MLB: Carl Crawford and Five Hot Players Who Need to Move Up in the Order
The batting lineup is very much an inexact science. In fact, some people feel the attention given to it is completely unjustified. But people do pay attention to it, and there are a few general rules.
A high OBP guy leads off. Your best hitters hit third and cleanup. Guys who are good defensively but not at the plate bat in the bottom third.
Sometimes, though, batters in the lower half of the lineup outperform their position and warrant a discussion about whether or not they should be moved up.
Here we look at five players whose numbers are much better than the spot in which they hit.
Jay Bruce—Cincinnati Reds
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There might not appear to be that much difference between the five-spot and the three-hole or batting cleanup, but it can be quite significant.
It is quite unlikely that the five-hitter will come up in the first, and that spot in the order leads off more innings than any other. Which is why you put your best hitters at three and four.
Bruce is third in the Major Leagues in home runs (12), leads the Reds in RBIs (30) and in the last week has a slugging percentage above 1.000. Brandon Phillips has a better average but has a .227 BA in recent weeks and only one extra base hit; his average has fallen 84 points from April to May.
Casey Kotchman—Tampa Bay Rays
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What a pickup Kotchman has proven to be for the Rays. On the season, he has a .349 average and a huge 145 wRC+, second-best on the team.
He was surprisingly good in April but has been even better in May, and in the last fortnight, he is batting .400. Not bad for a seven hitter.
Juan Miranda—Arizona Diamondbacks
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Miranda has a respectable .272 average in his first season with the D-Backs but it is in the last week that he has really turned it on. After slumping in early May, the first baseman was batting a paltry .206, but he has bounced back in the last seven days.
He has doubled his RBI total, hit a third home run and batted .500. He has the second-highest OBP (.571) over that span. He is swinging the hottest bat on a below-average offense, yet he continues to bat in the seven-hole.
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Yadier Molina—St. Louis Cardinals
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Why has Molina spent the majority of the year batting seventh?
Yes, the Cardinals offense is great and even with their catcher hitting at a .324 clip, they are not going to move him into the top three with Ryan Theriot and Albert Pujols, but surely he should be higher than seventh.
Carl Crawford—Boston Red Sox
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Crawford’s struggles since joining Boston have been spoken and written about at length.
He is batting just .215, has a slugging percentage under .300 and has only two home runs to his name. But he is turning things around.
In the Month of May, Crawford has three walk-off hits and a .282 BA, good for fifth on the team. The fact he is batting eighth will be insulting to him and he will move up eventually, as soon as manager Terry Francona works out where to fit him in.
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