Blue Jays Discussion: Let the post-winter-meeting, pre-spring-training baseball withdrawl commence!

[Eyedea]

Theoretically, Tulo leading off could work. But baseball players are notorious for their routines, and why mess with a guy who's been hitting in the middle order for his entire career? Especially with the production that he's done it with?

Putting Tulowitzki at leadoff would be a dumb decision on many levels. You might get better production than some other options, but you need to put the guy in a position to succeed as his peak is a ******** higher than anybody on the roster not named Donaldson/EE/Bats.

Our best hitter after Tulo/DD/Bats/EE/Martin should lead off.

Colabello should leadoff? I'm not sure about that. Saunders? Yes, like I said to Train, it could work and he's a sleeper. Just please don't say Pillar.

 

[The Nemesis]

Theoretically, Tulo leading off could work. But baseball players are notorious for their routines, and why mess with a guy who's been hitting in the middle order for his entire career? Especially with the production that he's done it with?

Putting Tulowitzki at leadoff would be a dumb decision on many levels. You might get better production than some other options, but you need to put the guy in a position to succeed as his peak is a ******** higher than anybody on the roster not named Donaldson/EE/Bats.

Our best hitter after Tulo/DD/Bats/EE/Martin should lead off.

How is it "dumb on many levels"? I count 1: namely that it might upset his routine/expectations.

Otherwise there are multiple reasons it makes sense:
1) best OBP on the team (career) besides Bautista
2) gives the most PAs/game to a guy with a ton of offensive skill
3) lower strikeout rate than Bautista, Donaldson, and basically even with Martin (so he's gonna get good # of pitches and not be an easy out 1st time up)
4) elite hitter to either turn the lineup over or provide a spark before they get to the big thunder of Donaldson/Bautista/Encarnacion

and honestly, if the solution you suggest boils down to "take the best guy who's not one of the best guys" what are your options? Colabello/Smoak? Goins? Pillar? whoever's playing in LF? If it was something like suggesting Pompey because he's a decent OBP guy with speed and you want that angle at the top, fine. Defensible. But if the reason for putting an inferior player in such an important spot boils down to little more than "I'd rather not put a highly talented guy there." it kinda boggles my mind a little bit.

In a perfect world it would probably be Travis. But he's hurt. So if Pompey's not gonna be around, or if he is and he struggles out of the gate again, Tulo makes more sense than the team's other internal options. Well, maybe not as much as Bautista (who sees a boatload of pitches and has such a great eye that he could easily work out loooong at bats to lead off and either draw the walk or crush one to get a run on the board), but that's not nearly as likely to happen as Tulowitzki has been alright with the assignment and Bautista is quite vocal about his slot in the lineup.

Besides that, why is it that old school baseball tradition has to win out here and not use one of the team's crushers to lead off if he has the requisite other skills? Old school baseball wouldn't have wanted MVP Donaldson to bat 2nd (instead of 3rd or cleanup), but it works. "it's tradition" or "it's the way things have always been done" is never justification enough for anything.

 

[Edo]

You're assuming that Tulowitzki's production, approach, etc, aren't affected by leading off. It's a big thing. Why mess with a guy who's been doing it for his entire career in the middle order? Comfort is a huge thing.

Better off putting Pillar/Saunders there to lead off. We saw that Tulowitzki didn't really produce leading off in his 200 AB's in Toronto.

No other team in the league would even consider having Tulowitzki lead off. Look at all the recent champions and see who led off for them. It isn't that big of a deal. You get better value out of Tulo at 5 or 6.

 

[Eyedea]

Tulo has a .929 OPS when leading off an inning.

Other teams also wouldn't have the luxury of batting Donaldson, Bautista, and Encarnacion behind Tulowitzki.

We saw 26 PAs of Tulo as the 1st batter of the game. This was immediately after coming in a trade from the only pro org he has ever been a part of while also being in the midst of one of his longest cold streaks of his career.

 

[LaCarriere]

You're assuming that Tulowitzki's production, approach, etc, aren't affected by leading off. It's a big thing. Why mess with a guy who's been doing it for his entire career in the middle order? Comfort is a huge thing.

