because the power hitters (Dunn, Manny, Burrell) all play the OF and we are already overloaded there.

Knowing that we will sign at least 1 middle IF, Furcal, Cabrera, and Hudson have to be favorites to be signed. There all fairly good with the bat and good baserunners (Fucal>Hudson>Cabrera), but none are real on base hogs.

I find it very difficult to project who the Cards will sign this offseason because I think they’ll be at least 1 significant trade that will impact our signings. I think Shumaker or Ankiel are likely to be dealt in some package, so that opens up the possibility of signing an OF or using Rasmus. Milton Bradley is a great option, but I don’t know that he can stay healthy for a hole season playing OF and not DH.

…had a .388 OBP batting 2nd this year, in only 67 plate appearances.

For his career, however, he has 505 plate appearances batting 2nd (by far, the spot he most often appeared in the lineup) is only .356. Not much of an upgrade over this season, and he’s slower than Miles/Skip/Iz2/Barton.

is largely myth. JC Bradbury studied it in The Baseball Economist.

I agree line-up prtection is a myth to the extent that “protected” hitters fare no better than unprotected hitters when looking at individual performance. However in terms of a team’s overall run production I doubt that is the case.

i believe part of the problem is the constant shuffling of the line up. if baseball somewhere is like ‘normal’ life, then i believe some (few) hitters get better from shuffling around, but others thrive in a known setting.

the only shuffling to be done is putting Albert in the 2-hole or in the 4-hole. the 2-hole should get him him additional plate appearances a year, the 4-hole more situations.

a jimmy rollins and chase utley..they have been table setters for howard but i think this yr they moved utley not 100% sure

i was planning to do this research to see if i was a biased observer, or was it true that ap came with 2 out and no one on way too many times. in some games, for sure, he came up with 2 outs and nobody on every time. i’ll also chip in that protection is a real thing to a limited extent. the fact is, pitchers just don’t want to have base runners. if it’s 2 outs, no body on they will be willing to give anyone a pass if they figure their best chance for an out with the next guy is much better. luddy’s splits are not too big to me in 2 vs 4. i firmly believe we would score more runs if albert batted 4th and the pitcher ninth. the key to scoring runs is not whether albert hits in the first inning as a 3rd place hitter, but whether he can come up in the first with someone on. at 4th, he either bats in the first with someone on (a good thing) or bats first the next inning. with the highest obp on the team, batting first in the 3rd is not a bad thing. in addition, if in whatever situation they pitch around albert to get to ludwick, then it becomes highly probable they don’t want the next man on and will “pitch” to him. so, luddy, or whoever, benefits much the same as batting 2nd, unless the next hitter is much easier for that pitcher, is in a major slump, or some other short-term issue. so, what we seem to need is high obp 1-2-3 hitters, since i want ap batting 4th.
rolling on, in terms of next year’s lineup, i’m actually ok with a skippy/barton left field, lead-off platoon. 2nd spot is the key. do we really want the miles/kennedy platoon? does floppy fit in here, if he is willing to sign for much less than his current salary (~$5M i believe), could he bat 2nd or 3rd? maybe so. this still leaves the an open spot. i don’t believe we’ll get either furcal or renteria. if we keep floppy, though, he will need to be at second (please not ss) and we will then have to sign a much more expensive ss or keep iz2. if we keep iz2, he should have the eighth spot locked up. ap hits 4th, luddy 5th, rick/santa 6th/7th, yaddi 8th, pitcher 9th. what i expect is that we keep floppy and he plays 2nd mostly and iz2 and he plays ss mostly. if they go this way, i sure hope they put out for fuentes and lowe, or some mix that taxes the bullpen less and when we go there we get some quick outs.
one last lineup comment. i think part of the deal with tlr and this pitcher 8th bit is love of being eccentric and, therefore, smarter than everyone else who has ever managed. the reason the line-up/run production programs don’t show this as as bad an idea as it really is, is that our 9th place hitters are typically horrible. combine this with our pitchers not going deep into games, you are only talking about 2-3 total at bats/game. on the other hand if yaddi were 8th (a .300 hitter) i think the projections would be much different.
that’s all folks

You know, I am always willing to admit that I am wrong. I converse here because I like interesting discussion and I want to learn something. Maybe you are right and I am wrong, but you really haven’t refuted anything I said or provided any real insight other than your opinion.

I already offered some evidence that your assertion, “He’s going to see a lot more pitches to hit with 2 outs in the first than with no outs in the second” is likely wrong. To reiterate, this season his batting average is higher and his OBP is lower when he leads off an inning. That sure sounds like evidence that he gets more pitches to hit when he leads off an inning. The same holds true for his career numbers. Now I don’t have access to his slash lines with two out and nobody on, but since his OBP with nobody on is higher than his OBP leading off an inning it seems at least possible that he has walked more times with two out and nobody on than leading off an innning. If you have data that enlightens me on this please share it or post a link.

Just because he is leading the majors in runs created doesn’t mean he couldn’t create more hitting fourth. If you have some evidence to the contrary please share it.
If you don’t agree with my math on whether hitting third or fourth gives him more chances to bat with runners on in the first inning then show me my error. If you don’t agree that he will score more runs batting forth then correct my math for me. I think I pretty clearly demonstrated that he would likely score 15-17 more runs per season by batting fourth, do you agree with that?

I don’t want to get into a pissfest with you, but I do put some thought and some research into what I write. I genuinely hope to actually contribute something. So please show me the courtesy of actually critiquing my arguments in some sort of logical way or just move on.