The only times the Cardinals got the bat on the ball in that inning resulted in foul balls or ground balls... and they scored 6 runs. Good ol' spring training baseball.
The idea is to have the lineup that scores the most runs. It's about the team getting opportunities and cashing in on the opportunities not individual players. I want every player to be as good as he can be, but I would never put him in a spot that maximizes his performance but reduces the overall opportunities that the team has to score. Brantley was on base 37% of his PA last year. Pena was on base 28.9%. That's 56 more times on base over 726 PA ( the # that the #2 lineup spot had last year) Yordan drove the run home 26% of the time he was up with a man on base. Alex was 25.4% Thats 15 more RBI from Yordan and then up to 15 more from Alex just because the #2 hitter gets on base more often. I want as many base runners as possible on base in front of Yordan, Alex, Abreu, and Tucker.
So batting second wins is a thing now? Baseball data is noisy. Whethewr Pena bats 2nd or not, I really hope the Astros aren't stupid enough to think batting second wins is predictive.
The object of the game of baseball is to win games. The object of the lineup is to score runs. Theoretically the team could be 49-7 with Pena striking out every time he's up and the team only scoring 49 runs in those 56 games
This kind of stuff is what I find truly funny and illustrative of how the whole saber vs old school baseball debate amongst fans is nonsensical. People who ostensibly despise spreadsheet nerds use statistics all the time to justify their claims but their justification is based more on intuition than the result of some rigorous analysis. Ultimately, it boils down to a more structured, rigorous approach to decision making (hence ridiculously entitled positions in baseball orgs like "director of decision sciences") versus intuition and respect for authority/seniority a la the ways that things have always been done. People who despise spreatsheet nerds don't necessarily despise statistics, they just lack the same sense of epistemic humility as the spreadsheet nerds (we shouldn't believe in something unless we have a good reason to believe it) while also possessing a greater admiration for tradition than the spreadsheet nerds.
Hopefully they aren't stupid enough to mess up a good thing. Last time I saw Pena he was mashing from the #2 spot and we dont even know if or when, not to mention how long Brantley can stay healthy. But hey lets tinker with the lineup that won a WS. Brilliant
