04/21/2026 6:40p EDT Milwaukee Brewers at Detroit Tigers

[Shelton]

He started batting leadoff on April 12 and stopped on May 23. He also batted cleanup during that stretch. I don’t think the switch out of leadoff in May was a substantial factor in their late August turnaround. 

[NorthWoods]

8 hours ago, lordstanley said:

Reading Jason Beck's game wrap on MLB.com, I was struck more than ever by how much of baseball descriptions would sound completely foreign to a visitor from 2005, maybe 2010 or 2015.  I bolded all the relatively recent additions. Not saying it's good or bad, it just is. 

even as his strikeout rate climbed to a career-high 30.2 percent.

Torkelson seemed headed for the same fate Wednesday. After laying off changeups to draw a 3-1 count in his first at-bat, he got a 93.4 mph sinker 

a 12 percent strikeout rate this season but a mere .152 average (5-for-33) against right-handed hitters. 

 

I would argue those bolded stats go back 50 years or more.

[Sports_Freak]

8 minutes ago, Shelton said:

He started batting leadoff on April 12 and stopped on May 23. He also batted cleanup during that stretch. I don’t think the switch out of leadoff in May was a substantial factor in their late August turnaround. 

The rest of the team waking up and finally hitting was the biggest factor, IMO.

[chasfh]

33 minutes ago, Shelton said:

I wonder how common it is that a player has had so many PAs in a season split as evenly among the top four spots of the batting order as this (24-24-23-30)? That's got to be super rare, maybe even unique in history. I'm going to try to find out just to scratch my own itch on it.

[Shelton]

23 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

The rest of the team waking up and finally hitting was the biggest factor, IMO.

I actually think it was the pitching!

 

[Shelton]

3 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I wonder how common it is that a player has had so many PAs in a season split as evenly among the top four spots of the batting order as this (24-24-23-30)? That's got to be super rare, maybe even unique in history. I'm going to try to find out just to scratch my own itch on it.

I noticed the same thing. Pretty interesting. 

[Sports_Freak]

1 minute ago, Shelton said:

I actually think it was the pitching!

 

Ahhhh...the pitching chaos. That should go down in Tiger lore...

[Shelton]

I think one factor that gets lost in the lineup order discourse is that it really just doesn’t matter what position you bat in (for the most part). The larger factor is more who is actually in the lineup. After that, batting 3rd or 7th makes very little difference. 
 

Of course, you have to give guys enough PAs to find out how good they are so that you can make that decision. Paradoxical. I think the faster you can determine who is good and who is bad,  and then actually acting on that as opposed to falling victim to inertial roster construction, will have a big effect on your success. 

[lordstanley]

52 minutes ago, NorthWoods said:

I would argue those bolded stats go back 50 years or more.

I am sure they existed, but they never ever made it into mainstream broadcasts or news reports. Watch a Tigers telecast from 2006 and they're barely mentioning pitch counts even.

[chasfh]

29 minutes ago, Shelton said:

I noticed the same thing. Pretty interesting. 

So, the closest analog I could find throughout history was Dexter Fowler 2014 with a 29-20-30-20 split:

Fowler is the only other qualified hitter in history with at least 20% of their starting lineup plate appearances in each of the top four batting slots.

Going back into history, Freddie Lindstrom came really close in 1926 with a 19-24-32-25 split:

As did Max Carey in 1917 with his 34-17-21-29:

I'm actually surprised there were any this close back in the old days, since I would think that managers were more plug and play about slotting good hitters into particular batting slots.

[Tiger337]

59 minutes ago, Shelton said:

I think one factor that gets lost in the lineup order discourse is that it really just doesn’t matter what position you bat in (for the most part). The larger factor is more who is actually in the lineup. After that, batting 3rd or 7th makes very little difference. 
 

Of course, you have to give guys enough PAs to find out how good they are so that you can make that decision. Paradoxical. I think the faster you can determine who is good and who is bad,  and then actually acting on that as opposed to falling victim to inertial roster construction, will have a big effect on your success. 

That is true.  The difference between the best and worst line-up for the same group of hitters is not substantial.  

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, Shelton said:

I actually think it was the pitching!

 

Pitching and pitcher management, although the pitching chaos thng might have been largely luck.  It hasn't been easy to repeat.