On Jose Reyes Batting Third

I wasn't sure whether I was going to even respond to this silliness, but then Faith and Fear in Flushing took the words right out of my mouth:

Oh, rats. I swore I wasn’t going to get sucked into the Great Batting Order Kerfuffle of February 2010. These are the most pointless kerfuffles of any season, kerfuffling as they do six weeks before any manager has to submit any batting order that counts for anything. Didn’t Jerry Manuel make some noise about batting Jose Reyes third last year? Did Jose Reyes ever bat third? The answers are yes and no, respectively. In our first spring of blogging, a spitstorm erupted over Willie Randolph suggesting David Wright might bat eighth once the season started. Care to guess how often Wright batted eighth? Hint: His next time will be his first time.

It is finally starting to become common knowledge that the order of your lineup means little to nothing in the grand scheme of things. It may at a maximum cost you - what - a couple dozen runs over the course of a season? Many a study has been done on this, always drawing that same conclusion: little lineup changes are de minimis.

What makes this even less relevant, as F&F points out, is the likelihood of this actually happening. It probably won't happen. And if it did, it would only be for a month.

This is not news -- this is the kind of stuff that managers mention and beat writers run with because it is February 22nd and there is nothing else to write about. I highly doubt that Reyes will move (and for the record I am against it) but if he does, it won't really matter.

Now, let's get back to discussing how optimistic we are about the season.