(THE FILIBUSTER) JUPITER, Fla. — The only times Cardinals manager Tony La Russa has batted the pitcher eighth is when his team has been struggling and, cynics argue, when it offers a red herring, a distraction from the performance on the field.

The manager might quibble with the cynics — always does. But while he believes it’s the best way to build a National League lineup, he concedes he has only done it when his team is scuffling. Earlier this spring he explained why:

“I’m gutless,” he said.

La Russa plans to hit the pitcher eighth this season, and he has done so all spring. In presenting his reasons for batting the pitcher eighth, La Russa points to the stats — a jump from 4.34 runs per game before the switch to Ankiel-aided 4.64 after — and challenged the media to watch the games and see where the pitcher batting eighth really cost them. At worst, it’s a wash, with the pitcher sporadically leading off an inning or two. At best, it’s a benefit, with Brendan Ryan sparking a few rallies this spring from the nine spot.

The fair question is if he believes it works now, that it spurs the offense, does he feel that he left runs unscored even with his titan teams of 2004 and 2005?

“Even though I haven’t done it since 1998 to last year, the sense of it holds true,” La Russa said. “Because those MV3 hit three, four, five. If you had Rickey Henderson batting first and the greatest second-place hitter in the world, it may not make as much sense. Most times, I think hitting the pitcher (eighth) does. I was in the American League and I saw a position play hit ninth and what that did for the lineup, so I like it.

“Let me ask you a question: Do you disagree that a position player has a better chance to get on base than the pitcher?” he said. ”If that’s true – and that’s the whole basis for this — that gives you another base runner ahead of the guys who are going to … drive in your runs.”

It’s an off day, so there’s little going on here but writers writing, reporters reporting and GM’s GM’ing. So, I’ll try an in-depth blog here on a debatable topic. I spent the last few days combing through numbers and — while dealing with a small sample size, granted — found there may be a method to “Crazy 8″ madness.

Warning numbers ahead, but all are baseball-card approved.

** PLATE APPEARANCES **

At first blush, lineup theory is all based on getting your best hitter the most amount of plate appearances with runners on base. That also holds that the player with one of the best on-base knacks on the team should bat leadoff. The support for this simple: Over the course of the season, the leadoff spot is going to get an average of 19 plate appearances more than the No. 2 hitter, the No. 3 hitter is going to get 50 more than the No. 6 hitter. According to this discussion over at The Sporting News, here is the breakdown of spots in the order and the difference in plate appearances:

1. 765
2. -16
3. -17
4. -16
5. -16
6. -18
7. -18
8. -19
9. -19

This is valuable notion when constructing the top of the lineup, but any concern about the pitcher’s spot having 19 more plate appearances a season than the No. 9 hitter is erased by pinch hitting. The Cardinals led the NL in pinch hit at-bats last season, with 274. Pittsburgh had the fewest at 208. Way more than 19 plate appearances.

** CONSULTING THE BEST, LEAST PRODUCTIVE LINEUPS **

I knew when I dove into the numbers that they were only going to yield information specific to 2007 and that a much larger sample size would be needed to offer any certainty. But this sure tickled my curiosity. Take the highest-scoring team in baseball last season and compare it, lineup spot by lineup spot, to the lowest-scoring team in baseball. See where the differences are.

NEW YORK YANKEES (968 runs) vs. WASHINGTON (673 runs)

All statistics are BA/OBP/SLG

• Leadoff: .266/.347/.380 … .243/.308/.360
• No. 3: .273/.363/.427 … .266/.329/.456
• Cleanup: .317/.427/.642 … .289/.359/.455
• No. 8: .260/.311/.392 … .250/.325/.354
• No. 9: .300/.354/.456 … .163/.237/.230

Say each lineup has 27 averages (9 BA, 9 OBP, 9 SLG), the Yankees had 18 rank in the top third of baseball. To no surprise, Washington had two. Where the Yankees led the majors was at cleanup (read: Alex Rodriguez) and in the nine spot. It wasn’t even close there. The Yankees’ nine-hole hitters had a .354 on-base percentage, the next closest was Boston’s .338. The Yankees nine-hole hitters had a .456 slugging percentage, and the next closest was Boston’s .413. The Red Sox had the fourth-most prolific offense in baseball last year.

The Yankees’ eighth spot was near league average in everything but slugging.

Given that this is a comparison across leagues, a look at the highest-scoring NL team (Philadelphia with 892 runs) offers an interesting alternative. The Phillies lineup, like the Yankees, is loaded with some of the best on-base percentages at the bottom of the order – the Phillies Nos. 6 and 7 hitters led the majors on-base percentage for those spots. And then the speed bump.