Better off putting Pillar/Saunders there to lead off. We saw that Tulowitzki didn't really produce leading off in his 200 AB's in Toronto.

No other team in the league would even consider having Tulowitzki lead off. Look at all the recent champions and see who led off for them. It isn't that big of a deal. You get better value out of Tulo at 5 or 6.

Tulo didn't produce all that much no matter where he hit in the lineup in Toronto. He hit .240 when he's a career .300 batter. You simply can't draw any conclusions from 183PAs when he's had 4598 career PAs - especially non-quantifiable conclusions like "comfort" or "routine" were the reason for his struggles, and not simply adjusting to a new team and environment after playing for a decade on one team.

The leadoff guy is only guaranteed to leadoff once per game. In 965PAs as the first batter in an inning, he's .305/.363/.566/.929.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=tulowtr01&year=Career&t=b#leado

A career .363 as the first batter in an inning is good enough to leadoff on most teams. He's not your typical speedy, base-stealing leadoff guy, but with that OBP he's more than a capable guy to fill in until Travis comes back.

I wasn't huge on him leading off at first last year, but it became evident he was just struggling in general.

Finally, you're only argument is that Tulo's rhythm is thrown out of whack by leading off -- but yet you want to put Pillar there -- who's never lead off at the MLB level before?

 

[The Nemesis]

You're assuming that Tulowitzki's production, approach, etc, aren't affected by leading off. It's a big thing. Why mess with a guy who's been doing it for his entire career in the middle order? Comfort is a huge thing.

It's a change for him no matter what you do. He's batting 5th with the Jays when he's historically batted 3rd or 4th. He's batting behind a trio of all-star calibre batters with the Jays when he's batted behind a lot of scrubs and Carlos Gonzalez with the Rockies. Lots of things are going to change no matter what. Even if it's as big of a deal as you seem to think it is, it's not like putting him 5th on this team is situation normal for him.

Better off putting Pillar/Saunders there to lead off. We saw that Tulowitzki didn't really produce leading off in his 200 AB's in Toronto.

He was hurt for a large chunk of that. And moving to a new league and a new team. And he sucked no matter where he was in the Jays lineup for the most part. Many other variables in play to be able to say it's all on "OMG LEADOFF!" as the reason for his struggles.

also Pillar? He and Saunders barely have OBPs of .300 for their careers. and even accepting that Pillar will improve on that, last season he was still just at .314. You might as well have Smoak there.

No other team in the league would even consider having Tulowitzki lead off. Look at all the recent champions and see who led off for them. It isn't that big of a deal. You get better value out of Tulo at 5 or 6.

"everyone else is doing it" is about as good of a reason as "it's always been done that way."

You might be able to say those lines about thinks that make sense, but if that's the case then there are other, better reasons to validate that decision. It's the RBIs of decision criteria/evaluators.

 

[Canada4Gold]

Come on guys we can't mess with his routine, he's used to not leading off, if we put him leading off that's literally an entirely different sport. Sure he's good at baseball, but when we bat him at leadoff we're taking a big risk that he might be bad at basketball. Like it's entirely different, not even the least bit similar at all. It's something he's never attempted before in his life. Like asking a guy to hit with the bat flipped around, that's what leadoff hitters have to do right? It's in the rules?

It's pretty simple really, what we do it look at our 5 best hitters, and say well we really shouldn't have any of those guys getting the most number of plate appearances for the team. That's not how you win, you win by having your 6th best hitter hitting the most.

 

[frizzer1]

When Tulo is being the real Tulo, he is a run producer...he is the guy you want up when runners are on.
Why is the discussion about him?
Why not EE or bautista? they make about as much sense..
It's pompey or pilar until Travis is back imo.

 

[Swervin81]

Come on guys we can't mess with his routine, he's used to not leading off, if we put him leading off that's literally an entirely different sport. Sure he's good at baseball, but when we bat him at leadoff we're taking a big risk that he might be bad at basketball. Like it's entirely different, not even the least bit similar at all. It's something he's never attempted before in his life. Like asking a guy to hit with the bat flipped around, that's what leadoff hitters have to do right? It's in the rules?

