Offensive opener?

[Futuregm2]

I was just thinking why hasn’t a team tried this yet? Let’s say you’ve got a bad offensive catcher (or any position really) and you’re a road team. You bat them leadoff but write in effectively a pinch hitter at the beginning of the game. When the 1st half inning ends, they replace that player with the real catcher. It takes one less AB away from a bad offensive player and gives your team a better chance of scoring early in the first 3 innings and getting a good lead.

[swatski]

While creative you do realize you lose that player for the rest of the game and have a bad offensive player hitting among your better players every time the lineup turns over.

[Talkin' Baseball]

They did this for a time with Mark McGwire when he was having knee trouble.

[Wattage]

I was just thinking why hasn’t a team tried this yet? Let’s say you’ve got a bad offensive catcher (or any position really) and you’re a road team. You bat them leadoff but write in effectively a pinch hitter at the beginning of the game. When the 1st half inning ends, they replace that player with the real catcher. It takes one less AB away from a bad offensive player and gives your team a better chance of scoring early in the first 3 innings and getting a good lead.

Cuz you only get that offensive opener for that 1 at bat and then never get their bat the rest of the game. If they are a good enough bat to be opener, youd probably want them to get more than 1 at bat per game. Additionally, if injuries or pinch hit situations happen the rest of the game, you now have one less player on your bench and you get weird situations like when we had to play pages at 2b that 1 game.

Additionally, say you batted offensive opener 1st or 2nd. - now that catcher is slotted 1st or 2nd in your lineup rest of game when they come in for opener, and they may get no less at bats by having opener at 1st or 2nd than they would have by simply batting 8th or 9th that game.

And you might not even score that 1st inning and wasted an extra player for nothing even if they get a hit.

Its better if in an at bat with risp later in game, you simple pinch hit inwhat looks like pivotal moment

[greyhawk]

the best hitters succeed 30% of the time? that's a heavy cost of losing a player in the first inning when you likely only have a 5 man bench --- i would more be in favor of having an elite base stealer on the bench (assuming he can't figure out how to get on base) to use in a tight spot later in the game. At least with him he doesn't have to hit his way on but only to PR for someone who has done the part he can't do so in a sense you get exactly what you are looking for in this scenario.

[icon]

I was just thinking why hasn’t a team tried this yet? Let’s say you’ve got a bad offensive catcher (or any position really) and you’re a road team. You bat them leadoff but write in effectively a pinch hitter at the beginning of the game. When the 1st half inning ends, they replace that player with the real catcher. It takes one less AB away from a bad offensive player and gives your team a better chance of scoring early in the first 3 innings and getting a good lead.

Cuz you only get that offensive opener for that 1 at bat and then never get their bat the rest of the game. If they are a good enough bat to be opener, youd probably want them to get more than 1 at bat per game. Additionally, if injuries or pinch hit situations happen the rest of the game, you now have one less player on your bench and you get weird situations like when we had to play pages at 2b that 1 game.

Additionally, say you batted offensive opener 1st or 2nd. - now that catcher is slotted 1st or 2nd in your lineup rest of game when they come in for opener, and they may get no less at bats by having opener at 1st or 2nd than they would have by simply batting 8th or 9th that game.

And you might not even score that 1st inning and wasted an extra player for nothing even if they get a hit.

Its better if in an at bat with risp later in game, you simple pinch hit inwhat looks like pivotal moment

Yeah, creative is not always good. But it makes for good discussion.

[Absolut]

I thought you wanted nootbarr to insult the pitcher.

[JDW]

Find another Eddie Gaedel, but shorter.