Hit Your Best Bat Leadoff

3-21-2025 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X

With the season starting in less than a week, let’s get REALLY radical with my last pre-season article topic: Lineup Construction.

Hold on, I know what you’re thinking. “Shelton tinkers with the lineup too much. He never stays consistent with a batting order. Yadda, yadda, yadda.” 

I can’t see the value of that argument.

For the most part, batting order doesn’t have to be the same.

If you are facing a southpaw, you’re going to stack right-handed hitters.

If you’re facing a soft-tosser with a big, loopy curve or devastating changeup, maybe you sit the guy who only hits fastballs and can’t pick up soft stuff.

It’s a long season and most players need days off from time to time, so sometimes you get that patented “Shelton Sunday Special” lineup card.

Regardless, I’m not here to dissect whether or not a lineup should be consistent from game to game. I’m here to talk about why the Pirates should drop the old-school approach and move into the future, meaning batting Bryan Reynolds leadoff.

Hear me out here. I get that Reynolds has batted almost exclusively in the 2 or 3 spot the past few seasons, historically where teams slot their best hitters. I get that leadoff has been more typical for the speedy slap hitters, the Juan Pierres or Dee Strange-Gordons of the baseball world.

But, with the increasing reliance on advanced metrics, it’s clear that there are far more advantages to having your best hitter start the game for the team.

For starters, the obvious benefit of having your best hitter leading off is that they are guaranteed to get the most plate appearances on the team.

The approximate difference between leading off and hitting even third amounts to 31 less plate appearances over the course of the season. That’s 31 less times you have your best chance at getting a critical hit that could put the team over the top.

An argument made against hitting your best man first is that it provides less opportunities for him to drive in runs. You bat your power bats in the middle of the lineup and get the on-base options hitting ahead of them.

Cool. Tell me again, who led the team in on-base percentage last season?

I’ll save you a google on that one.

Reynolds provides the value at the plate for other hitters to drive him in, but also provides the value of being able to drive himself in as the dude has hit 24 or more home runs in each of the last four seasons.

He hits for average. He hits for power. And he gets on base. I wonder if there’s another team who has a guy like that, is known for their analytics and maybe also batted him almost exclusively at leadoff last year?

Now, I’m not directly comparing the two but, respective to each team, you’re looking at the best player offensively. And for a Pirates offense which has been among the worst in baseball the past few years, they will need to take every advantage they can get in order to get ahead.

Shelton isn’t going to keep the same lineup from game-to-game and I don’t expect him to but it would be statistically better for the team if instead of toying with the likes of Tommy Pham or Jack Suwinski in the 1 spot, he just designated it to the best bat on the team and waited for the benefits to roll in.