Having Your Cake and Eating It Too: Where to Bat Reyes

Jerry Manuel made a very casual comment the other day that he was going
to try changing things in the order to not only give Castillo more
confidence but also to make Reyes a better player, because really, you
are only the leadoff batter once a game. If only there was a way for
Reyes to bat leadoff, and yet still feel like he is batting second
sometimes. Well there is a way, its sometimes controversial, but if we
are trying new things in Spring, why not try this. Let’s bat the
pitcher 8th and have Murphy or Castillo bat ninth. Now, in certain
situations, Reyes is like the number 2 hitter and he is still a table
setter. So a proposed line up could look like this:
   1. Reyes
   2. Castillo/Murphy
   3. Wright
   4. Beltran
   5. Delgado
   6. Church
   7. Schnieder
   8. Pitcher
   9. Castillo/Murphy
(As
a note, I would prefer Murphy second, and Castillo 9th only because I
think Castillo would be better hitting in front of Reyes because he is
more experienced). The downside of a lineup like this is the after the
heart of the lineup, the there is a soft spot, but the soft spot gets
broken up. What I mean by that is lets assume the Mets get no hits for
2 innings, then 7-8-9 looks terrible usually, but now, there is some
hope with 9. Its something that should be tried in Spring Training.
There
are other ways to do this as well. For example, if you really want
Castillo batting 2nd, you can also put Church 9th and have Murphy go
6th. When Tatis is in the lineup, then he would go great in the ninth
spot because he’s a veteran and then Castillo would go 2nd. The other
benefit of a lineup like this is when you take the pitcher out, you go
PH, then 9-1-2, the offense options seem a little more open. Its
something to think about.

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