Money and Soriano and Marquis

I will also say that over the last two years I have heard many stories on how the “organization” is divided on this player or that.

“Divided” probably means Lou on one side and everyone else in the front office on the other.

To me it is clear that coaches don’t use statistics like they should.

Let me us another analogy and bring it back to baseball. In golf almost all golfers use a driver off the tee in the attempt to gain as many yards as possible and shorten the shot to the green attempting to use a shorter iron—-sounds intuitive.

But Tiger Woods only uses his driver 2 or 3 times out of 14 holes, (4 par 3’s). That means he uses an iron or fairway wood on 11-12 holes. When I played and my coach told me I was only able to hit my driver where even though I could drive 280-300 yards twice a round and had to use my 3-wood or 2 iron off the rest of the tees. My scores fell by an average from 74 to 72 or even now scoring below par even though I was hitting many more middle irons to the greens instead of short irons. Why because I was also not hitting short irons out of the rough or worse.

In baseball OBP and SLG’ng give you such a picture. To me OBP should be used in the top of the order: Here Theriot was tops from regular and Fontenot (tops in bench players) so to me it is obvious that Theriot should be either lead off or number two as he will be on base 2 out 5 times or at least once a game sometimes twice a game.

Then the problem with the Cubs lineup is that you need to have another top OBP batter up after or before him to insure that 3 out 4 times or better someone is on base when your #3 hitter is up.

To me then the 4th-5th hitters must be your best sluggers which are Soriano and Ramirez in that order, with Ramirez being your second best OBP which places him perfect for the cleanup. But the stats tell you that Soriano with the leading slugging at 564 should be the 5th hitter where he will have the most opportunities to hit with men on base.

Back to the #3. To me I would rather have a higher OBP than SLG’ing here to insure the odds are that someone will be on base in front of my SLG’ers, that is DeRosa or Soto and not Lee where both had stronger OPS. This is as much a psychological decision as a tactical one. Soto to me is my #3 with the same OBP but stronger SLG’g than Lee.

Therefore Lee moves back to the 6 spot and will lead off innings or be up with 2 outs and the bases juiced as anyone and a good spot for him to produce. Behind him DeRosa who has a similar OPS would make for statistically balanced attack.

Here then is the question. In the present roster you could play DeRosa in RF and Fukudome in CF or Pie in CF and Fukudome in RF. With DeRosa playing RF Fontenot would play with the 395 OBP and a 514 SLG while Pie had a .312 OBP and meak .325 SLG. Where to play Fukudome?

I say I will go with his first half season .425 OBP and bat him second behind Theriot where two .400 OBP in front of Soto would set tables in front of Soto, Ramirez, Soriano. But then I would bat Fontenot 6th, and bat Lee and DeRosa 7th-8th and wear out the other team’s pitcher.

you appear to have purged Rich Hill’s starts from your memory.

Plus a strikeout with people on base and less than two outs is LEAST harmful when happening before the cleanup hitter.

One thing we should point out as we complain about unideal hitters in other spots is that Aramis Ramirez is an awesome guy to have hitting 4th. He doesn’t strike out often, tends to hit for good average, and upped his walk rate last year perfectly. Having Aramis and his contact skill bat 4th allows us to bat a potential strikeout victim like Soriano, Soto, or Dunn before him without much harm.