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Originally Posted by fauteuil7
This is kind of a simplified old-school strategy (I haven't gotten deeply into the Sabermetrics thing) but when you're putting a team together it's good to have roles in mind. If you look at the Yankees lineup now (when everyone's healthy at least) they have Damon who is a speedy guy with a good OBP 1st, then Jeter who also gets on base a lot but is a good situational hitter, then Giambi 3rd who can smack the ball out of the park but also is among the league leaders in OBP.
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Personally, I don't believe in building a team around "roles" for hitters as much as most people. I think that you're either a good hitter or you're not. I'd much rather have nine Jason Giambis or Alex Rodriguezes in my lineup than a "well balanced" lineup with a guy like Damon leading off. (Not that Damon's a bad hitter, he's not, but if I could have another Jason Giambi leading off, even though he's not your prototypical leadoff hitter, I'd score a lot more runs than with Damon leading off.) If there's a guy out there who is fast and gets on base a good amount, and a guy out there who is slow, gets on base more than the fast guy, and hits for good power, and I lost my leadoff hitter to FA, and they both play the same position, I'd still rather have the non "leadoff type," because he's a better hitter and thus will mean more runs for me.
I'm not into "smallball" as a viable strategy in most cases, anyway, so if my leadoff hitter doesn't steal any bases, that's fine with me.