Moving Reyes

Jerry Manuel told reporters yesterday that he’ll consider hitting Jose Reyes third. My take? Sounds good to me. I’ve long felt that hitting lead-off is over-rated: other than the first at bat of the game, the lead-off hitter rarely leads off an inning. If Manuel wants to experiment by putting Reyes in a different spot in the lineup, I say go for it. Experimenting is part of what Spring Training is about and as long as Manuel doesn’t try to force it, there’s no reason to get worked up about it. Here’s what Jerry’s experimental Opening Day line-up might look like:

Luis Castillo, 2B
Angel Pagan, CF
Reyes, SS
Jason Bay, LF
David Wright,3B
Jeff Francoeur, RF
Daniel Murphy, 1B
Henry Blanco, C*
Johan Santana, P

*I know they just signed Rod Barajas, but I just feel that we’ll see Blanco become Santana’s personal catcher.

The main flaw with that is the three consecutive righties in the middle of the line-up. Personally, I might rather see Reyes hit second. I think Luis Castillo has two main skills: getting on base (.369 career On-Base Percentage, 3.87 in 2009), and taking a lot of pitches while doing so (averaging 4.03 pitches per plate appearance for his career, 4.25 in 2009). The hitters following him would see a bunch of pitches which is valuable even when Castillo doesn’t get on base. Even though Castillo isn’t as prolific a base-stealer as he once was (though he had more attempts last year than any year since 2006), so it’s not like Reyes would have to take an inordinate amount of pitches to let him run. One downside: though Castillo was a slightly better than average base-runner in 2009 (Net Gain +7), most of that came from his stolen base efficiency (20/26). So he might clog the bases in front of Reyes a bit.

Here’s what my Opening Day line-up looks like:

Castillo, 2B
Reyes, SS
Wright, 3B
Bay,LF
Pagan, CF
Francoeur, RF
Murphy, 1B
Blanco, C
Santana, P

This breaks up the right-handers and sandwiches Wright between two solid hitters, giving him protection (Jason Bay) while also presenting him with runners on base to drive in. I also think this line-up is a little more balanced and optimizes the top four hitters strengths.

Manuel will experiment with Reyes hitting third and probably won’t even consider hitting him second. That’s fine, because I think the most likely scenario will see him keep Reyes in the lead-off slot. With so much hanging over his head, I doubt Manuel will deviate far from the beaten path. Which is a shame, because he really has nothing left to lose.

Advertisements