They picked up this dude named Mark DeRosa.

Jimmy Rollins is prolly the only NL leadoff hitter who is better than Alfonso Soriano. There are a few more in the AL.

The main job of a leadoff guy is getting on base, not stealing bases. Gathwright is more of a Dusty Baker type leadoff man.

Something involving jumping over Lou’s car methinks.

Gathright leads off fewer than 20 games in 2008.

can run, and Riot can’t.

That hole in the right side in that situations is gaping for a lefty. Or a switch hitter versus righties. Thats why I like Milty for the spot, even though I know it’ll never happen.

duh

Derrek Lee is more worried than the opposing pitcher when Theriot is on first.

Theriot didnt run the bases well last year, but he had stolen 41 bases and only been caught 6 times before that for an astounding 87% success rate. So he was a very good base stealer. He had a bad start to last year, 9 SB/8CS. But recovered with a solid rest of the year 13SB/5CS for 72% success.

I would not assume that Ryan will have another bad year on the bases. I think chances are he will be back to 70%+ success. A real asset on the bases.

This essentially gives us two leadoff hitters, and when the lineup cycles, you’ve got Riot hitting those scrappy singles for Sori to drive him in.

Miles is a contact hitter, and he puts the ball in play regularly. As a matter of fact, he puts the ball in play more than DeRosa does. Miles is also a better fielder than DeRosa. As far as OBP, you just do as many other teams do, place an OBP guy in either the 2nd spot or the 8th spot. Miles won’t play every day, at least not at 2nd. He has experience at lead off, and can run much better than people realize.

I said “smart base-running”

Smart base-runners may not be prolific base-stealers but above average success rates. They don’t get picked off, and they can make it from first to third or second to home on a well-hit ball. Most of that is independent of pure speed.

it’s NOT safe to say he can drive in 110+ batting in the heart of the order, because when he bats in the heart of the order, he doesn’t bat as well.

Obviously his production dropped but Fukudome is the best fit to lead off, followed by Theriot. The only reason Sori bats lead-off is because that’s the only place he hits and they need the production out of his exorbitant contract. It’s not necessarily a good baseball decision.

Do you seriously believe what you just wrote? It’s fairly straight forward, you can’t score unless you get on base. Until that happens, speed means nothing. Absolutely nothing, it has no value whatsoever.

One more time.

It’s fairly straight forward, you can’t score unless you get on base. Until that happens, speed means nothing. Absolutely nothing, it has no value whatsoever.

Of course you want your best hitters at the top and heart of your line-up, that’s what everyone does. It’s not quite as simple though, which is why Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun and Albert Pujols never bat lead-off, ever. You create a line-up that uses a hitters skill-set to your best advantage.
The prototypical line-up should be:
1. High OBP, above average speed.
2. Above average OBP, above average BA, a “smart” hitter who will put the ball in play (non-bunters need not apply).
3. High average, moderate power, above average OBP.
4. Power power power (this typically denotes higher OBP).
5. Power power (ditto)
6.-9. = whatever’s left and your pitcher.

Now, provided everyone plays to their potential without protracted slumps or is “less comfortable” batting where appropriate, the ideal hypothetical Cubs line-up would be.
1. Fukudome
2. Theriot
3. Bradley
4. Soriano
5. Ramirez

of course this depends a lot on the opposing pitcher, and how the playing roles solidify in Spring and at the beginning of the season, blah blah but this is all fairly common sense.

Thirdly high speed as it translates to stolen bases and the ability to leg-out triples does not a good lead-off hitter make. It’s fundamental baseball. The idea is to score runs, you have so many outs to score as many runs as possible. So an out is the “currency” of baseball if you will. You trade outs for runs. This is most literally demonstrated when a player hits a sacrifice bunt/fly ball. When a player is on base the value of an out increases dramatically, especially if you are entering the heart of the order, with the higher AVG/SLG rest, because of their ability to score that runner. Attempting to steal a base places that value at risk, so stealing at a middling to low success rate will hurt a team’s chances of score significantly. Triples don’t necessarily equate to power potential. It’s hard to prognosticate for luck in those circumstances but I’d be willing to bet that a fair amount of triples hit are largely dependent on luck and are the result of defensive miscues not scored as errors (such as bad hops, poor defensive alignments resulting in a ball hit in a gap, et al).

Lastly, Soriano is not Ricky Henderson and he doesn’t get on base enough to justify his current place in the line-up. This isn’t about arguing where he should hit because conventional baseball wisdom says he should hit in the middle of the order because the value of his speed his overrated. His speed will diminish with age and the longer the Cubs wait to slide him down in the order and work him to get over whatever psychological bullshit prevents him from being effective where he’s most valuable, the worse off the team will be down the road.