Why does pitcher have to bat 9th

[orwell]

Unless I'm missing it, you can't bat the pitcher outside of position 9. Hopefully I am.

If so, if someone could let me know, thanks.

[KCRoyalsFan]

why would you want to?

[TC Dale]

Historically speaking most pitchers are not good batters, and are usually placed in the 9th spot in the batting order because of that. There have been good hitting pitchers over the years, but they don't get many at bats due to the pitching rotation every 4th or 5th day, so they aren't as sharp as a batter who gets his swings every game.

Of course if you are in the American League you have a Designated Hitter for you already, which renders most discussions moot. In the National League it is a much harder thing to set up the lineup every day, and make moves during the game.

I know growing up I was glad to see the pitcher just get the bat on the ball most times.

[CONN CHRIS]

My memory of the seventies is suspect, but didn't Palmer bat 8th with Belanger 9th a time or two for the Orioles?

[orwell]

Originally Posted by KCRoyalsFan

why would you want to?

I thought I'd experiment after reading some fancy mumbo jumbo at

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/ar...cting-lineups/

And this link has a program that claims to use regression (based on your men's OBP and SLG) to construct the optimized lineup:

http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-b...upAnalysis.py?

Most of the time, it does indicate to bat your pitcher 9th (not surprising) but in a few cases, depending on my starter's stats and how bad my overall team sucked, I guess, it would tell me to bat the starter 8th.

Anyway, I think it's interesting. But, looks like OOTP insists that you go the conventional route.

Also, I think that wild and crazy Tony LaRussa bat his starter 8th a few times.

If anyone figures out a way to get your pitcher to bat (other than a double switch) outside of 9, please let me know.

Thanks.

[CobaltJays]

Tony La Russa used the pitcher in the 8th spot briefly several years ago.

[Erik W.]

Originally Posted by CobaltJays

Tony La Russa used the pitcher in the 8th spot briefly several years ago.

And got roundly ridiculed for it, unfortunately. I didn't think it was a horrible idea.

Anyway, OP, all you need to do when setting up your line-ups (at the Lineups and Depth Chart team screen) is leave the spot you want the pitcher in blank. So if you want him hitting eighth, have your last position player occupying the 9th spot instead.

I just tested it in-game, and it seems to work.

[ChrisHolmesOnline]

You can bat your pitcher anywhere you like. When you're on the Lineups & Depth Charts screen you'll notice the 9th slot is empty when you're selecting Versus RHP or Versus LHP. Go ahead and drag any of your batters to the 9th slot. Whatever slot they were in will now be empty. Whatever slot is empty (1-9) is the slot the pitcher will end up in.

I'm not baseball guru, but I dig stats and math and tend to track things. I bat my pitcher 7th (when my Mariners play an NL team). I play all my games in OOTPB (I don't sim anything, so I get to observer first-hand all the tendancies).

Here's my observations: When my pitcher bats 9th I frequently run into a situation where I get runners on with two outs, and the pitcher comes to bat; killjoy. Wasted opportunity to score. When I bat my pitcher 7th I find myself in more manageable situations where the pitcher is either the first man up in an inning (thus no wasted opportunity to leave runners on base) or the second one (ideal, so he can bunt the lead off man over).

There is one big league manager who also does this at times (LaRussa).

There's been studies done to suggest that batting your pitcher 9th is not the best spot in the lineup. One such study:

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2559

Again, I'm no baseball expert. Just my first-hand observations.

[Jose Cardenal's Afro]

Batting your pitcher 9th ensures that the pitcher will statistically bat the least amount of times in a game.

Being a cubs fan I remember a few years back in the late 80's that Greg Maddux would occasionally bat 8th. Maddux and moyer for that matter were excellent atheletes and could put good wood on the ball.

I think it was used mostly to shake up a crappy Cubs lineup.

[PerfectMisnomer]

I'm going to try and have my pitcher bat 8th with my best hitter batting 2nd in my online league. Statistically I don't know how many extra bats the pitcher gets by moving up one slot, but I would think my best batter gets more at bats out of it by moving up to #2. I remember there was a debate on the issue on Baseball Tonight a long while back.

[orwell]

Originally Posted by ChrisHolmesOnline

You can bat your pitcher anywhere you like. When you're on the Lineups & Depth Charts screen you'll notice the 9th slot is empty when you're selecting Versus RHP or Versus LHP. Go ahead and drag any of your batters to the 9th slot. Whatever slot they were in will now be empty. Whatever slot is empty (1-9) is the slot the pitcher will end up in.

I'm not baseball guru, but I dig stats and math and tend to track things. I bat my pitcher 7th (when my Mariners play an NL team). I play all my games in OOTPB (I don't sim anything, so I get to observer first-hand all the tendancies).

Here's my observations: When my pitcher bats 9th I frequently run into a situation where I get runners on with two outs, and the pitcher comes to bat; killjoy. Wasted opportunity to score. When I bat my pitcher 7th I find myself in more manageable situations where the pitcher is either the first man up in an inning (thus no wasted opportunity to leave runners on base) or the second one (ideal, so he can bunt the lead off man over).

There is one big league manager who also does this at times (LaRussa).

There's been studies done to suggest that batting your pitcher 9th is not the best spot in the lineup. One such study:

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2559

Again, I'm no baseball expert. Just my first-hand observations.

Thanks - didn't realize you could move that blank spot around like that. I've tried batting the pitcher 8th, will see how it goes.

[pavlovs_dog]

Originally Posted by PerfectMisnomer

I'm going to try and have my pitcher bat 8th with my best hitter batting 2nd in my online league. Statistically I don't know how many extra bats the pitcher gets by moving up one slot, but I would think my best batter gets more at bats out of it by moving up to #2. I remember there was a debate on the issue on Baseball Tonight a long while back.

I think the rule of thumb is moving up 1 spot in the order is about 20 PAs/season.

I haven't actually looked at the numbers, but since you want your high OBP guys at the top, it might be worth it to have 20 more pitcher/PH PA's if it means having more runners on when your best hitters are up.

[His Own Bad Self]

Dontrelle Willis batted 7th once, a year or two ago. He was swinging a hot stick at the time, and batted in front of a couple of rookies one game.

[Rasmuth]

I wouldn't bat Don Drysdale 9th...if the situation were right...especially in 1965

[Bobbert]

Originally Posted by pavlovs_dog

I think the rule of thumb is moving up 1 spot in the order is about 20 PAs/season.

I haven't actually looked at the numbers, but since you want your high OBP guys at the top, it might be worth it to have 20 more pitcher/PH PA's if it means having more runners on when your best hitters are up.

If you assume that every spot in the lineup is as likely to get the last PA for a team in a game (which of course isn't 100% true, but I think it's a fair estimation) then moving up one spot is worth 162/9 = 18 PA per year, unless I'm thinking very wrong here.

[Curtis]

My Ham Fighters have three starting pitchers good enough to bat seventh, eighth and eighth using traditional lineup criteria (ie. without having to resort to sabremetrics).

[Crimguy]

Carlton was a pretty good hitter.

[dsvitak]

Originally Posted by Crimguy

Carlton was a pretty good hitter.

Sure, and with a lifetime OBP of .223, go ahead and hit him cleanup.

[Crimguy]

Heh, relative to other pitchers.

[Zitofan75]

Originally Posted by Rasmuth

I wouldn't bat Don Drysdale 9th...if the situation were right...especially in 1965

No kidding. The 1965 Dodgers hit, as a team, 78 Home Runs that year (and won the world series), and Drysdale hit 7 of them. Just goes to show that great pitching is more important than a great lineup.