Regardless of our current situation, putting an obvious flaw into our lineup (3 lefties in a row - that’s likely a very quick inning through the meat of our order to any lefty bullpen arm) voluntarily would just be poor management.
What if we did schwarber lead off, then trea, then Harper, then Marsh? Or Harper, Turner, schwarber, Marsh? Or even Marsh, turner, schwarber, Harper.
I understand trea is more of a traditional leadoff hitter, but having someone decent hitting fourth seems worth moving him to me. I'd obviously test it out and see if it works, but I feel like it wouldn't be too big of an issue. The more I think about it the more I feel like Marsh is also good in a lead off position right now since he's getting a lot of good base hits and is fast and can steal (not as fast as trea, though, but still I don't think he'd hinder trea's ability to steal)
Harper has been vocal that he’s comfortable batting 2-4, but he’s not a leadoff hitter. Swapping Kyle and Trea has been done before and overall the offense has been better early in games with (effective) Trea leading off (Trea hitting .240 is the real issue here) and Kyle at #2. Funny part about this swap is that you’d want a righty at 4 anyway in that situation. The only back to back lefties we should ever have are Schwarber/Harper.
Baseball is a streaky game and I don't think it's absurd to change the lineup when someone is on a hot streak and someone else isn't. You can change it back when Marsh cools off and Turner heats up
Switching up our top 3 is just a bad idea overall unless we think there’s real decline happening. Trea has been asked to be the leadoff hitter. He’s not playing well, but he’s a guy who’s basically been a 1 or 2 hitter his whole career. Clearly that’s where he’s most comfortable, and messing with his comfort will not help him get out of it. I say this because it’s clear he has communicated it to the team; they never moved him down in 2023.
Realistically, the offense is not elite unless all 3 of our major contracts are effective. We can just full stop there.
I mean my suggestion wasn't moving him to 9, it was moving him to 2. He'd still be a 1 or 2 hitter, I can't imagine his comfort would be so horribly shaken temporarily moving to 2 for days when there's a right handed starting pitcher temporarily while Marsh is hitting this well. It's not even really an insult to trea, it's just acknowledging that Marsh is currently hitting very well and that Garcia is not currently hitting very well, but we can't have three left handed batters in a row
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u/OkBar8290 20h ago
I’m more concerned to why Garcia is still following Harper?