It's pretty simple really, what we do it look at our 5 best hitters, and say well we really shouldn't have any of those guys getting the most number of plate appearances for the team. That's not how you win, you win by having your 6th best hitter hitting the most.

Seriously, it's incredible how many people don't realize what being a leadoff hitter entails. I mean, it's not just your hitting that has to be on point, you really need to have a good 3 point shot, as well as the ability to take your man off the bounce and drive to the inside. And when that goes wrong, your any legit leadoff hitter would turn to his puck handling skills, shiftiness on his skates, and ability to get down in the butterfly. And when that goes south, what separates the best, truly elite leadoff hitters, the men, from the amateurs is their ability to contain the running game from the secondary while being able to pass rush and get around those pesky o-liners and straight to the QB as fast as possible, as well as perfect the art of maximizing yards after the catch on catches in checkdown routes.

 

[Canada4Gold]

Seriously, it's incredible how many people don't realize what being a leadoff hitter entails. I mean, it's not just your hitting that has to be on point, you really need to have a good 3 point shot, as well as the ability to take your man off the bounce and drive to the inside. And when that goes wrong, your any legit leadoff hitter would turn to his puck handling skills, shiftiness on his skates, and ability to get down in the butterfly. And when that goes south, what separates the best, truly elite leadoff hitters, the men, from the amateurs is their ability to contain the running game from the secondary while being able to pass rush and get around those pesky o-liners and straight to the QB as fast as possible, as well as perfect the art of maximizing yards after the catch on catches in checkdown routes.

wow, now that you explain it like that it makes total sense why nobody wants him as the leadoff hitter, there's no way he'd be able to handle all that.

 

[Bomber0104]

I still remember the hostility some people had towards moving Tulo down to the 5-hole and Revere to leadoff.

What was the reasoning behind that again?

 

[TootooTrain]

 

[The Nemesis]

When Tulo is being the real Tulo, he is a run producer...he is the guy you want up when runners are on.
Why is the discussion about him?
Why not EE or bautista? they make about as much sense..
It's pompey or pilar until Travis is back imo.

"run producer" is a mean-nothing term. Guys get RBIs and "produce runs" as much because they have talent ahead of them who get on base as they do because they're talented themselves.

Tony Batista twice drove in 100 RBIs. he was not a very good player either time. He was an acceptable player who could hit HRs and played in a) a Toronto offence that was crazy, crazy good, and b) an Expos offence that was abjectly terrible and handed him the slot behind the small handful of other good players (and Brad Wilkerson). Those RBI totals do not belong to him. They belong to the teams he played for.

Mike Lowell, Nick Markakis, Dean Palmer, Joe Randa, Jeff Cirillo, and Preston Wilson in the last 15 years have all driven in 100+ runs while also being utterly, utterly mediocre offensive players. But they were apparently "run producers" at least for a year.

You want to stock the top of your lineup with the most talented players you have. This includes the leadoff spot since that guy is going to get the most total plate appearances per game and for the whole season. Devon Travis likely deserves the spot under normal circumstances simply because he profiles best as a high walk rate, OBP guy while also having a decent amount of speed and athleticism. Pompey could be that, but there's the biggest risk with him that he's not ready. Pillar has a good contact bat, but he's allergic to walks and doesn't get on base well enough because of it. Tulowitzki offers you the best mixture of raw hitting ability, OBP/walk prowess, athleticism, and successful track record.

Besides, at worst they're asking for like 2 or 3 months of this out of whomever it is until Travis gets back. It's not like this will lock Tulo into the gig full time.

 

[Bomber0104]

No it's actually not bait Tom Hardy.

It's a fair question directed at the people who were vehemently against optimizing the batting order this season, by moving Tulowitzki down to the five-hole.

I'm genuinely interested in finding out the reasons why since it was not adequately explained at the time, at least to me.

 

[Bomber0104]

"run producer" is a mean-nothing term. Guys get RBIs and "produce runs" as much because they have talent ahead of them who get on base as they do because they're talented themselves.

