That’s not true. The efficacy of walking the #8 guy’s been debated.

I think you’re misinterpreting what I was saying; there is no disagreement. In fact here’s what I said about walking batters to reach weak hitters such as pitchers:

There’s debate of course about how advantageous this is for the batter,

Let me repeat and clarify: there is no debate that weak protection EXISTS. Pitchers frequenty walk batters, intentionally or semi-intentionally, in order to reach their weaker-hitting teammate.

Where there IS debate is whether this weak protection has any, as you put it, efficacy or significance.

(Furthermore, amongst people who have studied protection, there’s not very much debate about strong protection: most (all?) studies have not found evidence that strong protection exists.)

Here is the suggested.

Ichiro-Beltre-Ibanez-Sexson-Guillen-Johjima-Lopez-Vidro-Betancourt

But I’d go with whoever is hitting highest OPS between Guillen/Johjima/Vidro at the 5&6 hole– my guess is Guillen or Kenji at 5/6; then Vidro at 7 then Lopez in the “second clean up.” Then Betancourt.

This would force Hargrove to actually let Lopez swing away and prove his power potential instead of forcing him to advance runners all year. I think it will be important to have Vidro 7th to get on base in front of Lopez. Let Guillen take his chances at the 5 with his power. If he or Sexson do end the inning, the next inning has a couple decent OBP guys infront of Lopez, opening up the back half of the lineup to actually be effective AND putting additional stress on the pitcher.

Regarding “protection”: A whole lot of electrons could be saved if we recognize, as other baseball researchers have, that there are two forms of protection: weak and strong.

If only we could unify these two forces with grittiness and clutchiness, we’d have a Unified Theory of Intangibles!

Reading Christy Matthewson’s autobiography or any account from contemporaries makes it clear that that easing up for some hitters was a valid strategy in dead-ball era baseball- even cases where you didn’t throw your best stuff to the weak hitters because they weren’t going to hit scuffed up mushy 75 MPH fastballs very far, plus the hit-and-run or sac bunt was nearly automatic with runners on in those days, so those were also occasions where you could ease up.

The IP and CG stats sort of bear that out, too- you try pitching 350 IP every 4th day with 90% CGs these days with EVERY hitter capabale of hitting you out of the park, and having to throw 90+ MPH, I suspect your arm would fall off by June.

Yeah, but the takeaway from that is:

“My conclusion is that the basic assumption that batting performance is not affected by the strength of the following hitter is still valid. Leaving aside the effects when the pitcher bats next (which affects one batter per team in one league and usually not for the whole game), we see that batting and slugging averages are not affected, but strong hitters draw slightly more walks when followed by weak hitters. Additional walks lead to additional runs even when weaker hitters follow. ”

That seems to say to me: a strategy of strong batter being pitched around followed by pitching to weak batter INCREASES run scoring by your opponent- and, conversely, there’s no affect in thgat study where strong hitter + strong hitter INCREASES productivity beyond that of having good hitters. In other words, pitching around guys as a regular strategy, much like sac bunts and incessant stolen bases, is counterproductive.

It’s not so ridiculous at certain levels of baseball. For instance, in the minors, or even in early 20th century baseball, there are weak spots in the lineup. If you’re facing a weak hitter who can’t catch up to your fastball, why not just pump fastballs at him, daring him to hit it? Sure, maybe you would have a better chance at getting him out if you use your whole arsenal, but if the bases are empty and you just want to get through innings quickly and easily, sticking with the fastball at the bottom of the order could do the trick. In modern major league baseball, though, you have to pitch reasonably carefully to all the hitters, even pop-gun hitters like Willie.

Protection probably makes sense and has a noticable effect at many levels of baseball. Major league baseball just isn’t one of those levels.

I haven’t seen anything that shows it has a significant effect, so I’m willing to accept that while protection exists, it doesn’t really matter much.