Mickey Callaway has made it pretty clear that he wants his best hitter hitting second. Many teams have been doing this. The Dodgers, Cubs, Blue Jays, Reds, and Yankees did this in 2017. You’ll probably point out the Astros were not on that list. When you have Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, George Springer, and Alex Bregman, it does not matter what order you hit them in.
The first reason that hitting second is important is that it gives the player more plate appearances than hitting third. You want your best hitter getting more plate appearances and as a result, you will get the guys behind him more opportunities and more plate appearances.
Case and point, in 2015 when the idea that the best hitter should hit third was around, the number two hitter averaged about 4.23 plate appearances a game while the third hitter averaged 4.1 plate appearances a game. That’s a difference of roughly 21 plate appearances. In 2017, when the best hitter hit second more often, the number two hitter averaged 4.21 plate appearances a game and the number three hitter averaged 4.16 plate appearances a game. There are only eight plate appearances separating them in this case. Think about it this way, if Joey Votto and his .454 OBP are hitting second, he’s going to get on base a lot and he is also going give the third hitter a lot more plate appearances.
Well now you might wonder, why not just let the best hitter hit leadoff? He’ll maximize the number of plate appearances that way. Well, the answer is you also want him to get plate appearances with men on base. Hitting your best hitter leadoff would maximize his number of plate appearances at the cost of letting him with runners on base. Hitting him third or fourth would maximize the number of men he’ll have on base at the cost of plate appearances. That’s why hitting your best hitter second would be the most optimal spot.
The idea is to hit the best guy second and also have capable hitters hit behind him and have a high OBP guy in front of him. Brandon Nimmo leading off with Jay Bruce and Todd Frazier hitting third and fourth is an idea of how the scenario of Yoenis Cespedes hitting second would play out. If Michael Conforto returns and hits like it’s 2017 while Brandon Nimmo is excelling, then Conforto would hit second.
In the long run, hitting second will increase your chances of winning. It might not seem apparent initially, but when you have Jayson Werth facing Wade Davis in the ninth inning during Game 5 of the NLDS, you will wish your best hitter was hitting second.
