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.