Thursday, July 9, 2009
Before I go to bed...
... I have just one question. Why does Joe Torre continue to bat Matt Kemp eighth? Kemp was 3 for 3 with a triple and a walk, reaching base all four times to raise his batting line on the season to .314/.380/.485. I don't like to gripe about batting order too much because most of the time the actual added value of a particular lineup versus a different lineup is negligible. But this is getting ridiculous. Kemp has been the Dodgers best hitter this year (minus Manny who would win in a cake walk but he, you know, got suspended for 50 games). The Bison should bat no lower than sixth in the order and would be great as high as the two spot. It's a funny concept Joe, you usually want to put your best hitters and high OBP guys near the top of the lineup. But hey, if you want to keep batting him eighth, I guess that's your prerogative. I think it's embarrassing though that our favorite team's manager bats a possible All-Star three spots below Mark Loretta. Ok that's enough now. Good night.
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Thats an interesting point you bring up, Loretta comes off the bench and bats higher up in the order than kemp, there is something wrong with that. You can't have a guy with this type of production batting 8th in the lineup. I think his numbers would actually improve with a move up in the order since batting 8th you often see a lot of trash pitches with the pitcher batting next. I guess you can't complain with the win loss record but I can see the frustration.
ReplyDeleteespecially with oliver perez on the mound and kemp dominates lefties so far this season last time I checked.
ReplyDeleteYa it's more the philosophy behind it. Oh and he is a lefty killer in his career so it would have been nice. The Dodgers left a ridiculous amount of runners last night and Kemp had all four at-bats with the bases empty. That's frustrating.
ReplyDeleteKemp has a 1.134 OPS against lefties this season in 75 at-bats. The most frustrating thing is watching James Loney consistently hit in the middle of the order despite the fact that he is a first baseman with a .736 OPS. Using RBI's to rationalize that seems like flawed logic to me.
ReplyDeleteEntering tonight's game, Kemp is batting .512 in the 8 spot. And he's 2 for 2 in that spot tonight.
ReplyDeleteHey John I haven't talked to you in a while. I checked Kemp's splits by batting position last week and saw that he is hitting very well in the 8 spot. But I don't see any reason to think that his success wouldn't translate to other spots in the order. What do you think?
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