During the Cubs’ last homestand, I started thinking about Joe Maddon batting the pitcher eighth. The fact we only scored six runs in the three games I went to probably accelerated my thought process, but I would thought about it anyway. (Fortunately, in one of the games, the other team only scored one run, so our two was enough. But you can’t count on that too often). When I saw Jason Stark’s article today on why Joe is doing it, I decided I should post my thoughts.
First, I do understand one of Joe’s points. By batting the pitcher eighth, he is able to bat Addison Russell ninth, and it may help Addison to be batting in front of the leadoff man instead of the pitcher. Obviously, it didn’t matter to Starlin Castro when he came up, but there aren’t that many Starlin Castros around.*
But even with this argument, I don’t like batting the pitcher eighth – for one simple reason: The pitcher bats earlier. You can talk about how batting the pitcher eighth, gives you an extra leadoff man the second, third, etc., times through the lineup. You can also say that after the first time through the lineup it doesn’t matter. But the fact is eighth spot comes up before the ninth spot every time. Every time you go through the lineup, a pitcher batting eighth is going to come up earlier than a pitcher batting ninth. That is not something I want.
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* Joe also had to sell batting ninth to Addison, which he apparently did. I can imagine the conversation going something like this (at last in Addison’s mind): In Des Moines, I’m sharing a room at a Fairfield Inn with another guy and getting $25 a day in meal money, some of which goes to the clubhouse attendant for the after-the-game meal. In Chicago, I’ll get my own room at a fancy hotel and more meal money for a single day than some people have to live on for a whole year in the third world. Yeah, it’s fine to bat ninth in the majors.
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