The WGOM

So, I just started on a rather ill-advised internet journey, and even though I should go to bed, I feel strangely compelled to complete that journey.

My first mistake was to check LEN3's game report to see what everyone had to say about Carlos Bunty McBunterson vs. Cliff Can't Be Bothered To Field His Position Lee.

"I was just trying to do my job and he ... jumped on me,'' Gomez said after the Twins won 4-3. "He say, 'Stop bunting.' But not like that. With bad language.

"And I say, 'You do your job and I do my job.' My coaches tell me what we have to do."

Gomez said bunting is a big part of his game and he's not going to stop doing it.

"I know he won't be mad when he throws me four sliders in a row,'' Gomez said. "It's your job to do whatever, throw me 10 sliders in a row. If I strike out, OK. I get you next time. But don't be mad when I bunt.''

And I absolutely love that response from Gomez. Of course, Cliff Lee, who had to be a big pansy to complain about bunting in the first place, was a big pansy about the issue afterward:

When Lee was asked about his conversations with Gomez, he replied, "It was nothing.''

Sure, Cliff, it was nothing. You yell at all the hitters you face, that's just how the game is played these days, right?

So I wanted to see if he expounded elsewhere, or if Eric Wedge had anything to say about it. (Honestly, I think that any manager worth his paycheck should chew out a pitcher for getting so bent out of shape about that. Do your PFP, get your booty off the mound, and get the outs. I don't recall Johan Santana ever complaining about fielding bunts while he was pouncing on them, and Cliff Lee is no Johan Santana.) I made the mistake of going over to the Indians' SBN blog Let's Go Tribe. (Long story short--they are no Sox Machine or Detroit Tigers Weblog.) I didn't see anything obviously related to a game recap, since there was all kinds of talk about the Cheeseburger trade, which I kind of wanted to avoid since I'm not that familiar with the prospects in the trade and didn't want to spend a ton of time right now looking through all of their statistics. (Though if anyone is curious, my understanding is that LaPorta is the centerpiece, and I'm not a big fan of trading up-the-middle players for corner players, but LaPorta plus prospects is probably better than the two compensation picks that Cleveland would have gotten by finishing their Captain Cheeseburger Happy Meal this year.)

Then I went to their game thread, which was another mistake. Although I could empathize with the guy complaining about Bremer's ineptitude, he was really missing the point about Hafner's old production missing from the lineup and then I had to grit my teeth through some "Mauer is overrated" posts, some suggesting that Victor Martinez is obviously better, I guess because he plays 20% of his games at first base these days. I don't know. Finally, they completely ignored the inning where the Twins took the lead, and basically ignored Lee's whining and moaning, so I didn't really get any satisfaction on that front.

At that point, I got distracted by a link to Joe Posnanski about whether or not Grady Sizemore should be hitting leadoff. Socaltwinsfan mentioned this at the beginning of the Cleveland series, but as with most lineup construction issues these days, I simply dismissed it with a "lineup effects just aren't that important" mental thought. (I mean, the Twins have had some recent games with Mauer-Morneau-Kubel hitting back-to-back-to-back, which is like crashing a biplane through the Dome's teflon roof with a sign that says "PLEASE INSERT YOUR LOOGY HERE", yet the Twins are scoring more runs than their peripherals would suggest.) But I'll take any excuse I can get to read Posnanski's blog.

Anyway, The Pos wanted Sizemore hitting third, and I wasn't particularly compelled by his argument. As one of the commenters noted, you're trading opportunities for him to drive in runs for opportunities for him to score runs. He's had five leadoff HR so far this year, and while there are some lost RBI there, he's got the best OBP on the team, and getting him more PA helps extend the game (plus more opportunities for him to hit a HR.) But that argument's not really any better than Posnanski's argument.

So I went and found Cleveland's most common lineup this year (Sizemore-Carroll-Francisco-Peralta-Choo-Blake-Dellucci-Garko-Shoppach), their PECOTA projections, and plugged them into the Baseball Musings Lineup Analysis tool.

I got these results. Basically, Wedge's lineup is at 4.72 R/G, the "best" lineup is at 4.89 R/G, and the "worst" lineup is at 4.61 R/G. Notably, in all of the "best" lineups, Sizemore is hitting first or second, and there's really no significant difference between the production of the lineups with him hitting first compared to those with him hitting second.

Some might object that the first half performance is how Wedge should be filling out the lineup (optimally, I would like to re-run PECOTA with the first-half stats included, but that's not an option.) Doing that, I get these results. This indeed changes the situation. Wedge's lineup is at 4.86 R/G, the "best" lineup is at 5.06 R/G, and the "worst" lineup is at 4.60 R/G. The important thing, though, is that in all of the "best" lineups, Sizemore is not hitting leadoff. He's mainly listed at 2nd and 4th, though there are three with him hitting 5th. (Of course, he is also not listed hitting 3rd, which is where Posnanski thinks he fits best.)

Now, as a manager, you don't really want to make it a habit of giving up 0.2 R/G. Over the course of a full season, that's about 30 runs, or roughly 3 wins. But which set of inputs should we believe more--the PECOTA forecasts or the first-half stats? I would personally lean towards the PECOTA forecasts. The first-half stats represent a particular set of performance outcomes for a player, but the PECOTA forecasts are based on multiple seasons and regressed to the mean. Shin-Soo Choo (listed leadoff in many of the "best" lineups with the first-half stats) may have a .367 OBP, but is it really a good idea to fill out your lineup on the assumption that he will continue to hit that way? There have been a lot of studies about how there's not really a "hot hand" effect in baseball, so I don't think that would be a particularly wise idea.

Also, this lineup tool doesn't consider stolen bases, which is a weapon that Sizemore has in his toolbox, and would probably be a point in favor of hitting him first as opposed to third.

Looking at everything, I would guess that Wedge is probably leaving some runs on the table by hitting Sizemore leadoff. The extra RBI he would get by hitting HR in, say, the 2nd spot would probably outweigh the 16-20 PA over the course of the season that he would lose by hitting one spot lower in the order. I don't think that "some runs" is 30 runs, but I could believe something like 5-10 runs.

At the same time, I think there are a lot of managers who would look at that group of players and just keep Sizemore where he's at because there isn't someone who would obviously be a great leadoff hitter. So when judging Wedge against his peers, I don't think this is a huge strike against him, if it's even a strike at all. That is, I'm basically sticking with my "lineup effects just aren't that important" thought.