Batista Cleans Up?

by snolls on Apr 19, 2006 4:06 AM EDT

I finally created an account out of outrage at Batista batting 4.

First: I was happy that we signed Batista, a cheap home run hitter. But, he may never, I repeat, absolutely not, bat higher than 6, and probably 7. Logic as follows:

At the top of the order you have people who get on base. So your three and four hitters, should the most chances to hit with runners on base. Their job is to keep the inning alive. They often get rbi's if they do, but that is actually a secondary benefit. Maximizing hitters in an inning maximizes run producing opportunities. If the 3 hitter is OBP and 5 hitter is Power, there is a better chance that they both get to hit in the inning.

Everyone wants a HR when two guys are on base, but with 0 or 1 outs, who cares. A single might score the guy, but it definitely creates an extra chance down the order. The BA w/RISP is a more descriptive stat when you consider that it not only leads to his rbi's, but also to RISP chances for people below him. The 3 hitter may not bring them all home at once, but if they both get a chance to hit, more runs will be scored. With 2-outs, a HR does much more damage, since in baseball, the guy below you will probably end the inning 7 out of 10 times.

Which leads to protection:
Just to be clear, let me draw protection as follows: With a power hitter lurking, a hitter sees better pitches, because no one wants to pitch to a power hitter with runners on. This effect increases as outs increase, as described above.

If the three hitter is OBP and the 5 hitter is poweer

Batista actually does provide protection for the middle of the lineup. So I say, if we don't want white hitting 4 (which i'm actually comfortable with), then put
4 Hunter
5 White
6 Morneau
7 Batista

That way White gets some nice pitches, a chance to correct his swing on some meatballs. They'll pitch nice to him with people on, because they definitely won't want to give Morneau or Batista two-out opportunities.

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Gardy's reasoning

Welcome Snolls!

I was going to do a whole story about this, but it's probably best to say this here:

He flip-floped Batista with White, rather than sliding Hunter and Morneau up because "he only wanted to make one change".

Wait a minute, aren't you making two changes, when you move White to 7 and Batista up to 4? By this way of counting, If he moved White to 6 and slid Hunter and Morneau up a slot. he would be making three changes.

By another way of counting, he would only make one change by moving White back to six and sliding Morneau and Hunter up a slot. Hunter and Morneau would not be as affected by the move as Batista is, and White would be affected either way. So if he wanted to do the least juggling, that is how he would do it, not the way he actually did it.

All that assumes that you want to do the least amount of juggling. I would say, you should worry less about disruption than production. That is, the goal is to put the best people in the most productive places in the line-up. Even Gardy would agree that Batista is not as good a hitter as either Hunter or Morneau.

Or how about this, why not analyze everyone's at bats and do simulations to see what the most productive line-ups would be. Gardy has a computer, he could run these. My guess is, if he did, he'd get something like this:

Castillo
Stewart
Mauer
Hunter
Morneau
Batista
Cuddyer
White
Castro

A little more disruptive, but maximally productive, at least until White finds his stroke again.

Joe Mauer for MVP.

by cmathewson on Apr 19, 2006 1:55 PM EDT reply actions

once/if

White gets going a bit, I would like to see a lineup that looks like this:

2b Castillo
LF Stewart
DH White
C Mauer
CF Hunter
1b Morneau
3b Batista
RF Cuddyer
SS Bartlett (this Castro thing is disturbing)

Maybe White would see some more decent pitches if 'the man' was hitting behind him protecting him. Just an idea.

by gophersw on Apr 19, 2006 2:05 PM EDT up reply actions

Good post

I'm going to try to get rid of the second copy of it, if I can figure out how, though. It looks to me like they are exactly the same, and it'll be better if we can keep the discussion in one place rather than two.

by ubelmann on Apr 19, 2006 2:43 PM EDT reply actions

Probably my mistake

do you know what I did wrong?

by snolls on Apr 19, 2006 3:08 PM EDT up reply actions

Hmmm...

I'm not really sure. I don't know the software in and out, but either you hit a submission button one too many times, or there was some sort of double-submission glitch. It's no problem though, clearly an honest mistake, if there was one.

by ubelmann on Apr 19, 2006 3:40 PM EDT up reply actions

Stewart/Castillo

With the Stewart/Castillo thing, I actually break my OBP/Power theory, and here is my intuition. They are both relatively good OBP guys, and Castillo's speed is a little bit better right now than Stewarts. So I think that Castillo has a better chance of beating out grounders for both hits to advance Stewart, and to avoid double plays, than the case would be in reverse.

I am not attached to this position, and feel that Stewarts power creates a question, but I'll go with Gardy's "Where their comfertable" approach. Any opinions on this justification?

---------------------

Now I am going to make a contradictory argument.
Leave White in the Middle of the order, because he is a proven hitter and will improve. Leave Castro in, until he starts slumping.

I think that it is bad psychology to move White after a two week slump, have him improve at the bottom order, and then return him to the middle (superstitions etc.). At the same time, reward Castro for playing well, because Gardensnake needs to show that he notices good performance. As soon as Castro slumps, Bartlett to the rescue (while hopefully trading Castro). I'd really like to be able to carry Sierra and Kubel on the roster.

by snolls on Apr 19, 2006 3:08 PM EDT reply actions

I don't know, last year we hit into an enormous

...number of GDPs

by MNPundit on Apr 19, 2006 3:30 PM EDT reply actions

True...

...we did hit into a lot of double plays as a team last year. The Twins were in 1094 DP situations last year, and they hit into 187 double plays, for a rate of 17.1%. League average is around 12.5%. If the Twins had merely grounded into double plays at the league average rate, they would've hit into about 50 fewer double plays, or about one per three game series, which is a huge difference. I want to look more into this, so if I get some time, I'll check how well other teams did in this regard.

