The big news yesterday was Joe Girardi's decision to flip-flop Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon in the batting order, making Jeter the leadoff man.
A lot of people have expressed their opinion on the move, and as you might expect the opinions are mixed.
Let's take a look at some of those from around the Internet.
There are several other reasons that make this change logical, most notably that Damon has evolved into a better run-producer than Jeter in recent years. Damon has more extra-base hits than Jeter in three of the last four seasons, so the Yankees are better off with Damon up rather than Jeter with men on base.
The Yankees never toy with anything. Unless this is a complete flop, this is the way the Yankees will start the season. It's a good way to go. With Brett Gardner batting ninth, opposing managers can't just throw a lefty out there for the No. 9 and No. 1 hitters.
This balances the lineup. As hitting coach Kevin Long said, "Maybe we can manufacture some more runs. I'm all for it."
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With no Alex Rodriguez around, this is a way to create more runs. The key to this move will be if Damon can produce in the two-spot. This move can open up his game.
David Pinto from Baseball Musings
That should improve the Yankees offense by about 0.02 runs per game (compared to this lineup), or a little over three runs over the season. Jeter projects to get on base more than Damon, and both project to the same slugging percentage, so this is the right move, it just doesn’t make that big of a difference.
It makes little or no difference whether it's Jeter-Damon or Damon-Jeter. Damon's a little bit faster, but Jeter's (probably) going to reach base a bit more often. And the tiebreaker is Gardner; there's no evidence—none that I've seen, anyway—suggesting that breaking up your left-handed batters is a good thing, but if you can make the enemy manager's job a little harder, why not?
As David Pinto notes, this switch might be good for three extra runs over the course of the long season. But one of the manager's jobs is to find three runs where he can find them. Do that three times and you've found yourself an extra win. And every so often, a playoff spot is won or lost by that single extra win.
Statistically, it makes sense. Jeter has a career on-base percentage of .387, significantly higher than Damon's .354. Jeter also has grounded into 45 double plays over the last two seasons. Only three players have more - Miguel Tejada (54), Magglio Ordonez (47) and Vladimir Guerrero (46).
Girardi acknowledged that factor weighed into his thinking. The Yankees also like the prospect of Damon hitting second because of his ability to pull the ball to the right side.
(And from his blog)
David Pinto, who’s much smarter than I am, figured out that the new look would give the Yankees three more runs a year. If that results in one more victory, it was worth it.
Statistically speaking, there doesn't seem to be a good reason to drop Damon. He's faster than Jeter (who stole 11 bases in 2008, 18 fewer than Damon) and gets on base more often (.375 to .363).
But according to Baseball Prospectus, Jeter came up 188 times last year with a runner on first and drove in that runner five times—the 11th worst percentage in the AL.
We've been advocating Derek Jeter to lead off for years, so we applaud Joe Girardi for paying attention to those crazy things that Joe Torre ridiculed Brian Cashman for—statistics. While the OBP argument may have been more impactful a couple years ago before Jeter's numbers began to fade like his haircut, this could be a move by Girardi to cut down on Derek's main squeeze, the GIDP. It's well-documented how Jeter has made grounding into double plays the new black, but perhaps what isn't as well-documented is the reason for this.
Jeter is a groundball machine. In 2008, he led all of baseball in GB percent with 58 percent.
Steven Goldman from the Pinstriped Bible
Assuming something like consistency out of both hitters, the main change will be that, if you persist with that batting order through all 162 games, Jeter will bat about 20 more times than Damon. The lineup synergies don't really exist, although there could be a placebo effect. The fun thing about this decision is that we will now get into the "after, therefore because" territory of logical fallacies. If Jeter hits .350, some people will cite the move as a reason. If he hits .250, the move will be the reason too. In the former case, he'll be getting more fastballs. In the latter, he'll be trying too hard to work the count. The same thing will go for Damon, and for the offense as a whole--if the Yankees are more potent this year, it will be cause of this change. It almost certainly won't be, and if you think about it, there's no reason that it should be--why should flipping one spot in the batting order lead to a vastly different outcome? It's like saying that if you fry an egg with your left hand on the skillet instead of your right, the egg will taste better. It's an insignificant change.
So, whether Jeter bats first and Damon bats second; or, if Damon bats first and Jeter bats second, both of these guys are going to get the same number of PA either way - and both will reach base about 37% of the time. And, the impact to the Yankees line-up will be no different either way.
Anyone who wants to make a case that this potential line-up switch is a good or bad thing for the Yankees is trying to make themselves look smart.
As a few of the writers above mentioned, this is probably an indication of a few things that the Yankees intend to have Brett Gardner start and bat ninth.
Flip-flopping Jeter and Damon breaks up the two lefties in a row. I believe that's true as well.
I can't see it making that big of a difference, but, like Pinto, Neyer and Abraham said, even if it only improves their lineup by three runs, then it's worth doing.
What do you think? Is this the right move, the wrong move, or a meaningless move?
Also, vote in the poll on the right for who you think should be leading off.
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