Broken Bat - Discussion Forum: Batting order

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Post ID	Date & Time	Game Date	Function

#6221	01/24/2014 9:16:06 pm
bigsleep Joined: 01/19/2012 Posts: 1 Inactive	My first post! Been playing for a while though. The main weakness for my team is my stealing bases and speed overall. As a result of this I have been playing Merritt as my lead off hitter, however I think this is a waste of his power hitting. To take full advantage of his power potential I have moved him to 4th spot and moved my most plate disciplined player to the top with a low steal management orders. My questions are - Do you think this is the right strategy at this point in time? For the future, can I be competitive in the higher leagues with no quality speedsters on my main roster (Note: I do have some in the minors coming through but who knows how they are going to turn out) Thanks

#6222	01/25/2014 8:41:48 am
curtisp5286 Joined: 08/25/2012 Posts: 95 Inactive	This is just my opinion but I believe that you can be competitive in the higher leagues with a "no steal" type strategy. If you look at the teams in the legends league there are a couple with very few steals. My team is like yours right now. Very little speed. My team has attempted only 21 stolen bases so far this year and I'm doing very well. Although I am only in league VI, i think it holds true at higher leagues as well. It is a fact that if you are not successful in at least 2/3 of your steal attempts then you are hurting your team more than you are helping. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-changing-caught-stealing-calculus-2/

#6225	01/25/2014 12:39:02 pm
Crunchtime Joined: 05/23/2013 Posts: 141 Inactive	The effectiveness of Speed will change, I feel. Right now, having a solid speedster at leadoff is a good idea, if only to have more opportunities (roughly 151 of them, I'm not taking into account the 2nd, 3rd and/or 4th at-bats due to the potential of 2nd base have a runner on it) to have them get on base with no-one in front of them and have the chance to bag 2nd. As it stands, catchers with solid arms seems to have a 35-45% pickoff percentage on steal attempts. With a .350 OBP leadoff guy you're looking at getting on base in about 60 of those games. Some of the hits will be for extra bases due to speed and some due to walks. So say, 40 of those 60 times, they end up on first. They may try to steal 30 of those 40 times (depending on your managers style). of those, they will steal 2nd perhaps 18 times. Out of those ~18 times, a single should score them from 2nd whereas if they were on 1st, it would likely need to be a double. With 2nd, 3rd and 4th behind him, there's a good chance there's a base hit (~65% based on having 3 .300 hitters behind him). This equates to about 13 potential runs. Right now, outfield assists are kinda silly and it really cuts down the runs due to the number of runners getting gunned down at the plate. Just based on these (very) loose numbers, having a speedster leadoff looks to add ~8 runs over the run of a year. Is that significant to you? Is it worth sacrificing a better hitter or fielder to get the speedster into the lineup? I don't know. It doesn't seem like a massive difference to me but if you have them, use em. Once outfield assists come down it may be more useful however. As well, if there's situations where the leadoff is on with nobody in front of them further into the game, their value does go up. Preferably, I believe having a fast leadoff with a good OBP is great. Having an entire team of speed would be optimal (extra bases for everyone!). Updated Saturday, January 25 2014 @ 12:42:10 pm PST

#6229	01/25/2014 2:25:37 pm
curtisp5286 Joined: 08/25/2012 Posts: 95 Inactive	Well said Crunch. The value of stolen bases is very dependent on the other batters in the lineup.

#6254	01/26/2014 10:51:47 am
admin Joined: 01/27/2010 Posts: 4985 Administrator	There have been a lot of statistical studies that suggest that base stealing is only beneficial if you can do so with a high percentage. Otherwise, the cost in outs isn't worth the additional bases. Steve