The Lineup Quandary

Every baseball fan is a manager. Or so they believe. From platooning to All-Star selections to the designated hitter and almost any night in which some fantasy geek’s starter is splinter picking on the bench, fans always know more than the people paid to write out the lineup.

John McGraw was a grump. Casey Stengel a fool. Billy Martin a drunk. Davey Johnson a pompous ass. Dusty Baker was lucky.

We’ve heard it all.

Now, the Reds’ Jerry Narron, who has managed a team of flawed hitters and pitching-challenged nomads to playoff contention, is a moron.

How this is concertedly possible, considering the Reds’ place in the standings, is most everyone’s vivid guess. But the nightly lineups posted by “Naroon”—as one blogger calls him—is causing such mass indignation among fans that some are saying the Reds would have a five- or 10-game lead in the NL Central if not for Narron’s idiocy.

No joke.

Of course, the debate over the lineup is as old as the game itself. Each position in the order requires a certain skill, sometimes a selfless adaptability, to the game in progress--though the skills and responsibilities needed at each position in the order have not altered greatly over the past 50 years.

What has changed is the day of writing out a standard lineup with the same seven or eight starting position players. Reasons: free agency (constant player movement) and expansion (stretching rosters to the point of keeping young hopefuls better suited for Class AA). You understand the widespread issue of rosters and lineups in today’s game when the Yankees spend $200 million on payroll and still have positional holes.

To make peace and attempt to win games, the manager must combine sensitivity and respect with gentle authority when writing out his batting order. He has to bridge the issues of a player's salary, experience and ego, as well as running the game, playing the hot hand, working batter vs. pitcher matchups and enhancing player development.

Today’s manager is either lucky or a genius if he fields the same positional lineup 50 percent of the time. Most are using about 100-120 different lineups during a season. Platooning is more prevalent than at any time in history, and injuries, inconsistency and roster turnover are now regular hurdles. About 30 percent of a roster will change each year due to free agency.

And therein rests the greatest lineup quandary of managers—balancing the good of the team with the desires of the players. (Sorry fans, you don't count.)

Junior Griffey has struggled for almost two months and yet continues to bat third . . . and hit into the teeth of the “Ted Williams Shift" that most teams employ against him. But exceptions are most always granted to veteran players with career tracks. They get comfortable in a batting slot, know their role and the types of pitches they will see. They know what it takes to get the job done that day—no different than any layman worker who has done the same job for years.

"You have to remember that the game is played by human beings. Not mechanical men or robots," Tigers manager Jim Leyland once told me on this subject. He was undoubtedly talking about the rising number of armchair managers due to fantasy leagues.

And for Narron, fans are grousing daily about:

1.) Sitting 3b Edwin Encarnacion.
2.) Not moving potential Gold Glove 2b Brandon Phillips to shortstop now and shifting Rick Aurilia from third to second, thus returning Encarnacion to everyday status.
3.) Not moving Griffey out of 3-slot in the order.
4.) Not playing David Ross at catcher everyday.
5.) Not moving Ross higher in the order.
6.) Allowing Royce Clayton to live.
7.) Allowing Jason LaRue to live.
8.) Not moving Griffey to right field and shifting Ryan Freel to center.
9.) The musical chairs of the No. 2 slot.
10.) The lack of pop in the cleanup slot.

Like any lineup, there are usually counter arguments with some validity. But the Reds really don’t have much flexibility. Certainly not to the extent the fantasy geeks believe they do.

For one, the Reds severely weakened their offense with the trade of Felipe Lopez and Austin Kearns to the Nationals. The offense was scoring one full run less in the first month after the trade to upgrade the bullpen. The team lacks right-handed power, a natural cleanup batter, and the strength in the No. 2 and No. 6 slots they had with Lopez and Kearns. Scott Hatteberg has always been the Reds’ best and most natural 2-hitter but who can argue with Adam Dunn’s productivity in that slot? Dunn has also proved to be ineffective at cleanup and spotty at No. 5.

While the preference is to have Griffey, at No. 3, getting a swing in the first inning and likely one more at-bat per game, he should be in the 5-hole until he proves otherwise. The problem? The Reds wouldn’t have a natural 3-hitter (Phillips has the potential) or 4-hitter. And the matter is complicated by the Reds’ best power sources, Griffey and Dunn, being left-handed, low-average hitters with high strikeout totals. They also have whopping vacancies in their consistency.

So each day Narron writes out a lineup based on the advance scouting reports of his opponent’s starting pitcher; who has a hot bat; who needs a breather; who might be nicked up and, most of all, instinct (which Narron likes to call “manager’s decision” when he gets testy on the subject of his lineups). That part of managing the order hasn’t changed over the years.

Hall of Famer Earl Weaver, who never met a conventional baseball wisdom he couldn’t rebut, once told me that what the fans, players and media thought about the manager’s lineup, “doesn't matter in the long run because the game is still all about winning ballgames. That's the bottom line."

As long as the Reds are in the playoff hunt, Earl has a point.

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