A question: if you were Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo, where in the batting order would you hit Vladimir Guerrero Jr?
The Blue Jays shuffled their lineup over the weekend after being shut out for just the second time in the 2021 season. At long last, George Springer was moved to the leadoff spot while Vlad Jr slotted in behind him in second. It harkens back to the halcyon days of 2015 and 2016, when former manager John Gibbons happily and ambitiously installed Josh Donaldson and José Bautista1 into his leadoff/number 2 spots as the situation demanded.
The move paid immediate dividends, as the Blue Jays plated 10 runs against the Mets on Saturday when their new lineup debuted. The top five hitters in the order pounded out 13 hits, including five home runs, and two walks.
Beyond the immediate results in terms of hits, the secondary benefits of a shuffle like this were apparent as the games rolled on. Vlad Jr came up with one out in the ninth inning of a close game on Sunday (drawing a walk against Edwin Díaz) and he was in the on-deck circle when the game against the Red Sox ended on Monday night.
The task of constructing the Toronto Blue Jays’ lineup is both simple and complicated. The simple part is the goal of the task, in broad terms: organize your offensive players in such a way to maximize the opportunity to score runs.
The complicated part is how do you go about achieving that task, especially since you’re doing it with living, breathing, thinking, feeling human beings?
The intangible piece is too much for an email newsletter to tackle. Simply put, I am tend to believe that guys are who they are and moving them around the lineup doesn’t affect them beyond the opportunities the game presents them. But I’m not a big league manager who has to answer to those questions from players who insist that they need to hit first, ninth or somewhere in between.
Thanks to Vlad Jr, the easy part is straight forward. Vlad Jr is not only the Blue Jays’ best hitter, he’s everybody’s best hitter right now. All lineup decisions must be made through a Vladimir Guerrero Jr lens, and how a team thinks it can best optimize his unique skills to help you score runs.
You could load up with good on-base guys ahead of him, to take advantage of his prodigious extra base power, or load up with good hitters behind him, to create run scoring opportunities through his best-in-baseball on base abilities. That’s the whole job!
The Book, the sabermetric tome that guides the view of many folks in the game today, suggests “your three best hitters should bat somewhere in the #1, #2, and #4 slots. Your fourth- and fifth-best hitters should occupy the #3 and #5 slots.” then the current Blue Jays order (Springer, Vlad, Semien, Bichette, Teoscar) ticks all those boxes.
There’s a reasonable argument to be made for hitting Guerrero cleanup. He’s your best power threat so the chance to have him come to the plate with multiple runners on base goes up marginally. That said, I think the two-hole is just about ideal. He gets to hit early and often, directly behind the next best OBP guy in the lineup. He’s also the second-most double play prone Blue Jay, so hitting him directly behind Springer could reduce the “inning ending” part of that equation.
Realistically, there’s no need to get overly complicated. Hitting Vlad Jr second ensures he comes to the plate more often than all hitters save Springer. That’s a good thing, right? The man is instant offense. He’s how you score runs if you’re the Toronto Blue Jays in 2021.
Shuffling the order like this can help funnel a few extra PAs to the league’s best hitter but it doesn’t change the nature of the lineup as a whole. Much has been made about the Jays’ struggles in late & close situations, as their very right-handed and very free swinging lineup (on balance) gets exposed by high octane relivers heaving big velocity and and endless supply of hard sliders past the non-Vlad hitters in the Jays batting order.
With the trade deadline looming, hopefully the front office makes a move that can this team improve now and into 2022. Improving their defense, their base running and giving them a different (left-handed?) look to combat a long line of similar hitters? If only such a player existed to help the team immediately…
Bautista hit leadoff 40 times in 2016 with Donaldson leading off 8 times in 2015.