Batting Order Shake-Up On The Way

Eric Wedge hinted at this towards the end of last season, but tonight he made his most declarative statement on the issue, telling Mike Salk on ESPN 710 that he was “leaning in (the) direction” of moving Ichiro out of the leadoff spot. People have been talking about shifting Ichiro to the third spot in the order for years, and it seems like his poor performance in 2011 has given Wedge a reason to try something new. This is going to be a big story among the mainstream fan base, and will get plenty of coverage in Spring Training, but the reality is that every study ever done on the issue comes to the same conclusion – batting order just doesn’t really matter all that much. You want your best guys at the top of the line-up and the worst guys at the bottom in order to allocate the maximum amount of at-bats to your most productive players, but in terms of producing runs, the exact order isn’t a big deal. Hit the pitcher cleanup? Yeah, that’s bad. ...