Hos was lights out after his first two months.. I mean his overall numbers were great for a 23 year old. .801 OPS.

However, those first two months were so bad... I mean.. we'll just call that "Prison Bitch time" because the PB hate was justified... after that, he was so polar opposite it's scary.

.858 OPS over the last 2/3rds of the season.

Again, just 23 years old at the time.. That's a phenomenal turnaround. Damned exciting to think about.

That doesn't look half bad. Especially if Moustakas and Escobar get their heads out of their asses this year.

Two big ifs.

I'm more worried about Butler\Gordon. The team can still put up some runs withotu Mous\Esky... they showed it last year. They are basically a non-factor because they've never really been relied upon... Gordon\Butler on the other hand... those guys we have a lot of money invested in because they are both proven commodities. We need those investments to pay better dividends than they did last season.

With Hosmer's emergence last year, Perez showing his flashes, the additions of Aoki and Infante... the stage is set... Butler and Gordon have GOT to put it together this year for KC to win... it starts with those two...

Now, if mous\esky do anything this season... Bonus.

I like that much better. I hate ****ing with Gordon in the 5-hole. Just doesn't make sense to me.

Freddie Freeman is about to sign a $100M+ extension, so we have a ballpark for Hosmer. Oof.

Freeman has been the better player, but Hosmer is a similar player who is trending up.

The rumor is now 8/125

True. They both need to produce more than they did last year.

Ned Yost is obsessed with traditional lineup roles.

He wants a RH hitter who can run, who has good bat control, who preferably plays 2B, in the 2 spot in the lineup. Regardless of whether that person can get on base at a respectable clip or not.

Modern baseball logic tells you that type of player is NOT as valuable in that spot if he is not adept at getting on-base. At least at a decent .330-.340 level.

One of the reasons the Royals played so well with Bonifacio in the lineup is that he hit second in the lineup and produced a .350 OBP in his 40 games with KC in 2013.

If Infante is posting a .325 from the 2 spot while Gordon is doing his usual .350-.360 out of the 5, the Royals are PROBABLY leaving runs on the board. Not a TON, but some.

Have I mentioned yet in 2014 that I don't give much of a damn about the lineup? Maybe one-fifth of a damn, but no more.

You should generally have your better hitters earlier to give them more AB in a season, and its probably a good idea to alternate left right, but neither of those things make that much of a difference, and fans freak out about lineup changes way more than justified.

As long as you write 1. Aoki and 9. Escobar in indelible ink, and as long as Butler, Gordon, Hosmer, and Perez are somewhere in the top 6, I don't care beyond that. Yost could literally change the lineup every single day for all I care, with names in a LH box and in a RH box, drawing them out one at a time from each box.

Sure. I just look at it like this... OBP is less important out of your 5 and 6 hitters (being followed by Moustakas, Cain and Escobar) than it is out of your 1-2 hitters (being followed by Hosmer, Butler and Perez).

Stacking

.355
.365
.350
.375

1-4 for Perez and Infante

should create more runs than stacking

.355
.325
.350
.375

For Gordon and Perez.

I'm not saying it makes no difference at all. I'm saying it makes almost no difference at all, and I can usually find 10 other things to complain about after a loss before I finally work my way down to the lineup.

I agree almost completely.

It honestly probably bothers me more that hitting Infante second instead of Gordon symbolizes Ned Yost's stubborn old school attitude and approach to managing, which sometimes is to the detriment of the team's success.

Quick example in case anyone reading this is scratching their head at this whole "lineup doesn't make much of a difference" thing I have.

Lets say you are a manager and you have two players, one of them will lead off, and one of them will bat 9th. Lets make this example extreme: one player has a .400 OBP, and the other has a horrible .250 OBP. Lets also say that you have gone insane and decided to lead off with the crappy hitter.

A leadoff runner at first scores roughly 1/3 of the time. The batting order only makes a difference once per game (since after the first inning your sluggers might lead off for your bottom guys, and your bottom guys might lead off for the top guys, etc). That whopping .150 OBP difference means you are probably not scoring a run that you would have scored with the better leadoff hitter about once every 20 games. (.150 / 3 = .05 = 1/20) 10 combined runs scored and defensively saved generally equal a win.

Over a full 162-game season the horrible, insane lineup will win about 0.8 fewer games than the best lineup.

Freeman got 8/$135