In fairness: I would not bat Esky second.

Then they aren't your 3 best hitters. right now I believe Gordon is raking LHP'ers.

It's somewhat problematic that Gordon and Hosmer are both hitting better against lefties than righties this year.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pl...&year=2013&t=b

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pl...&year=2013&t=b

I'm calling Gordon's 107 ABs against LH'ers a fluke. Also, probably his 243 ABs against RH'ers. This is an anomaly. Just look at his 2012 splits. Or for that matter, his career splits.

Whom do you want getting the most ABs on this team? This is really the only question that matters, dude.

I am gonna go all Billy Beane on mother ****ers...

Q: Why do you bat Gordon 1st?
A: Because he gets on base

Q: Why do you bat Lough 2nd?
A: Because he gets on base

Q: Why do you bat Hosmer 3rd?
A: Because he gets on base


You get on base we win, you don't we lose.

Also, with Hosmer, when he was crushing his rookie season, it was against righties.

So despite the fact that Cain has a better OBP than Lough, you would rather stick Lough in the two hole?

I'm not going to put much stock in a rookie season in terms of splits because too much is new for all involved. And Gordon hit lefties pretty damn well in '11, too.

So a weird trend I'm noticing, just clicking through Royal's player splits. Nearly every one of the Royals has a reverse split and is performing better against same-handed pitching. No wonder our offense is struggling. This must be a systematic development problem.

There isn't much difference in their OBP and Lough has a better OPS and SLG. Plus Cain is striking out about 10% more of the time than Lough and he is slower.

Cain is NOT significantly slower than Lough and Lough will cool off. He only has like 100 ABs.

Ok, let me rephrase, Lough runs the bases harder and better than Cain. And there is a difference between being fast and being a good base runner. Right now saying Lough will cool off is speculation. He may and he may not. But at the moment he is hitting like a #2.

I'm mostly arguing for the sake of baseball discussion at this point, just for the record. I suspect Lough will cool off, but I hope I am wrong. If Cain would ever reach his potential, he would be my ideal number two, I think. A good combination of speed with pop.

LMAO. I was just going to post Cain's splits.

I've long advocated for Butler to hit second, and I still think this would be a good option.