Their No. 9 hitters had averages that all ranked in the lower third, of course.

** JACKPOT: WHERE THAT TOOK ME **

Made a list of all the teams in baseball and how many runs they scored last season — unbelievably, three NL Central teams were separated by a total of three runs. Then I looked at what the OBP was for the Nos. 8 and 9 hitters. I split them by leagues just to get a feel for the differences in play and the annual difference in offenses. And … eureka.

• Four of the five teams with the highest OBP from the No. 8 spot in the majors are four of the lowest-scoring teams in the NL. Three of them rank 23rd or lower in baseball: Pittsburgh (.348 OBP, 724 runs); Houston (.333 OBP, 723 runs); and Arizona (.348 OBP, 712 runs).

• There’s no need to show how their No. 9 hitter does, not in the NL. Talk about wasting runners.

• Of the 10 highest-scoring offenses in the American League, eight got an on-base percentage from their No. 8 hitters that ranked in the lowest third of baseball. Boston, with 867 runs, had a .292 OBP from its No. 8 hitter, fourth-lowest in baseball. Texas, with 816 runs, had a .286 OBP at No. 8, third-lowest in baseball.

• As far as OBP from the No. 9: the Yankees (.354), Boston (.338) and the Angels (.302) all rank in the top five in baseball, and they are three of the four highest-scoring offenses in the AL. A fourth, Seattle (.312), ranks seventh in runs scored in the AL.

The Cardinals OBP from the nine spot was the eighth best in baseball, better than seven AL teams, and they had the sixth-best batting average from No. 9. Could be all those pinch hitters they used. But it’s a small sample size, and many other more in-depth studies have been done that conclude there is no difference in batting a pitcher eighth or ninth. This exhaustive study concludes:

Simply put, it’s not worth all the fuss you’d cause trying to be clever with lineups.

** THE LINEUP SPECTRUM **

If the numbers aren’t convincing — and these are more intriguing than convincing — then maybe logic wins out. Milwaukee has discussed batting the pitcher eighth because catcher Jason Kendall is a groundball hitter and the idea is to cut down the double plays he hits into. The Brewers calculations were explained in several media reports, one of which said this:

Team research indicated that based on last year’s statistics for the players, with the pitcher batting eighth and Kendall ninth the Brewers should score 30 more runs than they did last season, when they scored 801 runs. The research also showed that every 10 more runs equals a victory.

La Russa’s logic is based around, of course, Albert Pujols. He wants his best hitter up in the first inning, and then wants to put his best hitter in position to hit with the most runners on base. The thinking is that with Pujols No. 3 and the pitcher No. 9, the Cardinals sacrifice a lot of opportunties to have Pujols bat with the bases loaded. With Pujols No. 3 and the double leadoff going, La Russa believes that shifts Pujols to a de facto cleanup and increases his chances to hit with runners on base.

“If you just watch the games,” La Russa said, “the potential to score more runs is there.”

The best way to describe this is a lineup spectrum. Sure, we know Pujols will be the third hitter in the first inning … and that’s it. The rest is up to the game. He could leadoff more innings than he hits fourth on any given Thursday. The rule of thumb then should be to get the pitcher — the out — as far away from the best hitter as possible.

Look at a lineup and how it turns over, or as a spectrum of turns:

1 .. 2 .. 3 .. 4 .. 5 .. 6 .. 7 .. 8 .. 9 .. 1 .. 2 .. 3 .. 4 .. 5 .. 6 .. 7 .. 8 .. 9 .. 1 .. 2 .. 3 .. 4

If you look at a lineup card, the No. 3 hitter seems as far away from the No. 9 hitter as comfortable, but in truth, as soon as that first plate appearance is over the No. 9 is closer to the No. 3 hitter than the No. 8 hitter. And that’s the logic. By batting the pitcher eighth the No. 3 hitter has at least three batters of cushion between him and the out.

• Four hitters offer protection or RBI capabilities before the out.
• Three hitters offer table-setting chances.

Compare that to five for protection and two for table-setting. There is a better balance of power when the lineup hinges on the No. 3 hitter.

Or, it could just be an illusion. One conjured because of losing.

As Bill James writes in his recent Gold Mine about batting the pitcher eighth: “When you have the players, you’re going to stick to proven strategies because you’re more afraid of screwing it up than you are anxious to gain a small advantage.”

Losing: The mother of invention.

“Sure it’s fair,” La Russa said. ”That’s why I did it. Because they were struggling. It’s also fair to say that in 98 we were 10 over (.500 after switching). That’s in the book. I explain it. That’s my opinion. Everybody can watch. Look at it yourselves.”

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