Afternoon Baseball

Baseball Musings has done some work on this and linked to some others on how you build a lineup. He's got a tool that figures out the best lineup -- enter 9 players, their on-base and slugging and it'll make a whole chart. Interesting stuff.

But there's a new debate now, still ongoing as a lot of the data is complicated and based on formulas, on the value of the #3 hitter. I can't explain it as well as it's done by all those guys on that link, but essentially the idea's been floated that the #3 and #8 spots are your least important. There's disagreement, of course.

My only addition would be that even if your #3 doesn't have to be as good as your #2 or #4, for instance, you can't have a poor hitter who's predominantly a groundball hitter. Double plays and the like. You'd probably want an erratic guy who tries to hit everything out of the park.