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“In arranging your order of striking, see that strong hitters follow the poor batsmen, and that good baserunners precede them.”

Henry Chadwick in the 1867 edition of “Haney’s Base Ball Book of Reference”

In baseball, some thinking only has so many directions it can go in, so it almost universally stays true to its origins.

When it comes to making out a baseball lineup, the thinking behind arranging nine men into a batting order has generally never strayed too far from Chadwick’s timeless advice that is now 146 years old.

Jays manager John Gibbons echoes those thoughts himself as he ponders, in spring training, about putting together as awesome a starting nine as the franchise has had since its World Series years.

When he pens his lineup card, Gibbons will feature the “good base runners” up front in Jose Reyes at lead off and Melky Cabrera in the two hole. They will be followed by the power hitting of Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion. That’s the plan and the blueprint, and it’s not likely to change, barring injury and days off.

“Reyes, that’s his job to make things happen and he does that really well,” Gibbons said. “Reyes is one of the elite leadoff guys. Having a switch hitter in the No. 2 is something some guys like . . . and some guys like players who can bunt there. But I think you need one of your best batters there, a guy who can really handle the bat against any pitching.”

“A guy who can hit with strikes on the count and if you make a mistake (the pitcher) he can run one out of the park. If there’s too much focus on Reyes, Melky can do a job and then we get to the run producers (Bautista and Encarnacion). Jose is the fear factor you need. “

As easy and ready as those top four Jays hitters appear to be in the thinking behind a batting order, there is an art to situating all nine players. Managers for decades have pondered what may work best against a certain pitcher; what talent he has at his disposal; what is the depth of his bench player corps; what speed he has at his disposal; how to arrange things so that his best hitters actually see strikes instead of off speed stuff and attempts to pitch around their power. The intangibles are endless, and the end result of a lineup is to strike balance.

Gibbons knows that, and so do some of the other managers in the Jays organization.

Balance may be the key to the art.

LittleOzzy wrote:“Reyes, that’s his job to make things happen and he does that really well,” Gibbons said. “Reyes is one of the elite leadoff guys. Having a switch hitter in the No. 2 is something some guys like . . . and some guys like players who can bunt there. But I think you need one of your best batters there, a guy who can really handle the bat against any pitching.”

Avenger wrote:If the only strategic move Gibby makes all year is consistently platoon Lind and sit his ass down against lefties, i would be satisfied with his performance. If he can take it a step further and do it with Rasmus and use a platoon pair at 2B (Izturis and Bonifacio, although the splits are close here) and Catcher(with Thole and Arencibia) then i would be ecstatic.

If he maximises the offensive potential on this team, there's not many weak spots in the lineup, the Jays could focus on getting another starter like Marcum at the trade deadline.

Here are the lineups i want to see

Against Righties
Reyes (S)
Cabrera(S)
Bautista(R)
Encarnacion(R)
Lind(L)
Lawrie(R)
Rasmus(L)
Thole(L)
Izturis(S)

Against Lefties
Reyes(S)
Cabrera(S)
bautista(R)
Encarnacion(R)
Lawrie(R)
Arencibia(R)
Davis(R)
DeRosa(R)(could be switched with Izturis if DeRosa turns out to be too awful)
Bonifacio(S)

If Gibby sticks to these lineups, its hard to see how the Jays won't have the best or the second best offence in the AL.

Schadenfreude wrote:

LittleOzzy wrote:“Reyes, that’s his job to make things happen and he does that really well,” Gibbons said. “Reyes is one of the elite leadoff guys. Having a switch hitter in the No. 2 is something some guys like . . . and some guys like players who can bunt there. But I think you need one of your best batters there, a guy who can really handle the bat against any pitching.”

The sad thing is that merely recognizing that having a good hitter hitting frequently sets Gibbons apart from some in the profession.

framing (based on 2011 Fast study)
Thole = ~+1.5 runs/800 innings
Arencibia = ~-9.2 runs/800 innings

Avenger wrote:Arencibia has a career .275 OBP and is in the bottom quartile among defensive catchers, i personally want to see him as little as possible.

torontoaces04 wrote:

Avenger wrote:Arencibia has a career .275 OBP and is in the bottom quartile among defensive catchers, i personally want to see him as little as possible.

Why the club continues to be so loyal to JPA is beyond me. Catcher is by far our weakest position now.

Avenger wrote:Its hard to tell who's more delusional about JPA, Alex Anthopolous or the man himself who has public stated that he's one of the top catchers in Baseball.

Kurtz wrote:You have to admit that JPA has shown massive improvement in his 2nd year on the defensive end.

Why doubt that he can improve further in year 3? He's even done a solid job handling Dickey at the WBC, despite having virtually no experience with it.

Avenger wrote:Randle, you're becoming the kind of fanboy you love to rip apart on the Raptors board.

Arencibia was ranked 114th among 114 qualifying catchers in 2011, he was ranked 84th among 117 in 2012, how the hell is that a massive improvement, you can chalk that upto statistical noise for the most part. If you include pitch framing stats there's nothing to suggest he's made any significant improvements on the defensive front.

Its unbelievable how people can still keep defending a guy with a career .275 OBP and whose defence ranks among the bottom quartile(at best) of catchers. There is no room for disagreement here, the facts speak for themselves.

Skin Blues wrote:I think a lot of Thole's "plate discipline" comes from batting in the 7th/8th spots in a terrible NL lineup for almost all of his big league plate appearances. With a pitcher and a guy that hits like a pitcher batting behind him, he probably wasn't seeing a lot of pitches to hit. I'd like to see his plate discipline stick around when he has real hitters behind him. I'm not so sure it will. And considering that's almost entirely what his batting value comes from, I'd be very concerned with giving him significant playing time.

Skin Blues wrote:I think a lot of Thole's "plate discipline" comes from batting in the 7th/8th spots in a terrible NL lineup for almost all of his big league plate appearances. With a pitcher and a guy that hits like a pitcher batting behind him, he probably wasn't seeing a lot of pitches to hit. I'd like to see his plate discipline stick around when he has real hitters behind him. I'm not so sure it will. And considering that's almost entirely what his batting value comes from, I'd be very concerned with giving him significant playing time.