Lineup questions and concerns after Opening Day Weekend: Tribe Notebook

I would say it’s all folly talking about the lineup construction, i.e. who hits where 1-9, but if it was, then players wouldn’t care where they hit. Over the opening weekend, it was uncovered across multiple mediums¹ that Cesar Hernandez, Jose Ramirez, and Eddie Rosario all told manager Terry Francona that they preferred hitting second, third, and fourth, respectively. The nature of the conversation is, of course, unknown, so we don’t know if it was presented to Tito unprompted like “hey, I know you have to do this whole thing with the lineup, if we could all just hit 2, 3, 4, that’d be great, see you at the cribbage table, byeee”, or if Francona was the one to ask his veterans if they had a preference where they hit and they gave their answers. The reason this is brought up and has been talked about at length over the first four games is that pesky little leadoff spot that Hernandez seemingly would be perfect for, with the other two each moving up their own spot, has been filled with the centerfield platoon of Jordan Luplow and Ben Gamel.

Let’s start off by saying that Luplow leading off against left-handed pitchers is totally fine, and honestly should be commended. In 2019, his last mostly full season, Luplow accumulated 128 plate appearances against lefties and hit a ridiculous 1.181 OPS and collected a wRC+ of 200(!). Getting him as many ABs against lefties is super important, thusly, the leadoff spot when one if on the bump is smart and intuitive. The other side of that coin, however, is seeing Gamel as the first hitter of the game.² You get the gist, the vibe, the sense of what Tito has in mind, keeping a position at a lineup spot so if and/or when that lineup spot comes up to hit and you use a pinch hitter, you aren’t having to double switch or burn a guy for one at-bat. The scenario plays out like this: Gamel starts against righties, gets…two? three?…at-bats then he is subbed out for Luplow when they bring a lefty out of the pen to face Gamel that last time and you’ve just doubled your production from the spot with good hitters behind him to knock him in. Where there is a disconnect is the first player should be nowhere near the top of the lineup.³

A lot of sabermetrician bashing is not using the eye test on a player and going off of stats alone to make judgement calls on playing time and positioning. This is one of the few times that the situation is flipped, where Gamel’s stats are actually…not horrible…but the eye test shows there is something not working. Gamel has a career .331 on-base percentage, which is actually not that bad considering his career 24.8% strikeout rate. His career wRC+ of 95 and .312 wOBA isn’t far off from Cesar Hernandez’s career marks,⁴ but to see him up there hitting in front of those mashers is unsettling.

We can all appreciate wanting to keep your veterans happy, especially early on when a season is in its infancy, which is why MLB bakes in so many early days off and teams don’t need fifth starters until the middle of the month. However, it is up to Francona to manage those personalities and massage a move up the order for those players in an attempt to put the best product on the field day in and day out. Or find a better solution to filling the leadoff spot that doesn’t see a guy such as Gamel on the long side of the platoon. You don’t want to have two wildly different lineups for righties and lefties, given the presence of expanded bullpens and such, but there needs to be a better plan than this.⁵ Maybe Amed Rosario or Andres Gimenez and their speediness would be a better fit hitting first or Josh Naylor with his contact ability can do the job when they are facing righties. All I can say is that it’s been three games and six plate appearances of Ben Gamel, and I’ve seen all I want of him this year.

1. Tom Hamilton brought it up on the radio broadcast as well as Matt Underwood on STO TV. [↩]
2. Or as a hitter in general. [↩]
3. One could make the argument he should be nowhere near a lineup card, but I digress. [↩]
4. A wRC+ of 99 and .322 wOBA over a much longer career. [↩]
5. Huge caveat that it’s been four games. [↩]