Originally Posted by
Olympic Fan
Interesting suggestion -- putting Giambi at the top of the lineup because of his high OBP. It's not as crazy as you imply -- the California Angels has great success a few years ago with catcher/DH Brian Downing as a leadoff hitter. At age 36, Downing had a .400 OBP and scored 110 runs in 155 games.
As a matter of fact, years before Bill James emerged, an MIT professor (I'm sorry I can't remember his name) crunched the numbers and argued that teams would score more runs if they shaped their rosters with in order of productivity -- with the most productive hitter to the least. He ws writing in the early 1960s and he argued that the Giants should bat Willie Mays first. So yes, Barry Bonds would be a far more effective leadoff hitter than a cleanup hitter -- especially during that period when nobody would pitch to him.
As for the current Yankees, Jeter is a perfect top of the order guy -- he has a .444 OBP this year with a career .390. Plus he brings good (if not great) speed.
Damon is a marginal leadoff guy. His .373 OBP this year is decent, although for his career, he's a mere .354 (pretty low for a leadoff guy).
As for the 1961 Yankees, you put your finger on the first solution -- Howard definitely should have been batting in one of the top two spots. I'd have flipped Mantle and Maris -- Mantle didn't walk 126 times because he didn't have anyone behind him ... he ALWAYS walked 120-plus times. He would have walked 120-plus times with Maris hitting behind him -- think of the RBI situation that would have set up for Maris. And with Berra/Skowron coming next, it's not like Maris would have gotten nothing to hit. He walked 90 times with Mantle behind him ... if that had gone up even as high as 120, that would have merely given the Yankees 30-plus more baserunners and created more opportunities for Berra and Skowron to drive in runs.
Houk didn't have a lot of choice with his other top of the order guy -- Boyer was virtually as poor OBP as Koubek (although better than Richardson). In hindsight, the big mistake was letting Gil McDougald go in the expansion draft. He was just 32 years old and he was a superb defender at three infield positions (to this day, the only man to start all-star games at short, second and third) and he had a career .356 OBP.
As for creating "a black hole" at the bottom of the order ... a few years ago, Bill James ran a study to measure whether a team was better off grouping its best offensive players together in the order or spreading them out evenly ... his conclusion was that it was BY FAR more productive to group the best hitters together, even if it led to "black holes" in the lineup.
So, in 20-20 hindsight, I'd argue that the 1961 Yankees should have had a lineup of:
SS Tony Koubek
C Elston Howard
CF Mickey Mantle
RF Roger Maris
1B Moose Skowron
LF Yogi Berra (note, since Skowron was a righthander and Yogi a lefty, I'd have flipped them depending on the starting pitcher).
3B Clete Boyer
2B Bobby Richardson
If they had been smart enough to keep McDougald, I'd have let him battle Boyer-Koubek-Richardson and whichever one he beat out, I'd bat him leadoff ... Mantle and Maris each would have driven in 150 runs and the 61 Yanks would have led the lead in runs scored.
As it was, the 1961 Yankees averaged just 5.07 runs a game, finishing behind the Detroit Tigers (5.16) in runs scored -- despite the 115 home runs by the M&M boys and the 20-plus from Howard, Berra, Skowron and Blanchard.
So they definitely could have done better!