For the last week the guy has been doing what he should have been doing for 2 years. Taking pitches, hustling, going the other way, then occasional power.

If Lou is gonna be a little nuts, may as well go crazy.

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

actually, i think soriano-theriot-lee-byrd-ramirez would be the best way to go for the cubs right now. the cubs dont HAVE a true leadoff man, so you may as well get as many at-bats out of soriano as you can prior to pulling him out as a late-inning defensive liability. he is still the cubs most potent offensive threat.

I never understood the whole batting order argument one way or another. IIRC didn't Bill James say it was the most overrated of all the common baseball arguments? I'm sure the sabremetricians could back me up here...

usually once you get through the first 2 or 3 innings it doesn't matter that much IMO. i just want the best hitters to get the most chances. i like theriot #2 because he goes the other way very well and can get guys in scoring position with productive outs for the 3-4-5 guys. soriano is too streaky to be a good consistent 3-4-5 hitter, so if he is happy hitting leadoff and is productive there, fine. i prefer that to him batting 6th and only getting 3 at-bats before getting yanked for defense.

It's not completely irrelevant, but it's very minor depending on your view of it. Obviously you want your best hitters at the top, and the scrubs at the bottom because of the number of plate appearances over a season. I think the Bill James study said you could put a bunch of random lineups in a hopper and they would all wind up within 5-15 runs of each other.

In the modern game you just want to mix up the righties and lefties so you limit the effectiveness of the LOOGYs and other specialists, but I am sure even that is debatable.

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I always thought that the angst over Soriano batting leadoff was one of the most overblown stories surrounding the Cubs. The Cubs led the league in runs scored by a pretty good margin in '08 with Soriano batting leadoff, so it could not have been a big problem.

I understand moving him out of the leadoff spot when he is scuffling at .240 and striking out a ton, but then again if he is scuffling at .240 batting sixth, he is then leaving men on base, which doesn't help either. If Soriano can get back where he was in '07 and '08, he will be important no matter where he hits in the lineup.

The most overblown story regarding Soriano, IMO, is the hop. Who cares if he does the hop or not. He has not dropped balls because he does the hop, he drops balls because he is not a very good fielder. The two balls he has dropped this that I have seen were not caused by the hop. Yeah it looks silly, but the hop is not causing his defensive woes.

Maybe the last 2 weeks of Soriano improvement is just luck, but as I stated, the guy has been working his ass off and even hugeed Rudy after HR #2, but where are the reporters talking about the work this guy has put in?

_________________
"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”