re: Dylan Crews has 6 RBIs

His OPS is 1.539

Serviceable

I don't care for this new age baseball philosophy of putting your best hitter in the leadoff spot.

I know all about the argument for it, that you want to make sure he has the maximum amount of at bats. That sounds nice, with zero context involved.

If LSU would simply move him down to 2nd (not a big change, is it?) in a swap with Morgan, think of the amount of times Crews might drive him in, as much as Morgan gets on base, as opposed to Crews hitting bombs with no one on base, then Morgan comes up and gets his usual walk or single, but no one drives him in. I want someone on base when Crews comes up.

If the bottom of the order would do anything, this would only be an issue when leading off the game. But because of the struggles of the bottom of the order, Crews almost never has anyone on base. When you're batting around .450 with five home runs after nine games, you'd like to think you'd have more than 6 RBI. I know it's easy to sit here and say we're winning, so who cares, but , let's be honest... We haven't exactly faced a gauntlet of a schedule. I just think we could do more do maximize the potential of this lineup.

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Paul seems happy and we are winning so who cares if we miss out on 2-3 runs per game right?

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This is an egregious exaggeration that does not admit a downside.

Moving Crews back in the lineup, or moving your 5 hole hitter to nine, would cost LSU runs as well as giving LSU runs. The question is what is the net? And that is a complicated question.

Crews has batted 35 times with 5 HRs - that's 1 in 7. He has hit three doubles and 8 singles. In only 8 of his 35 plate appearances has it mattered that he had a runner on, unless you assume the runner was in scoring position.

By moving Crews back in the lineup you about double the chance he'll have runners on. But you decrease his at bats. Moving him to 3 decreases his at bats about 5%. It also increases the number of times he will be intentionally walked or pitched around.

These are just a few of the considerations, of which there are many. It's an incredibly complex problem of odds. For 100 years people went with intuition and convention, which is what you are relying on. Now, as you well know, they study the hell out of it, using computer programs to hash through all of that data. And all of these analytics turned up some surprisingly counter-intuitive results. One of them is that the typical three hole guy should often be batting first.

When fans point out that Crews is not getting a lot of RBI opportunities they are right, but they are not looking at the other side of the ledger. It's like criticizing CPM for buying a bike by saying he no longer has the money he spent. Yeah, but he has a bike.

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And all of these analytics turned up some surprisingly counter-intuitive results. One of them is that the typical three hole guy should often be batting first.

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This is wrong. You posted it. So that's where what you posted was wrong. It wasn't a quote so I attributed it to you. And since it didn't come from any analytics study or quote, you made it up. So again... wrong... you.

But he's scored 12 runs, 2 more than anyone else.
It's all a balance and if Morgan, Drost and Dugas keep
hitting good, it all works out.

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But he's scored 12 runs

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He has 5 HRs.

What about moving him to 2?

Morgan, yes. He's got a great approach and still puts plenty of pressure on a defense and pitcher to start the game.