Cobra Brigade breaks down what's wrong with Lou Piniella's decision to bat Soriano second. The idea is to get Soriano to run less until his legs heal:

The fact that Soriano's legs are bothering him doesn't bother me as much as the fact that A) he's going to be hitting in a spot in the lineup where he's supposed to be able to take pitches and move runners over, B) that Soriano is going to be a double play threat anytime Theriot is on base because his legs are bad, which leads me to.....C) this means that Ryan Theriot is going to be leading off this season...he of the .326 ob % and fading stamina last season. The silver lining in all of this, if there is one, is that as long as Soriano hits 35+ homers and drives in 100+ runs, his contract still sort of makes sense in the grand scheme of things. Besides that, this really makes no sense at all.

It seems to me that the solution to moving Soriano out of the lead-off spot is to move Kosuke Fukudome to the second spot and move Soriano to fifth in the lineup....or move Derrek Lee to the second spot, have Aramis Ramirez hit third, Fukudome fourth and Soriano fifth. That way you can get the most out of Soriano's power, which seems to be his last offensive asset, while not allowing his patented streakiness to crush any rallies the Cubs might have at the top of the order.

Soriano's strengths and weaknesses make him a better fifth hitter than a leadoff man, but he doesn't seem to bat as well in that slot. Teams are forced to bat him leadoff, where he doesn't belong, or suffer poor performance as Texas did.

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