Disclaimer: This is not a question from a disgruntled parent, just interested in understanding the possible strategy at work.
I have a nephew on a team that's done well during the season against good competition, but their tendency to leave runners OB over and over is frustrating. Games that should have been blowouts are squeakers because of the LOBs.
According to the team stats,the top of the lineup has pretty good OB% (lots of BB), but BAs run as follows: .286/.143/.231/.250/.203 with slugging % close or below. Then there are a couple of guys with OB% over .500 each, BAs of .361 and .377 with slugging % of over .450. They alternate batting at position 7 & 9/10 in the lineup. Seems they end up being secondary lead-off pretty frequently. Their number of at bats isn't significantly different from the top guys. One has the second most steals on the team.
I thought the rule of thumb was to keep contact guys (higher BAs) somewhere in the top half of the lineup, but maybe that's too simplistic. Is there a strategy at work here that I've not seen?
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