Strategy For Baseball Batting
Lineups
This is always an
interesting discussion item as different people will
recommend different things. The most common strategy
for baseball batting lineups is to have your best hitters at
the top of the lineup with your slugger in the fourth
spot. The
thinking behind this lineup is you give your best hitters
the most at bats by having them at the start and you give
your slugger a chance to hit with the bases
loaded. The
disadvantage behind this strategy is you will have inning
where you only have weak hitters at the
plate. This
means it is you will get very few runs during these
innings. In
this strategy, you are putting all your eggs in one
basket hoping that in the innings where your top batters
come to bat, they will bring in enough runs to offset the
innings where the weaker batters are
hitting.
Other batting lineup
strategies include:
1. Spread your good
hitters throughout the lineup. In other words, have a
good hitter and then a not so good hitter and alternate this
all the way through. This lineup allows you to
have more run consistency throughout the game and affords
you more opportunities to move the good hitters in scoring
position. For
instance, if a good hitter gets a hit; then, the weaker
hitter can bunt him over. Since the weaker hitter
was likely to get out anyway, you benefit by having him bunt
the runner over in scoring position. Then, your next good
hitter has a chance to get an RBI.
2. Spread out your lineup
with speed, weak hitters, and good hitters. This plan
calls for breaking your lineup into thirds. The first three batters
should have your fastest guy or one who gets a lot of walks,
then, a weak hitter, then a real good hitter. This plan would allow you
to have someone that is likely to get on base
lead-off. Then,
you have a weak hitter who can bunt him over into scoring
position.
Finally, you have a good hitter come up who can hit the
runner home.
You would also want to repeat this for batters for the
4th thru 6th
positions and the batters for the 7th thru
9th positions. This strategy allows you
to have balance throughout your lineup and takes advantage
of small ball elements.
3. Hide your weak
hitters.
Place weak hitters after your biggest
sluggers.
This will limit the weak hitter’s negative impact on your
run production because the sluggers will be given their
chance to hit any base runners home. This strategy can
sometimes work as a plus as well because weak hitters can
sometimes gain walks against pitchers who just gave up a
big hit because of a lack of
concentration.
Ultimately, the goal
of any batting lineup is designed to do two things: (1)
maximize run production and (2) tire out opposing
pitchers. By
tiring out opposing pitchers, most teams will benefit by
forcing the other team to bring in a lesser quality
pitcher. This
is very important when in a high school playoff series with
an opposing team. By reducing the quality of
pitcher you are facing, most teams will generally hit better
and score more runs.
*If you are looking
for what to tell your team with a 3 and 0 count, check out
3 and
0 Count Baseball Strategy.
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