John Russell has shown his new look lineup the past couple spring games and says it's likely to be the lineup for most of this season. Biggest things about it is that Aki Iwumara will leadoff while Andrew McCutchen will bat second. Also the pitcher will bat eighth this season.
Looking at it top to bottom
1. Iwumara 2b
2. McCutchen cf
3. Jones rf
4. Doumit c
5. Milledge lf
6. Clement 1b
7. Laroche 3b
8. Pitcher
9. Cedeno ss
First, do you like Cutch batting in the 2 hole? If you buy into the theory that the leadoff guy is really only guarenteed to lead off an inning once then I guess it makes sense. Aki is capable of doing the job in the leadoff spot. The idea of batting Cedeno 9th is to have have two leadoff hitters batting back to back to get men on base for Cutch and Jones. If that's the case bat Cutch third.
You know Cutch won't be sacraficing like many two hole hitters or hitting behind the runner and why should he when he is your best player. My fear is that there goes any fundamental team baseball the Bucs would play.
Batting the pitcher 8th? Does it really matter? Overall I'm not really a huge fan of the constructed lineup, but I don't hate it either. I think they will be solid 1-3. If Doumit, Milledge and Clement can have decent years then the Bucs could surprise some people and score some runs.
Look, things weren't working the traditional way so it can't hurt to try something new. Your thoughts?
cutch batting second make no sense at all
ReplyDeletei dont get it either by not batting cutch third he would naturally bat 1st to utilize his speed. who knows?
ReplyDeletelike you said matt, it really doesn't matter much, though if aki & cedeno can get on base enough, it very well could work out
ReplyDeletewont last 2 weeks. just russell showing his incompetence
ReplyDeleteit's not that bad. the key will be cedeno. if he and aki get on base then the lineup will be good. essentially cutch is a 3 hitter the way the lineup is configured. i actually like the move
ReplyDelete