THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I don’t think too many people who read this forum will dispute what is presented above. In my opinion, one of the biggest roles of the batting order is to keep a pitcher from gaining a rythem - not having similar types of hitters in a row to keep the pitcher from getting in a groove hitting his spots with the necessary pitches. Alternating righties and lefties often accomplishes this. I don’t see the Phillies much, so I can’t speak to if all of those hitters are fastball hitters or good breaking ball hitters, etc… but the numbers show whatever they’re doing against lefties has problems.

In my opinion, Jimmy Rollins is the problem. Delluci (.402 v R /.364 v L) has a better OBP versus both righties and lefties than Rollins (.327 v R /.339 v L)!

So I would go:
Delluci
Utley
Burrell
Howard
Rollins

(Ok, I know you might think batting Rollins 5th is nuts, but Burrell and Rollins are basically the same player vs righties - OPSs about .780 - in fact Rollins has 39 extra-base hits while Burrell has 24! And the way Manuel currently has the lineup constructed, there is no reason to ever have a lefty face Burrell when that is when he is a difference making player - 1.158 OPS vs lefties.)

I think in a situation where you have players as one-side dominant as Howard and Burrell, you should sandwich Burrell immediately between your two studs Utley and Howard. (Most teams are lucky to have 1 GOOD LHP out of the pen) “Do I really want to face Burrell so that I can have my lefty reliever face Delluci, Utley and Howard?” OR “Do I really want my lefty reliever to get Delluci/Utley and then bring in a righty to get Burrell knowing that if I don’t get him I’ve got a righty vs Howard (1.069 OPS vs righties)?”

So, for a non-Philly fan, I’ve officially concluded that Charlie Manuel and Dusty Baker have a “Red-phone” connected to each other’s office. I see the conversation now…

DB: “Sup, Chuck”
CM: “Naaawwwthin… just trying to figure out how to get the game to Flash tonight.”
DB: “Why are you worried about that, I just let Zambrano go ‘til his arm falls off.”
CM: “Yeah, but lefties kill us on the mound.”
DB: “Well, I really like your lineup - I was thinking about trying to emulate it by batting Neifi leadoff.”
CM: “I just like have the SS & 2B bat first and second, get them out of the way for the big boppers like we used to be.”
DB: “Yeah, you’re right… I was a great player. Anyway, I’m thinkin’ Izturis and then Neifi, they do the little things to get on base all the time. Gotta go, Hendry just walked in.”

According to ESPN’s Philies lineup, Manuel’s everyday lineup looked like this before the trade:

Rollins (s)
Utley (l)
Abreu (l)
Burrell (r)
Howard (l)
Rowand (r)

So he did split up his lefties somewhat, at least at one point in the season.

However, that lineup basically begs the other manager to bring in a lefty to pitch to Utley-Abreu-Burrell-Howard, which is, to my recollection, pretty much what the Mets did anytime the game wasn’t already over.

I imagine that Manuel is trying to write out his lineup card in accordance with tradition, or conventional wisdom, or what have you, but he could still split his lefties and keep that:

Rollins (S, speedy leadoff guy)
Utley (L, great contact hitter)
Burrell (R, one of the best hitters on the team)
Abreu (L, power-hitting cleanup hitter)
Rowand (R)
Howard (L)

Post-trade:
Rollins (s)
Utley (l)
Burrell (r)
Howard (l)
Rowand (r)
Dellucci (l)

As a side note, is it possible that the fact that the Phillies have consistently had two or more excellent lefty hitters, and insisted on batting them consecutively, a reason for their perpetual underachieving?

(I should add that as I don’t have access to a projection system better than Marcels, I don’t know if their underachieving is a real phenomenon or a product of the media. If it is the latter, disregard the question.)

Well, two things are going to happen if you invite the other team to bring in a LOOGY to face 2 or 3 lefties in a row.  One, those lefty hitters will face more and better quality lefty pitchers than they would otherwise, and thus their overall season stats will be worse than other comparable lefty hitters.  That will show up as fewer runs scored than expected.  I don’t know if you would call that “underachieving” or not.  And of course the difference will be subtle (e.g., Utley et al. might face 23% lefty pitchers rather than 20%, or something like that).  Two, they will face more and better lefties in high leverage situations.  The impact of this will NOT show up in the team’s pythag record.  In fact, you would expect that their actual record would be worse than their pythag record if opposing teams were consistently taking advantage of them (depressing their run scoring in this case) in high leverage situations.  I think that would be considered underachieving.  The impact of this is also subtle of course.  As I said, Manuel’s indefensible (there is absolutely NO reason to NOT split up those lefties, even in the small mind of a typical manager) stubborness probably cost the team several wins a year.  Whether you want to call that underachieving or not doesn’t really matter.  It depends on your definition of “underachieving” I suppose.  His mistake is particularly egregious when facing teams with a lefty closer like the Mets (who also have 3 other lefties in the pen I think, one of which, Feliciano, is brutal on lefties).  Think about it:  With Wagner in the game, if you are a Phillies fan, the last thing you want is the heart of your lineup coming up, as they have little chance against a tough lefty pitcher.  That can’t be right.

The Nationals have been using a lineup with three straight lefties in the 6-7-8 spots. Church-M. Anderson-Schneider. It bugs me a lot. When the right-handed CF, Escobar, plays, we do alternate Anderson-Escobar-Schneider.

Of course, it is not as bad at the bottom of the lineup, as opposing managers are less likely to bring in a LOOGY versus them, plus I assume that these guys are pinch hittable.  What makes the Philly situation so bad (for the Phillies) is that none of these guys is pinch hittable, at least in Manuel’s eyes.

His mistake is particularly egregious when facing teams with a lefty closer like the Mets (who also have 3 other lefties in the pen I think, one of which, Feliciano, is brutal on lefties).

Only two, I think—Darren Oliver and Pedro Feliciano. They called up Royce Ring recently, though he is generally atrocious against batters of both handedness.

Having just read the post on pitching and game theory, though, this leads me to wonder—is there a substantial benefit to be gained by applying game theory to roster construction? For instance, it seems clear that NL East teams benefit disproportionately more than other teams from carrying an extra lefty reliever when they face the Phillies. Are there other subtleties like this that have tangible benefits, or is it more like lineup construction and clutchiness (some benefit, but overall not worth enough to override more important factors)?

No I don’t think there is any “game theory” in lineup construction vis-a-vis batting consecutive lefties.  The reason is that there really is no advantage to batting back to back lefties, no matter who they are, since one decent batting order is just about as good as another.  I think Manuel is just an idiot, to be brutally honest.