“St. Louis manager Tony La Russa, who has been batting his pitcher eighth a couple years now, on Russell’s decision to do likewise:  ”I don’t like the Pirates doing it.  I think it gives them a better chance to score runs against us.”‘ — Post-Gazette, July 13, 2008

But, does it?

When the clock on the second half of the season turned over, John Russell followed basic sabermetric principles and moved his pitcher into the eight slot.  If you watched any of those twelve games, then you have probably cringed a bit.  Several times the pitcher’s spot has come up with multiple men on with two outs and made the last out.  And then seemingly adding insult to injury, the next inning Jack Wilson would leadoff with a single.

My senses were telling me it wasn’t working, but my sabermetric knowledge told me it wasn’t relevant if the pitcher bat 8th or 9th. 

Numerous research articles are out on the subject and they all seem to agree with the basics - as long as the pitcher is a worse hitter than the batter placed in the 9 hole, the end result over 162 games will be a tick more runs scored.

But how many?

I ran every conceivable lineup I thought John Russell might try unto my simulator using Ian Snell as the pitcher (using McLouth, Sanchez, Wilson, Doumit, Bautista, LaRoche, Bay, and Nady) and came up with 4.78 - 4.81 runs per game against an average right hand pitcher.  

So I moved Ian Snell back to the nine hole and ran all the same lineups and it spit out 4.78 - 4.81, which was exactly the same thing.

I wasn’t satisfied because I tinker with my simulator too much anyway, so I decided to ask Mitchel Lichtman (known as MGL on the Internet, an ex-Cardinals sabermetric analyst and co-author of “The Book” — a must read for every fan) what his simulator indicated.  He reported 4.85 - 4.87 using the basics I submitted to him and a few of his own.

His best run was McLouth, Laroche, Doumit, Bay, Nady, Bautista, Sanchez, Wilson, and Snell which generated 4.88 runs per game against a league average right hand pitcher.  Obviously John Russell won’t be batting LaRoche second anytime soon, but it was still interesting to see.

My best run came with McLouth, Bay, LaRoche, Doumit, Nady, Bautista, Sanchez, and Wilson at 4.84.

Still, MGL said it eloquently when he told me:

“You can “look” at the batting order all you want for a thousand games or track the “results” for a thousand games and you will NOT be able to tell the difference between a good and bad lineup WHATSOEVER, let alone the difference between the pitcher batting 8th or 9th.

It (batting the pitcher 8th, or any other lineup alternative) is either correct or incorrect on paper, assuming that the players are not more “comfortable” in one lineup slot or another such that that makes a difference of a few runs or more per year, which is entirely possible.”

That is what our SABR research has shown over the years as well.

So did Tony LaRussa make a valid point that we’ll score more runs against him batting our pitcher 8th?

Technically, yes.  In reality, no, at least with the lineups we can put on the field.  Best case scenario is that we score a few extra runs per year and, since we’re under new management, I suppose that’s the name of their game - anything better is a positive.

It’s sexy, but mostly irrelevant.