2018. Look at the games where he pinch hits in an AL ballpark. Opposing SP tend to be LH. For example. April 10, 2018. Ohtani does not face LH Martin Perez. PH against RH Bartolo Colon.

Long story short, I think it'll be similar to 2018, but we'll see if Maddon gets creative.

In 2018 they didn't play him against LHP much at all until the Pujols went on the DL. From that point on he started to hit well enough against them to justify playing. In japan he was about equal against LHP and RHP. In 2018 Scioscia was just figuring out how and when to play this new type of player. The book is out now and Ohtani has proven he can hit both.

Edited December 15, 2019 by Ace-Of-Diamonds

[Pancake Bear]

11 minutes ago, Warfarin said:

For the sake of comparison, our 2019 opening day lineup was:

RF Calhoun, CF Trout, 1B Bour, SS Simmons, 1B Pujols, 3B Cozart, 2B LaStella, C Lucroy, LF Bourjos

What a difference a year makes

We had two guys playing 1B? That must’ve been crowded.

[Cosmo_Kramer]

5 minutes ago, Ace-Of-Diamonds said:

In 2018 they didn't play him against LHP much at all until the Pujols went on the DL. From that point on he started to hit well enough against them to justify playing. In japan he was about equal against LHP and RHP. In 2018 Scioscia was just figuring out how and when to play this new type of player. The book is out now and Ohtani has proven he can hit both.

Aug 18, 2018 LH Perez

Aug 22, 2018 LH Keuchel

Aug 24, 2018 LH Valdez

Aug 26, 2018 LH Freeland

All Pujols starts at DH. All LH starters. Weird coincidence perhaps