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Pick only one
1) Pallante
2) Yepez
3) Carlson
4) Woodford
5) DonovanAlthough Woodford is over Thompson, I would have both.!
Mlb disagrees BB. The champs most common lineup was 8 games. Phillies most common was 5 games.
Players move all over the lineup, especially utility players like Donovan, who hit in six different lineup spots in two-thirds of a season worth of starts.
Should managers ignore the handedness of the SP they face? Or the handedness splits of their own lineup? Platooning is commonplace in mlb.
How about who’s hot and not? Carlson was our leadoff on opening day, did you want him there every time he started for the season?
Find any team that didn’t use at least 100 different lineups last season.
I did say I was not talking about guys who have been moved around and are used to it, like UTs and newbs. Pujols had been up in the starting lineup 2 or 3 times all year, and not recently. Deciding to get cute with the lineup in a three game post season series was profoundly stupid, and nothing a baseball pro would do. It would not surprise me if pros like Maddux and Albert were so stunned and disgusted they bolted for the exit the moment the curtain came down.
Yepez…I can take or leave Juan, but he’s the only one of the three that I’ve had a few looks. Hopefully, he’ll be somewhat of a threat from the right side of the box in ’23.
Burleson. Yepez does not impress me as a need-to-keep type of player. Gomez has too many strikeouts.
“Pujols had been up in the lineup 2 or 3 times all year and not recently”.
That’s incorrect.
In Sept/Oct he batted all over the place. 3 GS at 2spot, 2 GS at 3, 3 GS at cleanup, 4 GS at 5spot, 6 GS at 6; in the 2nd half Pujols could have hit in a phone booth and been effective.
1. Pallante
2. Burleson
3. Carlson (this is the toughest call, IMO)
4. Thompson
5. Gorman (also a tough call)I am hoping that Hudson proves my doubts about him are wrong this season. Pallante looks like a good bullpen piece and occasional starter. Yepez has never impressed me and he has no defensive position. Burleson has an interesting profile of a contact bat with decent power. I think Carlson is due to breakout. Nootbaar continues to be valuable but is he near his ceiling? Thompson showed he can be good out of the bullpen. Woodford will never get a chance so why keep him. Gorman’s ceiling is so high but does have contact concerns. Donovan could be near his ceiling.
How many times during the ’22 regular season was Pujols slotted at #2 in the line-up and how many times was Donovan slotted at #5? Pujols is gone, but my guess is that Donovan won’t be placed the #5 slot all season long in ’23 only because I genuinely feel that the Redbird manager is smart enough to want to keep his job.
Pujols was slotted at #2 in the batting order only 3 times in the regular season. Donovan was slotted at #5 a total of 16 times in the regular season. In the 3 games that Pujols batted 2nd, Donovan batted 7th, 9th and did not start 1 game.
Donovan was in the five spot because he was the best of who’s left. The top four hitters in the second half batted in the top four lineup spots during the postseason. I have no problem with that, I like a who’s hot, at the top, constructed lineup.
We had three starters go hitless in the postseason, Goldy, Donovan and Carlson.
We had three starters with one hit, Arenado, Edman and Molina.
We had four starters collect two hits, Noot, Pujols, Yepez and Dickerson.
Any idea that Pujols was ineffective in the two spot, during the postseason, is incorrect.
I generally don’t have any sort of problem with a manager shuffling guys around in a line-up. I would have been perfectly fine with the Redbird manager experimenting with hitting Donovan at #5 and Pujols at #2 in the last 5 or 6 meaningless games of the ’22 regular season to get a feel for whether or not it would be productive and possibly pay off in the post-season. However, when he decided to all of a sudden go fancy pants with the natural order of the baseball line-up universe for the two most important games of the season, I thought, and will continue to think, that it was an incredibly silly thing to do at precisely the wrong moment in time.
Pujols had as many hits as anyone in those two games. Donovan was entirely nuetralized in the #5 slot. Which is to be expected. That’s a slot in the order which is suited for a guy who is expected to push runs across HP, not for a guy who collects a lot of BB’s, HBP’s and flashes a .394 OBP.
I’d say so. He knows he blew it. He just didn’t say so. I’d respect him more if he’d have offered up some indication that numerous decisions may have questionable. However, he never did.
I think it’s on the players, not the managers lineup, but your opinion deserves consideration too, as everyone does.
If we’ve circled back to batting fifth hurt Donovan in the postseason, now, I’d say their is too much credit being given to a two game sample size.
Donovan proved during the season he could be productive batting 5th, with a 132 ops+. He was a 123 batting second. He had 70 PA’s batting 5th, the manager wasn’t taking an unknown flier. He had 159 pa’s at the 2spot.
I agree 5th is an rbi spot, traditionally, but when you go 0 fer 7 w/0 BB, you’re not driving in runs or getting on base.
If the position players produce during the postseason, or the bullpen doesn’t melt down, would we even be having this extended discussion?
We had 3 rbi during the WC series, all by pinch hitters. I’m pointing at the lineup fail and not looking for a scapegoat.
jj & 1td, it’s hard to say in today’s game. So many think the manager doesn’t truly make these kinds of decisions in today’s game. The batting order decision had plenty of time to brew before Oli went with it. Certainly Mo wasn’t surprised by it. Maybe bling is right and couple of dweebs high fived it before Oli even knew about it. Or maybe it was a committee decision where Oli had “a” vote, and he knew by the nature of the discussion what his vote needed to be, sort of like an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Regardless, Oli is the manager and the buck stops with him. But all these possible circumstances might be why Oli wouldn’t feel compelled to take full ownership publicly. It also explains why he wouldn’t deflect responsibility — he doesn’t want to be Shildt’ed on. Philosophy and all…..
I understand what you’re driving at in the majority of your comment. jj. However, the BP didn’t melt down. One guy did. And it was entirely known that he required a sentry sort of close and watchful eye. If the Redbird manager was indeed watching, he saw the entire unfortunate event unfold before his eyes. It’s my view that he saw the situation catch fire and negligently watched it burn, so to speak, until it was blazing out of control and too late to salvage.
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