Playoff Prospectus: AL... (10/13)
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October 13, 2011 Playoff ProspectusALCS Game Four: Lineup Mismanagement
In last night’s ALCS Game Four against the Rangers, Tigers manager Jim Leyland trotted out his eighth different lineup in eight playoff games. I’ve never quite understood why some managers change their lineups so frequently, and while you could give Leyland a pass for the postseason based on the injuries his team has been dealt—Magglio Ordonez and Delmon Young—Leyland was one of the game’s greatest offenders during the regular season too, filling out his lineup card 127 different ways through 162 regular-season games. Leyland’s lineup in Game Three of the ALCS was particularly perplexing (as anyone who read BP’s live roundtable discussion surely noticed):
It’s not as if I’m nitpicking about Leyland merely failing to put out a 100 percent optimized lineup—few lineups are constructed absolutely perfectly—but this one doesn’t pass even the most lenient of eye tests. Don Kelly batting in one of the lineup’s most important slots—fifth, which is actually more important than the three-hole—is the most egregious, in my eyes. Kelly’s .247 TAv this year pales in comparison to Peralta’s .290. And even if Avila is hurting, as most suspect, whatever you’d dock his .320 TAv this season has to be better than what Kelly brings to the table. You could point to his lefty bat, but Avila is a lefty too, and I’d hardly think the platoon effect bridges the overall talent gap between him and Peralta. Individual lineup decisions aside, on a macro level, Leyland’s lineup shuffling looks like a manager trying to play as large a part as possible in his team’s fate. It is human nature to want to feel as if you have control over a situation you logically don’t have much control over, and we see this concept embodied time and again by baseball managers, often to their own detriment. Micromanaging a lineup or a ballgame doesn’t necessarily make you better—it just makes you more active. As I said before, I’ve never understood a manager who shuffles his lineup so frequently. In knowing each player’s talents, we can tell where each would best fit into a lineup—your best power hitter bats fourth, your best on-base hitter without much power bats first, etc. Sure, it’s important to take into account batter and pitcher platoon splits, park, advance scouting-based matchups (not career 4-for-7 versus the pitcher matchup analysis), and to deal with injury and off-day substitutions, but these kinds of things shouldn’t result in the drastic differences some of Leyland’s lineups exhibit. Generally speaking, the top half of the order should be reserved for the best players, and the bottom half should be filled in with the lesser players. Yes, small matchup-based changes are to be expected, and giving starters an occasional day off is encouraged, but playing the replacement players ahead of the other, superior everyday players is foolish more often than not. Flip-flopping players for the mere sake of flip-flopping them doesn’t accomplish anything; it’s counterproductive. Leyland’s philosophy regarding playing time has been described as “use your bench liberally all season, because there's no telling when you'll have to depend on those players.” He certainly stuck to that philosophy this season, giving 16 players at least 100 plate appearances, and it’s a good thing too, since he is now being forced to depend on several role players. Some people have the tendency to think that when you play your regulars every day, you win every game. It doesn't work that way… But this is why you play your entire roster. It doesn't mean they're going to do good necessarily, but at least they have had some action. I think it pays dividends. There’s absolutely merit to giving your bench players at-bats, especially if you’re playoff bound anyway, and while no one is going to question Leyland on using guys like Kelly, Santiago, Dirks over the past few games—what choice did he have?—there’s a difference between playing guys and playing guys in key lineup spots, which Leyland did pretty frequently during the season as well (Kelly batted second 25 times, for example). You see, there’s a difference between having to depend on these guys to play and forcing yourself to depend on them in key lineup spots, in key games, and subsequently, in key situations. When Kelly came up in the fifth inning of Wednesday night’s game with the bases loaded and the Tigers up just 2-1, his weak ground out to third didn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone. I think we’d have heard a lot more about this play if his better teammates didn’t pick up the slack and Fister wasn’t so dominate. If the Tigers end up losing, this could have been a key reason why and one that should have never happened in the first place. While Leyland certainly has his strengths as a manager (Jay Jaffe lays out Leyland’s Hall of Case today, in fact), and while he’s certainly not the lone manager guilty of excessive lineup juggling, it does seem unnecessary, overreaching, and detrimental in high-pressure playoff games.
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Interesting article. Thanks.
I was curious to read that the fifth spot in the lineup is more important than the third. Where does that come from?
What I've read about lineup construction is that top to bottom in on base percentage is "best," though that ends up with guys like Barry Bonds in his prime or Miguel Cabrera batting lead off, so nobody does that except in Strat-O-Matic.
The rationale is that since the #1 hitter gets up the most, #2 second most, and so on, you want to stack the guys who don't make outs (Moneyball) in the positions where they will get more plate appearances.
In that sense, #3 is pretty important, and the classic adage is that's where you place your best overall hitter.
No disagreement that Kelly shouldn't have been batting there, just curious about that.
As for multiple line-ups, again it makes more sense in Strat, where you don't have to take individual psyches into account, to just go with the probabilities. But in real baseball, there's probably value to predictability (has anyone studied that?), and the probabilities obviously aren't certain.
There's a good book, now out of print, by a consultant named Bob Keidel (called "Game Plans"), in which he compares baseball, football, and basketball in terms of levels of interdependence (or teamwork) required.
Baseball is the most individual of the team sports, and the most important thing baseball managers do (in his view) is put the names on the line-up card. In game strategy is more important in football and basketball, typically.
Anyway, thanks again, and I'd love to hear more on the #3/#5 importance issue.
Harder - check out this link at beyond the boxscore. This will describe why the 5th hole is more important than the 3 hole.
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/3/17/795946/optimizing-your-lineup-by
Thanks! Will check it out.
SaberTJ points out an article about it, which references Tom Tango, Mitchel Lichtman, and Andy Dolphin's "The Book," which goes into lineup construction.