I don't necessarily disagree with the lineups you have proposed and I know you are trying to achieve some R/L balance but, I just don't see Tito hitting Papi 7th. Definitely not out of the gate. It would probably take a pretty prolonged period of suckitude before that would become Papi's normal slot in the order.
I would actually agree. It was more what I'd hope for.
Martinez at #3 is largely because I like his switch hitting bat there as opposed to sandwiched between a R/L pairing (for balance) but it is true that Drew should in reality be the #3 for the purposes of maximizing production.
Do the Sox NEED a bat?
Assuming that every Red Sox lineup holdovers — Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia, Victor Martinez, Kevin Youkilis, David Ortiz and J.D. Drew — performs at his 2009 level next year, and that Cameron, Kotchman and Scutaro performed at their career averages, the Red Sox starting nine would project (according to the amazing baseballmusings.com Lineup Analysis tool) to score 5.646 runs per game. Over a full year, that would project to a whopping 915 runs.
That is not quite the production that the Sox would get with Bay, Lowell and the team’s season-long shortstop output. Such a group would project to score 5.735 runs a game, or 929 runs over the full year, according to the same Lineup Analysis tool.
http://fullcount.weei.com/sports/boston/ba...red-sox-lineup/Not if it costs Clay Buchholz. With the best pitching staff in the game and a much improved defense, I can live with an offense that projects to score more than 900 runs and more than 5 a game. They project Scutaro at his career average which he should outperform. If, Kotchman outperform his career average and Ortiz outperforms his 2009, things are looking eve rosier.
An important consideration in this comparison is Lowell's massive home/road split.
I ran the numbers with the only change being Lowell at home and Lowell on the road, the runs per game averages where as follows.
Home: 5.879
Away: 5.619
So the average vs. average without the Lowell road factor is -0.089. But breaking it out separately for Lowell its a -0.233 at home, and +0.027 difference on the road.
To me this is both promising and problematic. Our home offense was a key part of having a 56-25 home swing, that is the problem. The promise comes in when you look at Cameron's hit charts which suggests that Fenway might give him a similar home boost that Lowell received.
You could even possibly project that to the other recently acquired right handed bat, Scutaro. With him it gets a bit tricky because while he had a lower home OPS than road OPS the last two years in Toronto than on the road his limited ABs in Fenway for both years don't paint a pretty picture. Maybe a combination of small sample size and quality Sox pitching is skewing the numbers. A righty with his high contact rates and doubles power should benefit from hitting in Fenway, not be hurt by it.
A third potential boon to the home offense is Victor Martinez. He hit better in Fenway than Jacobs Field last year and overall had an away positive split for the season. While he had a drastic home positive split in '08 it was in a much smaller sample and very possibly injury altered. In '07 he had an away positive split as well. It is possible that he not only finds Fenway more friendly to his game, but that just being out of Jacobs field period leads to some uptick in production.
Any or all of these three regulars could see a Fenway boost that brings the home offense closer to the team with Lowell, and at the same time giving a slight bump to the road offense.
This post has been edited by Drek717: 17 December 2009 - 07:33 PM
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