IMO, 3rd and 4th batter are both power hitters. I feel the 3rd spot is your best batter.
Agree with this.
IMO, 3rd and 4th batter are both power hitters. I feel the 3rd spot is your best batter.
So when should a player with the 9th best average on the team bat third?
said player was ninth in OBP and slugging as well.When she leads the team in OBA and slugging. Which is essentiallybasically never. Although I would caution that the ''average'' (assuming you mean batting average) is often overrated. It's possible (albeit rare) for a .250 hitter to be more valuable than a .400 hitter.
DD was on a team last year with a girl who led off much of the season despite hitting .250. She walked and got hit by pitches at a rate that was uncanny. Great base runner. Without a good alternative, she made as much sense as anybody else.
said player was ninth in OBP and slugging as well.
Or her parents are the coaches?
So when should a player with the 9th best average on the team bat third?
Actually there is one other time - when the player has proven in past years that she can be the best hitter on the team and it is early in the season so you haven't had enough time for season stats to be statistically relevant. My DD started this past season 3 of 16... and is 18 of 22 since that time (plus she gets a lot of walks and HBP so her OBP is excellent) - she didn't move from her spot in the lineup because her coaches knew she would turn it around at some point.
Close, they used to be her TB coaches. I have never seen favoritism quite this bad before which is why I posed the question about lineup philosophy the way I did.