MAD-don?

I thought that the order of Joe Maddon's first four hitters on his lineup card today for the Rays was interesting.

1. Iwamura
2. Crawford
3. Pena
4. Upton

I say you use Crawford in either the one hole to exploit his base stealing abilities or the three hole whereby you would employ his potential for gaudy extra-base hit totals combined with a high batting average.

Iwamura seems to be to be the perfect number two hitter with his great bunting ability, solid OBP and the weakest extra-base hitting ability of the four. So if you're going to have him in the top four I bat him second. That means Crawford's going to have to bat first since you can't have the strikeout prone Upton hitting lead-off.

Pena is the big fly hitter of the group and the question is do you bat him third or fourth. In this case I think Maddon's got it right having Pena slotted third against the righty. He's a bit more of an accomplished hitter than Upton at this point. But Upton does have a live bat and when you look more closely at their lefty/righty splits Maddon could flip-flop the two between third and fourth in the order whether a lefty or righty was pitching. That probably won't happen, though, as it's rare for managers to flip their third and fourth hitters in the lineup based on handedness considerations.

Another lineup I like is when you bat Crawford third. This is how I drew up their lineup back in the Fall.

1. Iwamura
2. Upton
3. Crawford
4. Pena

Again, the weak link is Upton and his strike outs. In the future I don't think it'll be a big problem because I believe Upton's going to start cutting down on his k's as he moves into his mid-20's. But for this year I think Maddon's right to hide the holes in Upton's bat in the fourth spot in the order.

Picking Up...

...where he left off. Carlos Marmol throws one and a third innings of scoreless, hitless, no walk, three strikeout out ball this afternoon.

Last year he spun ninety-six strikeouts in sixty-nine and one-third innings.

Commonality

Ken Griffey Jr. looked like he was running on two wooden legs today during the Brandon Phillips triple.

I can relate.

The Lineup

I've been anxiously awaiting Jim Leyland's first lineup card of the '08 season. Recent additions Miguel Cabrera and Edgar Renteria were nice upgrades for the Tigers over the off-season and were the finishing touches to what could be one of the great offensive teams of all-time.

The Tigers faced right-hander Gil Meche of the Royals today. Leyland's lineup follows,

Edgar Renteria ss
Placido Polanco 2b
Gary Sheffield dh (4 walks!)
Magglio Ordonez rf
Miguel Cabrera 3b (dinger)
Carlos Guillen 1b (I thought he'd hit second)
Ivan Rodriguez c
Jacque Jones lf
Brandon Inge cf

Inge is back in his super-sub role as he'll probably get the bulk of time in center while Curt Granderson recovers from his fractured finger. Once Granderson comes back at the top of the order I'd guess that Renteria will slip in behind Guillen and push Rodriguez and Jones to the 8th and 9th spots respectively.

Remarkable

In a four minute audio snippet from NPR, Montana's governor goes off on the Federal Government and their threatened encroachment on state's rights pertaining to the use of the Real ID card.

I cannot believe this is an actual United States governor talking. This type of cavalier dismissal of the Feds by a high ranking politician is remarkable in today's fear environment. What's next? Talk of secession?

Onward Status Quo

From Andrew Sullivan yesterday,

In a bunch of conversations - all casual, random, varied - with fellow journalists in Washington this past week, I'm struck when the talk moves to Iraq by one thing. I know no one who believes that either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton will actually remove any troops...

...Withdrawal in any meaningful way is off the table, as far as Washington is concerned. And when I have raised the serious possibility that this should happen, I am greeted with That Unserious Look.

And they can get away with it as long as a) Americans are not drafted into the military and b) Americans are financially secure with comfy little jobs and warm homes.

Of course, part b may be coming to an end in the next year or two.

Weaveresque

Mariner manager John McLaren -- member of the Moneyball school.

Take, for instance, McLaren’s acknowledgement of Bill James, the former night watchman who determined baseball’s century-long methods of evaluation – in which gut hunches and snap judgments had precedence over statistics and analysis – were obsolete in the late 1970s...

...‘It’s intriguing,” McLaren said of James on Friday, “because I like baseball. New things, out of the box type stuff, you’d have to be foolish not to take a look at it.”

The Unavoidable

As in the unavoidable Laws of Economics. John Robb lays out a brief synopsis of where America's multi-trillion dollar war is leading us to.

American's are starting to ask: for all of this investment, how do I benefit? How does it help me put food on the table, heat my home, or send my kids to college?