Tony Batista twice drove in 100 RBIs. he was not a very good player either time. He was an acceptable player who could hit HRs and played in a) a Toronto offence that was crazy, crazy good, and b) an Expos offence that was abjectly terrible and handed him the slot behind the small handful of other good players (and Brad Wilkerson). Those RBI totals do not belong to him. They belong to the teams he played for.

Mike Lowell, Nick Markakis, Dean Palmer, Joe Randa, Jeff Cirillo, and Preston Wilson in the last 15 years have all driven in 100+ runs while also being utterly, utterly mediocre offensive players. But they were apparently "run producers" at least for a year.

You want to stock the top of your lineup with the most talented players you have. This includes the leadoff spot since that guy is going to get the most total plate appearances per game and for the whole season. Devon Travis likely deserves the spot under normal circumstances simply because he profiles best as a high walk rate, OBP guy while also having a decent amount of speed and athleticism. Pompey could be that, but there's the biggest risk with him that he's not ready. Pillar has a good contact bat, but he's allergic to walks and doesn't get on base well enough because of it. Tulowitzki offers you the best mixture of raw hitting ability, OBP/walk prowess, athleticism, and successful track record.

Besides, at worst they're asking for like 2 or 3 months of this out of whomever it is until Travis gets back. It's not like this will lock Tulo into the gig full time.

There has to be an order, though, and not selected at random.

And definitely not with the attributes you describe for leadoff.

 

[theaub]

I still remember the hostility some people had towards moving Tulo down to the 5-hole and Revere to leadoff.

What was the reasoning behind that again?

Because Revere is not good enough to be a leadoff hitter at the major league level

He significantly outperformed his career numbers last year over a small sample.

 

[p.l.f.]

Cespedes to mets

 

[Bomber0104]

Tulo didn't produce all that much no matter where he hit in the lineup in Toronto. He hit .240 when he's a career .300 batter. You simply can't draw any conclusions from 183PAs when he's had 4598 career PAs - especially non-quantifiable conclusions like "comfort" or "routine" were the reason for his struggles, and not simply adjusting to a new team and environment after playing for a decade on one team.

The leadoff guy is only guaranteed to leadoff once per game. In 965PAs as the first batter in an inning, he's .305/.363/.566/.929.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=tulowtr01&year=Career&t=b#leado

A career .363 as the first batter in an inning is good enough to leadoff on most teams. He's not your typical speedy, base-stealing leadoff guy, but with that OBP he's more than a capable guy to fill in until Travis comes back.

I wasn't huge on him leading off at first last year, but it became evident he was just struggling in general.

Finally, you're only argument is that Tulo's rhythm is thrown out of whack by leading off -- but yet you want to put Pillar there -- who's never lead off at the MLB level before?

People don't complain about Tulo "leading off" because he's the first batter of the game for the Jays.

It's quite simply because they aren't convinced he is getting himself on base enough, in any capacity, to warrant hitting right in front of Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista, and Edwin Encarnacion.

Most people who just watched the guy at the plate, as opposed to his career numbers, could see he wasn't seeing the ball well at all.

Classic example of how "stats" can be used any which way you want to.

 

[Bomber0104]

Because Revere is not good enough to be a leadoff hitter at the major league level

He significantly outperformed his career numbers last year over a small sample.

So people like me who advocated for him to hit in leadoff just got "lucky" in our analysis that he was the most productive option for the Jays to hit in front of the Death Row?

It wasn't entirely obvious?

Do explain.

 

[The Nemesis]

There has to be an order, though, and not selected at random.

And definitely not with the attributes you describe for leadoff.

Yes, silly me. Why would you want your leadoff guy to be proficient at working the count, getting on base, and generally not making an out? Or be athletic enough to run even if they're not going to steal bases?

Nobody at any point was saying the order was random. But except for a general sense of wanting your talent towards the top of the lineup, it doesn't need to be as rigidly proscribed as it tends to be believed it needs to.

 

[theaub]

So people like me who advocated for him to hit in leadoff just got "lucky" in our analysis that he was the most productive option for the Jays to hit in front of the Death Row?

It wasn't entirely obvious?

Do explain.

Seems like you explained it pretty well yourself