Lou: Fukudome Penciled in at 2-Spot in Linuep

[Wilson A2000]

Ted Lilly, Sean Marshall, Rich Harden, Ryan Dempster and maybe Carlos Zambrano.

 

Zambrano is a better hitter than Theriot.

 

This discussion is interesting. For a guy who led regulars in average and OBP, outside of Fukudome, all of the other hitters I would consider better.

[salukifudd]

depends on how you interpret "isn't that good". i don't think that he meant theriot is bad.

 

really, a .746 OPS isn't that good. his obp was very good, but obp isn't everything. it's nice to hit yourself past 1st base every once in a while.

 

more than anything though, i don't expect him to match his avg/obp from 08. i think he'll be more .290/.360

well when we're talking about the number two slot, to me obp means a whole lot more than slg. which is why i think he's a great 2 hitter. that and the fact that he can move runners over, hit to the right side on a hit and run, etc.

 

"Give your "best hitters" the most opportunities in a lineup".

that's a flawed theory. by that logic, your best hitter will bat leadoff and always bat after your worst hitters, which will result in fewer chances to drive in runners.

 

It wasn't meant in a literal way, just Theriot not hitting in the 2 spot sort of way.

[17 Seconds]

depends on how you interpret "isn't that good". i don't think that he meant theriot is bad.

 

really, a .746 OPS isn't that good. his obp was very good, but obp isn't everything. it's nice to hit yourself past 1st base every once in a while.

 

more than anything though, i don't expect him to match his avg/obp from 08. i think he'll be more .290/.360

well when we're talking about the number two slot, to me obp means a whole lot more than slg. which is why i think he's a great 2 hitter. that and the fact that he can move runners over, hit to the right side on a hit and run, etc.

 

"Give your "best hitters" the most opportunities in a lineup".

that's a flawed theory. by that logic, your best hitter will bat leadoff and always bat after your worst hitters, which will result in fewer chances to drive in runners.

 

nobody said you have to construct your whole lineup like that.

 

fukudome should get on base just as much as theriot next season, probably more

[nilodnayr]

i would prefer theriot there, but fukudome isn't a bad choice for the number two hitter.

 

Theriot needs to bat 8th.

why?

 

Because hes not that good?

among regulars he led the team in both average and obp last year. if that's "not that good" then what are the rest of the players?

 

If only avg and obp were everything...unfortunately for theriot they arent. Save for fukudome, he was worst on the team in woba. Guess what, its a lot easier to score when you make it past first. Hes fine as a SS for 400k, but itd be a poor use of resources to bat him 2nd.

[cubsfan26]

among regulars he led the team in both average and obp last year. if that's "not that good" then what are the rest of the players?

 

Yeah it's not that Theriot is really bad, and once again he's having a monster spring. So the guy has shown no signs of slowing down at the plate, but people are always going to expect less then more from a guy like Theriot. But the reason why he will bat 8th, has nothing to do with his ablity. He will be hitting 8th, because he's RH and doesn't have the power to hit three through six. The Cubs are all about having a balanced line-up this season. So if Soriano is leading off, and Lee is hitting third.

 

 

 

That means either Fukudome or whoever plays second will be hitting 2nd. I know it's uncommon to have such a good average/OBP hitting 8th. But that just shows how good our line-up is. But when you have other good OBP guys with a little better power in Fukudome and Fontenot, it allows you to go with a little more balanced line-up, and put a guy like Theriot 8th. Theriot would probably be hitting 1st or 2nd on most major league teams, but having him 8th almost gives us two leadoff guys. He could get on base alot and be in a postion to score when Soriano comes up.

[Andy]

Yeah, I really like Fontenot/Theriot as sort of the Bizarro 1/2 Hitters that Soriano can drive in as the Bizarro Middle of the Order Hitter. It's nice to have a lineup good enough to do that as opposed to sifting through the crap to pick out the 7/8 hitters.

[Schwarber Fan]

Theriot is and will be a better hitter than Aaron Miles.

[Derwood]

considering how much better everyone else in the lineup slugs, I think Theriot's OBP in the 8th spot is pretty valuable in terms of turning the lineup over and getting on in front of Soriano/Kosuke.

 

As for moving runners over and hit and runs and all that, I don't buy into that school of baseball. Giving up outs is nearly always a terrible idea.

[cubbinalltheway]

As for moving runners over, Theriot is actually pretty poor about it.

do you have any evidence of this?

 

and as for the people who say that fukudome will have a better obp than theriot this year....... why? because you say so? fukudome, the guy who's avg/obp/slg all got worse every single month last year, is now being talked about as if he's going to have a better obp than the guy who lead the team in obp last year? that's certainly an interesting prediction, to put it nicely.

[SouthSideRyan]

As for moving runners over, Theriot is actually pretty poor about it.

do you have any evidence of this?

 

 

Well, he was pretty bad about GIDP. I know that much.

[CubColtPacer]

As for moving runners over, Theriot is actually pretty poor about it.

 

do you have any evidence of this?

I could show you his hit charts. They show that most of Theriot's outs are groundouts to the left side and fly balls to right field. Since we also know that most of those flyouts are medium depth or less, those types of outs are not conducive to moving runners over. He does have a decent amount of groundouts to the right side, but not nearly as many as to the left side.

 

Here's Theriot's hitting chart for Wrigley from last year:

 

http://mlb.mlb.com/stats/individual_player_hitting_chart.jsp?playerID=444135&statType=1

 

Edit: And as SSR mentioned, Theriot grounded into the highest percentage of double plays of any Cub last year. That isn't a quality I particularly want from a guy who is praised for being able to move runners over.

 

and as for the people who say that fukudome will have a better obp than theriot this year....... why? because you say so? fukudome, the guy who's avg/obp/slg all got worse every single month last year, is now being talked about as if he's going to have a better obp than the guy who lead the team in obp last year? that's certainly an interesting prediction, to put it nicely.

 

Those are going off projections. 6 projection systems have Theriot's OBP as: .366, .360, .359, .355, .353, .345

And Kosuke: .386, .368, .361, .357, .349, .338

 

So they are extremely close in the projections. That is because Japanese players typically have a bounce in their numbers in year 2, and Theriot's numbers are likely to slide down slightly just because last year was his highest OBP season in the minors or the majors (other than the just over 1 month stint in 2006). That could be repeated, but it typically isn't.

[sneakypower]

as for the two-hole, Piniella said they'll play around with it

[cubbinalltheway]

as i thought, those are total numbers. meaning they include situations where he came up with the bases empty. so they're meaningless when talking about his ability to move runners over.

 

i hope these projections about fukudome are accurate, but it's hard to be faithful after watching him get worse and worse over the course of 2008.

[Derwood]

as i thought, those are total numbers. meaning they include situations where he came up with the bases empty. so they're meaningless when talking about his ability to move runners over.

 

I don't want my #2 hitter to move runners over. I want him to get on base and drive runs in. If your offensive philosophy is to waste outs having your #2 guy just get your leadoff man into scoring position, you're doing yourself a disservice. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but the odds of scoring a run with a man on 1st and 0 outs is a lot higher than a man on 2nd with 1 out.

[Andy]

as i thought, those are total numbers. meaning they include situations where he came up with the bases empty. so they're meaningless when talking about his ability to move runners over.

Yes, stats about performance in all situations, including when a runner is on first, can't possibly be used to predict how one can do if a runner is on first. That would be just asinine.

[cubbinalltheway]

as i thought, those are total numbers. meaning they include situations where he came up with the bases empty. so they're meaningless when talking about his ability to move runners over.

 

I don't want my #2 hitter to move runners over. I want him to get on base and drive runs in. If your offensive philosophy is to waste outs having your #2 guy just get your leadoff man into scoring position, you're doing yourself a disservice. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but the odds of scoring a run with a man on 1st and 0 outs is a lot higher than a man on 2nd with 1 out.

well, your odds of scoring runs also greatly increase when you have your highest OBP guy hitting 2nd rather than 8th.

[cubbinalltheway]

as i thought, those are total numbers. meaning they include situations where he came up with the bases empty. so they're meaningless when talking about his ability to move runners over.

Yes, stats about performance in all situations, including when a runner is on first, can't possibly be used to predict how one can do if a runner is on first. That would be just asinine.

what are you talking about?

 

if you were actually following the discussion, you would see that the topic was theriot's ability to move runners over. when you show me data that includes his at bats with the bases empty, that's irrelevant to the discussion.

[Guest]

Theriot was 2nd on the team in GIDP last year with 19. He moved runners over, alright. He moved them right over to the dugout.

 

Theriot's inability to hit for any kind of power is why he should be designated to hit 7th or lower, preferably lower. Fukudome is capable of being a 50 XBH guy with just as good or better OBP than Theriot had last year. Placing Fukudome in the 2 spot should show Fukudome that they have confidence in him to be the hitter they expected him to be. If he plays to his potential, the Cubs have 6 guys at the top half of the order who are all capable of 50+ XBH's over the course of the year.

 

This is not to say Theriot is a bad player. Most teams in baseball would love to have guys like Theriot (.387 OBP), Fontenot (.395 OBP) and Miles (.355 OBP) hitting in the 7th and 8th spots in the line up. If Soriano stays healthy all year, he'll crack the 100 RBI mark easily from the lead off spot with that kind of production at the bottom of the order.

[Derwood]

as i thought, those are total numbers. meaning they include situations where he came up with the bases empty. so they're meaningless when talking about his ability to move runners over.

 

I don't want my #2 hitter to move runners over. I want him to get on base and drive runs in. If your offensive philosophy is to waste outs having your #2 guy just get your leadoff man into scoring position, you're doing yourself a disservice. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but the odds of scoring a run with a man on 1st and 0 outs is a lot higher than a man on 2nd with 1 out.

well, your odds of scoring runs also greatly increase when you have your highest OBP guy hitting 2nd rather than 8th.

 

all things being equal, yes, sure. But if you can get nearly the same OBP but far better SLG, the decision is a no-brainer.

 

My bigger issue with the lineup (as projected) is the 3-4-5-6. Unless Lee rebounds from a pretty mediocre 2008, I'd rather see it go:

 

3. Bradley

4. Ramirez

5. Soto

6. Lee

[Andy]

as i thought, those are total numbers. meaning they include situations where he came up with the bases empty. so they're meaningless when talking about his ability to move runners over.

 

I don't want my #2 hitter to move runners over. I want him to get on base and drive runs in. If your offensive philosophy is to waste outs having your #2 guy just get your leadoff man into scoring position, you're doing yourself a disservice. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but the odds of scoring a run with a man on 1st and 0 outs is a lot higher than a man on 2nd with 1 out.

well, your odds of scoring runs also greatly increase when you have your highest OBP guy hitting 2nd rather than 8th.

Ryan Theriot 2008 OBP: .387

Adam Dunn 2008 OBP: .386

 

Who do you want getting more at-bats?

[Andy]

as i thought, those are total numbers. meaning they include situations where he came up with the bases empty. so they're meaningless when talking about his ability to move runners over.

Yes, stats about performance in all situations, including when a runner is on first, can't possibly be used to predict how one can do if a runner is on first. That would be just asinine.

what are you talking about?

 

if you were actually following the discussion, you would see that the topic was theriot's ability to move runners over. when you show me data that includes his at bats with the bases empty, that's irrelevant to the discussion.

If a guy hits a lot of grounders to the left side, chances are he's going to hit a lot of grounders to the left side even when there's a runner on 1st.

[cubbinalltheway]

as i thought, those are total numbers. meaning they include situations where he came up with the bases empty. so they're meaningless when talking about his ability to move runners over.

 

I don't want my #2 hitter to move runners over. I want him to get on base and drive runs in. If your offensive philosophy is to waste outs having your #2 guy just get your leadoff man into scoring position, you're doing yourself a disservice. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but the odds of scoring a run with a man on 1st and 0 outs is a lot higher than a man on 2nd with 1 out.

well, your odds of scoring runs also greatly increase when you have your highest OBP guy hitting 2nd rather than 8th.

 

all things being equal, yes, sure. But if you can get nearly the same OBP but far better SLG, the decision is a no-brainer.

agreed. but that's far from a lock. hell, fukudome's slg last year was .02 better than theriot's. do i expect that gap to widen this year? of course. but it's far from a lock.

[cubbinalltheway]

as i thought, those are total numbers. meaning they include situations where he came up with the bases empty. so they're meaningless when talking about his ability to move runners over.

Yes, stats about performance in all situations, including when a runner is on first, can't possibly be used to predict how one can do if a runner is on first. That would be just asinine.

what are you talking about?

 

if you were actually following the discussion, you would see that the topic was theriot's ability to move runners over. when you show me data that includes his at bats with the bases empty, that's irrelevant to the discussion.

If a guy hits a lot of grounders to the left side, chances are he's going to hit a lot of grounders to the left side even when there's a runner on 1st.

that's not true at all. professional baseball players have the ability to hit the ball to the right side if they want to, theriot seems especially good at this.

 

your dunn versus theriot comparisons are meaningless too so i'm not even going to address that.

[Guest]

as i thought, those are total numbers. meaning they include situations where he came up with the bases empty. so they're meaningless when talking about his ability to move runners over.

 

I don't want my #2 hitter to move runners over. I want him to get on base and drive runs in. If your offensive philosophy is to waste outs having your #2 guy just get your leadoff man into scoring position, you're doing yourself a disservice. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but the odds of scoring a run with a man on 1st and 0 outs is a lot higher than a man on 2nd with 1 out.

 

Exactly. Especially when your #1 guy is VERY good at getting himself in scoring position.

[Derwood]

 

your dunn versus theriot comparisons are meaningless too so i'm not even going to address that.

 

LOL