George Springer: Should he lead off?

His 2016 was nearly identical to his 2015. He hit for more power but had fewer hits drop in.

His 2017 he has a very low BABIP of .268. I don't expect that to last.

 

He's a streaky hitter. 2 solid weeks, like he had at the beginning of the season, and his numbers are right back to his career norms.

Trends "tethered" to the past suggest he will be closer to his career numbers after 162 than he is now.

 

Fair, but add to it that you need to think about the past unless you have a good reason to ignore it. Because data is useful. And I don't think there's a good reason to ignore Springer's last 2 years, nor is there a real trend over time right now. Especially given his age and that his physical skills don't seem to have declined.

 

We are going to have to loose a lot more than 4-6 games for there to be changes. 12-16, maybe. That's the range that should warrant real discussion.

 

What are the OBP of the current Astros since the beginning of 2016? I can guarantee Springer is in the top 4 in OBP among starters with a good margin above McCann who is likely 5th. Aoki, though likely in top 4 in OBP, may not even deserve to start based on other things. Altuve and Correa have earned their spots. Assuming that and based on stats from beginning of 2016, most reasonable lineup without Springer leading off is likely McCann leading off with Springer batting second. Flipping Springer and Reddick makes no sense to me.

 

There is nothing to fix, if what you are trying to fix isn't broken....

 

Hypothetical improvements. But, why would you even toy with it until the team starts to really struggle. We can't shuffle things every time the team has a bad six game stretch. That's going to happen. I don't think it is arguable that Springer is an unorthodox lead off guy, but this is the best team in baseball.

 

I've always wanted Altuve as leadoff. Always will

 

I didn't see any George Springer threads 15 games ago, that's why I said it. Technically, every team can be better.

 

And where is the line between reaction and overreaction?

 

Come on... his '15 and '16 seasons are virtually identical years, minus the plate appearances. He was literally 6 hits/walks/HBPs away from posting the same OB% in '16 as he did in '15. He was two singles away from posting the same slugging %.

The only significant drop from '15 to '16 is batting average.

 

Disagree with this. Tinkering for the wrong reasons can make things worse.

For Springer, I think you're asking the wrong questions. The things you should be looking at to see if he's *really* a worse player than past year are things like whether his bat speed has slowed down, or whether he's getting unlucky this year (or was extra lucky in the past), etc. You'd want to look at predictive things rather than end results.