However, with regards to putting Castillo in the #2 spot to keep out of double plays, last year, Castillo hit into double plays at a rate of 17%, and Stewart hit into double plays at a rate of 14.4%. So at least based off last year's numbers, the edge is to Stewart as far as staying out of the double play.

by ubelmann on Apr 19, 2006 3:51 PM EDT up reply actions

If you get time...

...would you please look at Hunter's double plays last year? I started calling him "GDP" Hunter

Your point is taken about Stewart.

by MNPundit on Apr 20, 2006 2:03 AM EDT up reply actions

Well

Actually, as much as I've been a supporter of him, Cuddyer does have a thing with DP's.

Mostly because his Go/Ao ratio is exceedingly high.

by AdamOnFirst on Apr 20, 2006 2:20 AM EDT up reply actions

Cuddyer

Yeah, it's beginning to look more and more like 2004 was an outlier. He had a 0.93 G/F ratio in 2004, which is really a fairly strong flyball tendancy. But in every other year he's been somewhere between 1.45 and 1.80(last year) which is really quite a strong tendancy for ground balls.

His DPs followed suit, as he had a fairly league average 13.7% in 2004, but a killer, killer 25% rate last year in 76 DP situations. And as bad as that was, Tiffee managed to do a lot worse, with a 36.4% rate in 33 DP situations.

by ubelmann on Apr 20, 2006 3:41 AM EDT up reply actions

The sad thing...

...is that Hunter was one of the "best" on the team at avoiding DPs last year. Amongst hitters with 100 or more plate appearances on the team, Hunter had the third best DP%, at 12.3% (10 DPs in 81 DP situations), which is about league average.

You are probably thinking of 2004, when Hunter was worst on the team (at least with those with 100 or more PAs) with a 22.3% (27 DPs in 121 DP situations.)

by ubelmann on Apr 20, 2006 3:36 AM EDT up reply actions

Leadoff and second

Besides power and OBP, I also look at situational hiiting: hit and run, bunting, etc. Here Castillo really shines. Yet, Stewart has not had too many chanes to do this. And I think he would be good at it. Last night, for example, he really stayed on the ball when he needed to take it the other way as the situation dictated. When he gets in trouble, he tends to get pull happy and ground a lot of balls to the left side. Perhaps if he hit second, he'd be forced to try to take it to right more often.

Joe Mauer for MVP.

by cmathewson on Apr 19, 2006 4:03 PM EDT reply actions

We've tried Hunter @ 4 before

Hunter's not a #4, he's never been a #4 and he's never going to be a #4.

He doesn't hit for enough average to make up for being short on the power side to be a #4.

He does strike out enough to be a #4, though.

The biggest issue we had with our lineup last year was that a guy who should be a #6 spent so much time hitting #4 because we didn't have a real #4 - or #5, for that matter.

Your first 3 should be Castillo, Stewart & Mauer - drop Joe any further & he loses a lot of at bats I'd rather he get.

Morneau is the prototypical #4, but he's not ready to handle it yet & Gardy's hesitant to put Mauer & Morneau back to back because it makes it too easy to bring in the lefty to get a couple of outs. He'll be a #5 or higher until either him or Mauer (both, I hope) become more efficient against lefties.

At that point your #4 options are White, Batista or Hunter. Look at their stats to date for this season & you can make a decent case for putting Batista there FOR THE TIME BEING - 90 points higher OBP, 80 points higher slugging %, 50 points higher batting average.

by BD57 on Apr 19, 2006 4:44 PM EDT reply actions

Batista

batista's stats are fairly quickly crashing bck down to earth. At bats like the one he had tonight against K-Rod are why. We'll see a lot more of those as the year progresses.

I don't think Batista will hit there much more, which is good.

I also hop Sierra doesn't hit there any more, unless it is onyl to get White going. I hope Gardy sits White tomorrow too, just to give him those two days off to get his mind back in the right place.

by AdamOnFirst on Apr 20, 2006 12:32 AM EDT reply actions

F-Rod

First of all, I refuse to call the kid K-Rod. F-Rod has the certain ring to it, especially for those who have to face him.

Secondly, a lot of guys have those kinds of at bats against F-Rod. I wouldn't project Batista's numbers for the year based on how he fares against the league's top closers.

Still, I don't expect him to hit like this all season. While he is, however, why not ride it in the #4 spot? He seems to be piling up RBIs there. As long as White continues to struggle, the move seems to be working.

Give credit where credit is due, Gardy was willing to play the hot hand for a change rather than insisting that DHs must hit cleanup, left fielders must hit leadoff, second basemen must hit second, etc....

Joe Mauer for MVP.

by cmathewson on Apr 21, 2006 12:39 PM EDT up reply actions

Again

batista is cleaning up again today.

Whit eis in his spot though, so I'm still optomistic that this isn't going to happen often when White gets going. Honestly, there isn't a great hitter to have at 4th righ tnow.

As I write, White is stepping up in tehi first with the bases loaded in a 1-1 game. We'll see what happens...

basehit down the line for two Rbi! a nasty liner down the line. Maybe he's feeling better after that off day...

by AdamOnFirst on Apr 20, 2006 1:44 PM EDT reply actions

Batista

Perfect for clean-up! I luv this guy! He brings life to the field, range to the third base, and fun from the stands.

Was he hot in the recent loss or what?

I'm a fan!

by twintown on Apr 20, 2006 6:18 PM EDT reply actions

Yeah

He has been hot. He should be in the #4 spot. He almost hit a homer off of Shields. Even Shields was like that was close. He's playing really good right now. and the walks are surprising me. So i'm all for him there until White gets going.

by nate493 on Apr 21, 2006 4:09 AM EDT reply actions