Jim certainly appreciate your opinion on this. All you're saying is where you'd have Springer in the lineup if you were the Mgr. Could certainly see him hitting in the 5 spot as well. That said he has a history of getting on base and he hits great with RISP. With our 7-8-9 hitters doing what they've been doing it's nice having Springer coming up with them on base.
Springer now has the best numbers of his career, as opposed to a week ago, when your "reasoning is based on trends". The above post shows the sheer stupidity of arbitrary small sample sizes - you simply created trends (even last year, where the differences were statistically insignificant) to fit what you wanted to believe.
Sorry to be harsh - we all are guilty of doing this stuff. I think it just tends to reveal our own biases about players or situations rather than what's really going on. This is just poor timing on your part , but a great example of how quickly a single week can change how a player looks or what his stats show. A couple of weeks ago, I was saying that Altuve's 2016 was probably a fluke and outlier, and now he's closing in on that pace too.
I think this statement sums up some of the frostier frustration with your opinion... it feels very.... out of touch. First of all, steals have, historically, been much more a part of the NL toolbox. But beyond that - more and more, they're becoming out and out non-essential. In 2006, 11 guys stole 40+ bases; between '14-'16, 12 did it total. The game is evolving and teams are no longer comfortable with the risk/reward. As for baserunning IQ - the entire team struggles with it. I'm pretty sure Correa now leads the league in being thrown out at home and Altuve (steals aside) has notoriously been every bit as bad as Springer. Pettis is a hyper-aggressive coach (which is almost assuredly an organizational mandate) and so the team runs itself into a lot of outs on the basepath. Honestly, I'm not sure there's a *better* baserunner as Springer is tremendous at taking the extra base and is really and truly one of the game's better sliders. Just this past week alone, he's scored twice in large part due to terrific slides at home. Finally, Springer WAS 3rd on the team in OB% in '16; 1st in '15 and 4th in his first season. Some of that was due more to the competition as this has been a terrible on-base team for many years - but Springer still posted a very solid % (.362 last two full seasons). But to discard those 2.5 seasons of data for ~50 games is silly, and we've seen why this week as he has shaken off his slump and returned to being a beast.
What's really going on is Springer is leading the team in HRs, but still leading off when he should be batting between 3rd-6th with other high RISP guys. Jim, don't let them get you down!
Wonder if the idea is to start him out so he sees the ball better and gets in the shorter rhythm to get a knock or get on base. In other words-- does he swing differently if he's got RISP than when you bat lead-off?
The idea is to bat him leadoff because he has done a good job of it for the past 3 years. The idea was not to make a panic move based on a slump. The idea is that the entire lineup is producing at a great level. There is no need to change. Leaving things as they were in May led to a 6.3 runs per game average. Even before the Twins series they were averaging something like 5.5 in May.
But you're okay with him batting 5th or 6th.... where he'd get a significant less amount of AB's over the course of a season?
What is the upside of one of your best hitters getting less AB's over the course of a season? You also continue to argue a fallacy that Springer will never bat with men on base. When the only time that is guaranteed to happen is the first AB of the game. Given this team's 7-9, how many more RISP opportunities will Springer get batting 5th vs batting 1st? And when you factor in the decreased number of AB's he gets when batting lower, will it have an overall difference in his RC? Pretty simple questions here... and I guarantee you that somebody in this front office crunched those numbers long before deciding to put him there in the first place.
After all this back and forth... that's what you're going with? I suppose using a plethora of stats, projections, and actual results to make decisions doesn't matter if all you have to do is "think the way you think"...
I mean, he's kind of acknowledging the underlying issue. He mentioned early on that he prefers traditional things like SBs and high baserunning IQ out of his leadoff hitter. Preferring those things means he either doesn't care or places less emphasis on any new ways of thinking that suggest those things aren't as important when you have more moneyball-era numbers in front of you. Basically, he thinks the way he thinks--and that appears to be more rooted in tradition and opinion-based preference. I think it's great that he's said "here's what I prefer and how I think". At the same time, I think we all know the Astros under Luhnow (and really all of MLB over time) will continue to go towards what the stats that truly measure effectiveness tell us, so people preferring tradition will not be happy with decisions..
That very well may be the case... but I also don't consider making sure your best hitters get the most number of AB's, by batting them higher in the lineup, is a concept that isn't anti-tradition or purely SABR. Springer deserves as many AB's as possible. Theoretically, you could interchange him, Altuve, and Correa.... and they'd all be very productive provided they all bat near the top of the lineup to get as many AB's as possible.
