Well Joe Morgan is pitching an absolute gem tonight. He opened with a staggering display of stubbornly willful ignorance by critiquing the Cardinal’s use of Ryan Ludwick in the two slot. To paraphrase, Professor Morgan said something incoherent about the two spot being reserved for guys that can bunt or hit and run, and not power hitters, cause that’s how it has always been and that’s how the game is supposed to be played. Yeah let’s sit around and second guess Tony LaRussa. That guy couldn’t win a baseball game to save his life. And that’s right…MLB managers should just ignore the decades of research that confirms that sacrifice bunting actually lowers the expected value you get from a baserunner. Christ Bill James figured this shit out in the early 1800′s or something. But that’s just a run-of-the-mill example of Morgan’s inexplicable vendetta against sabrmetrics and people that can count above ten.
Joe really turned in on in the mid innings with an absolutely incoherent hour of rambling about teams’ market size. From what I could tell, and that’s admittedly not much since my first language is English, Joe thinks that market size is something that teams can choose to invoke or withdraw according to how it helps them in the free agent market. Now I’m relatively ignorant on this subject myself, so correct me if I’m wrong, but market size should really be a pretty easy line to draw. And I’m pretty sure that Minnesota, barring some sort of natural disaster or terrorist attack that causes massive demographic changes, cannot choose to be a big market on Tuesday and a small market on Wednesday. It has a set population. And a relatively stable expected revenue. The big markets are NY, Chicago, LA, Philly, and Boston. It’s not rocket science. And thank god. If Joe Morgan ever had to muse on something really complicated, Orel Hersheiser would be picking brain matter out of his hair for weeks.

#1 by VatoLoco on April 13, 2010 - 9:44 pm
Quote
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/3/17/795946/optimizing-your-lineup-by
The definitive guide on lineup optimization.
And no, it does not mention putting your best sac bunt guy in the #2 spot.