Carlos Gomez is leading the NL in BA

Why is he batting 7th?

Should the lineup be constructed with the best average at the top and continue down in progression?

quote:

Originally posted by lynndickey83: The Twins and Mets gave up. We gave up JJ Hardy and we may have got the best of that deal.

Since Hardy isn't even on that team anymore, I don't think there is any doubt.

Another interesting tidbit is that GoGo was the centerpiece of the deal for the Twins when they sent Johann Santana to the Mets.

However, GoGo was so frustrating up here that radio hosts still make fun of him. Not sure anybody up here misses him regardless of how well he does.

I hope we understand Gomez is in the middle of a hot streak. While he has improved (really improved) in his time in Milwaukee, I expect things to come to earth at some point (especially against RHP).

I agree he should have moved down in the order during the hot streak, that doesn't seem to be Ron's MO.

Maybe they didn't want GoGo to think he was a clean up hitter.

quote:

Originally posted by chickenboy:

quote:

Originally posted by lynndickey83: The Twins and Mets gave up. We gave up JJ Hardy and we may have got the best of that deal.

Since Hardy isn't even on that team anymore, I don't think there is any doubt.

Another interesting tidbit is that GoGo was the centerpiece of the deal for the Twins when they sent Johann Santana to the Mets.

However, GoGo was so frustrating up here that radio hosts still make fun of him. Not sure anybody up here misses him regardless of how well he does.

Why would the twins care? They would have no place for Gomez.

quote:

Originally posted by Orlando Wolf:
Why would the twins care? They would have no place for Gomez.

I would suspect they would have liked to receive much more for him than an injury-prone SS they chose to give up on after only one season.

I think teams should care what they receive in trades even if they are deep at that position.

Sorry dude...

quote:

Should the lineup be constructed with the best average at the top and continue down in progression?

Don't know if you're either old enough or, if not, enough of a baseball wonk to have ever heard of Bobby Bragan, who was a NL manager for the Pirates and another team or two in the fifties.

Bragan did exactly what you asked about with his lineups, at least for a while. He reasoned that a good pitcher is shakiest at the very beginning so that's the time to trot out your best; a corollary of this was that as you progress from 1 to 9 in the order each spot will, over a season, get more at-bats than the one following it and you wind up with your better guys getting more at bats.

I occasionally remember Bragan's ideas, especially when musty baseball lore comes out with things like needing Fielder to "protect" Braun and what each spot in the lineup is supposed to do (just how often does the leadoff man actually lead off in a game?)

As I remember it, I don't think Bragan was a particularly successful manager but he did make things interesting, at least for a while.

It would only work that way if your best hitters had higher batting averages

That was what Bragan said about it in an article I remember from the distant past. He used that metric, but OBP might be better and there are certainly other metrics possible. And if your best hitter went into a deadly slump, one would probably change something, or if he were recovering from an injury, etc.

Bragan, in the same article, also maintained that he felt big innings were well worth specifically shooting for, as in a lot of games the winning side scored more in one inning that the loser got in the whole game. I've never felt that was quite true or how you would aim specifically at having big innings that wasn't being done anyway.

At any rate, I'm not aware that this theory was put into practice since.

GoGo is on pace to walk more this season than he has any other year. He's still a free swinger, but I think that improvement is the vital one.

If he can draw walks, he will still be a huge contributor when that BA comes back down to earth. I can't see him ending the season over 300, but if he gets his OBP at least 60 points over his BA, that's fine with me.

his P/PA is up almost a half point, he's showing more patience and it is paying off.

He also has not hit into a double play yet this year.

quote:

He also has not hit into a double play yet this year

Thanks Bonger. Best stat yet. Each time he does that allows 3 or more KO's without getting a talking too.

I know we all had varying opinions on GoGo coming into this season but I suspect no one thought he would be front and center on MLB.com promoting the All-Star game: