Sammy Sofa

Everyone knows teams do that. It's widely considered to be dumb and meaningless when you're talking about things like a dozen AB or less. It's old timey meatball horsefeathers. Why do all these teams who spend millions on analytics do it if it was totally meaningless? You would think Theo or Jed would say something when they go over things with Joe everyday. Why does Maddon insist on treating almost any leftie he has in the bullpen as a LOOGY? Why is Almora still getting ANY starts when he has been catastrophically bad for well over an entire calendar year now? These are just things that always happen in baseball. To assume that any decision this FO or management staff is automatically sound is silly. Just the very presence of Almora on the team still at this point shows they don't always make the right choice.

Everyone knows teams do that. It's widely considered to be dumb and meaningless when you're talking about things like a dozen AB or less. It's old timey meatball horsefeathers.

Only 13 of those PA came hitting 5th and 30 came 7th despite the same PA total between the two spots. 5th .200/.385/.200/.585 in 13 PA vs LHP .367/.466/.617/1.082 in 73 PA vs RHP 7th .172/.200/.276/.476 in 30 PA vs LHP .367/.429/.571/1.000 in 56 PA vs RHP In a more sensible world, this would be the moment where you realize the whole point was the absurdity of acting like tiny sample sizes based on lineup spots shows where a player should hit. Here, I'll make this as simple as I can: Heyward has been leading off for 10 games. In the last 24 games, his line is only .258 .313 .438 .751. OK, so maybe you think that is only dragged down by his time leading off. But his July line is a shaky .309 .333 .420 .753 inflated by a .421 BAbip. He was clearly struggling well before he went to leadoff, and had his numbers boosted by a very lucky BAbip. In August so far, his slash line is worse, but his BAbip is a wretched .160. He swung from being lucky while slumping to being REALLY unlucky on top of slumping. This all points to a guy struggling at the plate, as he did in May. To extrapolate that to mean he is only struggling because he is leading off makes no sense. Heyward should be moved, but because he isn't well right now, period. If he starts performing like he did in April and July, it would be foolish to not try him at leadoff again.

You spelt I picked the best year since it fits the narrative better despite always bitching about SSS wrong. That "good" year with RISP has him up to .193 lifetime which only Mike Zunino is lower among players with 400 or more PA in the situation in all players fangraphs has listed in modern history. Yes, he is fine with RISP this year, and it's absurd to act like past performance somehow negates that. You're just spitting in the wind at this point when you've descended to the point that you basically WANT him to also be terrible with RISP this season. And, again, I put that out there just to counter how you were flat out wrong declaring him to be "comically bad" this year. I don't think the small sample size of his numbers with RISP this season means he's magically shrugged off that weird blind spot for good, but he is doing relatively fine in that situation right now.

Well, that's certainly a weird take.

Wait, wait, wait....so your response is to blatantly shift the goal posts to now argue that he must have just bad luck of the draw seen more LH pitchers when hitting 7th vs. 5th? Come on, man. When Heyward was hitting leadoff the first time Joe was moving him from 1st to 7th on some days so I would bet those bad 7 hole numbers were due to facing LHP and getting dropped down. Heyward only has 91 PA against LH pitchers this season.

OK? It's 2019, and that's what he's doing THIS season. So now you want to go with the smaller sample size? Yes, because it's not some bizarre micro sample piggybacked on the back of some weirdo meatball narrative. This is simply, "Kyle Schwarber has not been bad with RISP this season."

Schwarber has a .222 .351 .486 .837 line with RISP this season, which is clearly not "comically bad," with a BAbip of only .216 for a guy who usually is around .260, so, yeah, he's been reasonably unlucky in those spots. He's under 200 lifetime OK? It's 2019, and that's what he's doing THIS season. Also: his career RISP numbers carry a .200 BAbip to his career BAbip of .260, so, yes, again, reasonably unlucky. Let me pose a scenario to you: It's late in a tie game, and the Cubs have a guy on 3B with Schwarber up to bat. He's facing a struggling RH pitcher. He has a career .115 .350 .115 .465 line with only a guy on 3B in a mere 40 PA. Do you PH for him?

Wait, wait, wait....so your response is to blatantly shift the goal posts to now argue that he must have just bad luck of the draw seen more LH pitchers when hitting 7th vs. 5th? Come on, man.

Schwarber has a .222 .351 .486 .837 line with RISP this season, which is clearly not "comically bad," with a BAbip of only .216 for a guy who usually is around .260, so, yeah, he's been reasonably unlucky in those spots.

Pointing out that Maddon often makes bad/baffling decisions isn't helping your case. Heyward is, even at the best of times, a very streaky player in terms of peaks and valleys. We have seen Maddon, time and again, stick with players, position and pitching, giving them playing time or using them in spots when they are clearly struggling....because that's what baseball players do. They go through stretches where they underperform, or don't play well, or are hurt, or just flat out stink. Again, Heyward was already struggling again BEFORE he was moved up to #1. You keep arguing like he was doing fine and then suddenly on a dime started hitting poorly when he was moved up there. That's simply and obviously not true. You repeatedly cherrypick tiny sample sizes for these absurd, intangible-based narratives you insist must exist. Again, there is a very good and obvious argument against Heyward hitting #1, and that's that he has obviously been struggling for several weeks, and his OBP in that time shows he shouldn't be getting the most PA and be the guy you need to get on base in front of better hitters. Why do you need this nonsense storyline of, "leading off gets in Heyward's head, maaaaaaaaaannnnnn?" Look at this: Heyward is slashing .295 .349 .462 .810 in 86 PA when he bats 7th this season. As I pointed out before, he is slashing .343 .453 .557 1.011 in 86 PA when he is hitting 5th. Exact same sample size. Do you honestly believe that Jason Heyward has an OPS 200 points better hitting 5th because he feels more comfortable there, or prefers it, or whatever to hitting 7th?

So that's essentially you answering that, yes, you think hitting #1 inexplicably significantly impacts a player's performance vs. them hitting elsewhere in the lineup.

Being the leadoff hitter is way more than first AB of the game, since the rest of your PA are still in front of the good hitters. His OPS as the first hitter of the game is .983 because the lone 3 hits he has to start games are XBH while that BA is .200 the OBP is .250. Serious question: Do you think that he's hit .159 .227 .377 .603 in 75 PA hitting #1, and that he's hit .343 .453 .557 1.011 in 86 PA hitting #5, means anything? Like, do you genuinely think that moving him back to the #5 spot would likely result in him hitting well again in short order? I'm giving you an out here: if your argument is, "Heyward is slumping and he shouldn't be getting the most PA of anyone on the team right now," that's valid. If your argument is something along the lines, "Heyward can't handle the pressure of leading off," or, "hitting #1 makes Heyward bad," that's a laughably terribly argument.

Maybe leading off an inning other than the first, but not hitting from the leadoff spot this year. Hitting leadoff this season... .159/.227/.377/.603 Those are his season splits hitting as the batter listed first in the lineup, not necessarily always actually "leading off" in the sense of being the first batter of the game or an inning. As Janelle pointed out, Heyward's splits when he actually is the first batter of the game, a situation where he has had only 16 PA this season, is a very lopsided .200 .250 .733 .983, with a BAbip of .077. Those numbers correspond with how Heyward has been slumping or trending for a slump even before he was moved to the #1 spot. If you're curious, his numbers this season when he's leading off an inning are .282 .325 .527 .852 with a .312 OPS in 117 PA. That's roughly in line with how he's hitting .271 .350 .460 .810 with a .304 BAbip over all this season in 437 PA. So what does this tell us? That hitting Jason Heyward #1 is a serviceable idea, and that his current stretch is far more likely due to a slump as opposed to some kind of idea along of the lines of, "Jason Heyward can't handle leading off." The problem is that Maddon didn't plug Heyward in ahead of the team's better hitters sooner, not some nonsensical idea that hitting leadoff makes Heyward suck.

Got that leadoff OBP over .200 for the year. His OBP is over .300 when he leads off I mean....that's not really a good thing. You guys are swiping at each other, but both missing that this is likely just bad timing and Heyward going through a slump. He's definitely not putting up good numbers in the small sample size of his current leadoff hitter stint, but that stretch isn't simply relegated to when he was moved to to the top spot. There's nothing really showing he "should" be leading off right now (for the last month he only has a a .313 OBP, which isn't doing much for a guy who is supposed to be on base for the better hitters behind him), but also Edith's argument seems to be hinged on the idea that hitting leadoff somehow makes Heyward bad, and moving him to another spot would make him good again.

I’ll take a single

Yeah, his numbers of the last week are trending the right way. BAbip going up, too.

It was mentioned earlier in the season that his fastball was what was usually either missing badly or getting clobbered when he was really struggling.

Darvish gave up that home run like the Cubs had actually scored that run last inning.

What are you, some kind of time traveler from 45 minutes from now?

Yeesh. Classic Road Cobs.

Jesus, don't strand the damn gimme tying run.

Now THAT was a sexy AB.

Well, yeah, playoff numbers are typically a terrible way to gauge a player's overall value.