Drop DLee from 3rd?

[Jehrico]

Am I the only one who doesn't consider DLee the best hitter on the team? I'd like to see him dropped in the order and have Aramis moved up to third. DLee has stopped taking walks at the pace he used to for some reason, and he's seems to be hitting alot more ground balls (as evidenced by his extremely high dp rate).

 

I don't mean for this to turn into a DLee trashing thread. I still think he's a very good hitter. But I think we're past the point where we shouldn't be holding him as our best hitter based on 2005. That is clearly looking like a fluke season now.

[UK1679666180]

Right now Lee is hitting well, the Cubs are scoring plenty of runs, and the difference between hitting 3rd and 4th isn't much of a difference, espec. with the way the 5-6-7 hitters have produced this year.

[Jon]

Lee's walk rate has been pretty good over the last two weeks. The month before that, he was bad at everything, so I don't think you can just single out his walk rate. He was in a big slump, but now that he's out of it, I don't think there would be much of a point to making the switch.

[Guest]

Like Jon said, over the past two weeks, Lee has been more than fine.

 

  G   PA  AB  R   H  2B 3B HR RBI  BB IBB  SO HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB CS   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS
+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+
 13  56  47   6  15  1  1  2   6   8   0  11   0   0   1   2   0  0  .319  .411  .511  .922

[Jehrico]

Lee's walk rate has been pretty good over the last two weeks. The month before that, he was bad at everything, so I don't think you can just single out his walk rate. He was in a big slump, but now that he's out of it, I don't think there would be much of a point to making the switch.

Maybe it's just me, but it looks like that since he came out of his slump, he's not driving the ball as much, he's shortening up a little and hitting more singles. During his recent hot streak, he's got 4 extra base hits in 56 plate appearances, or around 7% of his plate appearances. For his career (before today), he's had 598 extra base hits out of 5876 plate appearances, or just over 10%. I would expect a small sample size hot streak to outweigh his career numbers. He's walked a little more than I'd realized this month, and he's hitting alot more singles. His approach doesn't quite seem the same to me, which is what's got me a little concerned. Maybe I'm looking for something that isn't there, and again, I'm not trashing him, but I think it's time to look at making him hit somewhere other than third, he's just not that type of hitter anymore.

[SABR Gamer]

Lee is fine batting third, but Aramis is the best hitter on our team, I don't really think that's debatable.

[BigSlick]

Am I the only one who doesn't consider DLee the best hitter on the team? I'd like to see him dropped in the order and have Aramis moved up to third. DLee has stopped taking walks at the pace he used to for some reason, and he's seems to be hitting alot more ground balls (as evidenced by his extremely high dp rate).

 

I don't mean for this to turn into a DLee trashing thread. I still think he's a very good hitter. But I think we're past the point where we shouldn't be holding him as our best hitter based on 2005. That is clearly looking like a fluke season now.

This seems an odd time to have a thread just as DLee has started turning it around

[Jon]

Lee's walk rate has been pretty good over the last two weeks. The month before that, he was bad at everything, so I don't think you can just single out his walk rate. He was in a big slump, but now that he's out of it, I don't think there would be much of a point to making the switch.

Maybe it's just me, but it looks like that since he came out of his slump, he's not driving the ball as much, he's shortening up a little and hitting more singles. During his recent hot streak, he's got 4 extra base hits in 56 plate appearances, or around 7% of his plate appearances. For his career (before today), he's had 598 extra base hits out of 5876 plate appearances, or just over 10%. I would expect a small sample size hot streak to outweigh his career numbers. He's walked a little more than I'd realized this month, and he's hitting alot more singles. His approach doesn't quite seem the same to me, which is what's got me a little concerned. Maybe I'm looking for something that isn't there, and again, I'm not trashing him, but I think it's time to look at making him hit somewhere other than third, he's just not that type of hitter anymore.

We'll see where he is in a couple of weeks. It seems like he's made a conscious effort to get back into a groove by hitting a lot to right field. That's not going to be conducive for great power numbers, but it's been helping. Once he feels a little more comfortable, I'm sure he'll start to pull the ball a bit more and improve his power numbers.

[big_shooter17]

Aside from 05, Aramis has been the best all around hitter on the team pretty much since we got him. He can hit for power and average better than anyone else on the team. He also has had to do it in some years with little protection while Lee has always had Ramirez behind him.

[CubbieBum]

In general its a dumb idea to start messing with the batting order of the best offensive team in baseball. Lee has been in the three hole for years, you take him out and the whole offense could go into a funk. Plus him being in front of Aramis gives our better hitter more RBI opportunities because Lee gets on base well. The three and four holes (and leadoff) are pressure hitting spots that a lot of hitters don't handle well.