Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
March 08, 2008
The Ninth Man

It's official, Jason Kendall is going to bat ninth for the Brewers:

"We've done studies on this," Yost said. "It's not just that we come up one day and say, 'You know, Jason Kendall's gonna hit ninth.'

"You've had a lot of smart people looking at it and crunching numbers and seeing if, numbers-wise, it made sense."

Those smart people decided that batting Kendall ninth, a departure from the conventional baseball wisdom of batting the pitcher in the final spot, did make sense. They thought it gave the Brewers an edge, which should translate into an opportunity to score more runs.

"More runs means more wins," Yost said. "Sometimes, you've gotta get outside the box a little bit."

Nice to see Yost willing to try something new.

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Posted by David Pinto at 11:18 PM | Strategy | TrackBack (0)
Comments

This is what happens when the GM is overridden by the owner on personnel decisions involving the manager -- Yost has a touch of untouchable syndrome and is again out-clever-ing himself. Last year it was 65 lineups in 65 games, this year it's Kendall batting ninth.

In other news, Gabe Gross is getting full games in Arizona - definitely trade bait.

Posted by: sbmke at March 9, 2008 10:20 AM

This is the right move. But in order to sell it to Kendall, the rest of the team, and the fans, Yost needs to point out that it's not a decision based on Kendall being a bad hitter, but instead a strategy to take advantage of his OBP skills to let the top of the lineup drive him in more often. It's a reward, not a punishment.

Posted by: Sky at March 9, 2008 10:56 AM

We have been doing this(worst hitter eighth) in high school baseball for years!!

Posted by: Luis Venitucci at March 9, 2008 11:20 AM

In mid '50s Red Sox Mgr Lou Boudreau batted good hitting pitcher Mel Parnell in 7th slot many times. CWS also batted pitcher Gary Peters 7th in early 1970s.

Posted by: Bob S at March 9, 2008 03:31 PM
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