Indians sign Napoli to a 1yr $7 mill deal

[griswold]

The Indians have some offense! Woot!

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/25416202/indians-sign-mike-napoli-to-one-year-7-million-contract

[SlideRule]

Is their OF really going to be Sands, Almonte, Chisenhall? Batting in the 7-8-9 spots? When was the last time a team had it's three OFs batting 7-8-9? They can't possibly be done here, right?

(Edit - I forgot about Brantley, oops. But isn't he out until May or so?)

[Hornsby]

Is their OF really going to be Sands, Almonte, Chisenhall? Batting in the 7-8-9 spots? When was the last time a team had it's three OFs batting 7-8-9? They can't possibly be done here, right?

(Edit - I forgot about Brantley, oops. But isn't he out until May or so?)

Brantly could be out even longer than that, and Napoli simply was pretty crappy last year. And right now it looks like Chris Johnson is going to be their DH? That pitching staff deserves a better offense to back them up...

[Gregg]

Brantly could be out even longer than that, and Napoli simply was pretty crappy last year. And right now it looks like Chris Johnson is going to be their DH? That pitching staff deserves a better offense to back them up...

Rotowire reported that Brantley is still on his original schedule. April or May to be back at 100%

[Gregg]

Brantly could be out even longer than that, and Napoli simply was pretty crappy last year. And right now it looks like Chris Johnson is going to be their DH? That pitching staff deserves a better offense to back them up...

Rotowire reported that Brantley is still on his original schedule. April or May to be back at 100%

[Hornsby]

Rotowire reported that Brantley is still on his original schedule. April or May to be back at 100%

Most recent thing I've found is a week or so ago...and some are saying that he'll DH at least part time after he comes back.

A "source close to the situation" told Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer that Michael Brantley (shoulder) might not be ready to play until June.

Brantley underwent major surgery in early November to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder. At the time that news was first announced, the Indians estimated that he would be ready to rock sometime in mid-April. But that's now looking overly optimistic. We should all have a better read on the situation when spring training opens in February.

Dec 7 - 11:01 AM
Source: Paul Hoynes on Twitter

[SlideRule]

Is their OF really going to be Sands, Almonte, Chisenhall? Batting in the 7-8-9 spots? When was the last time a team had it's three OFs batting 7-8-9? They can't possibly be done here, right?

(Edit - I forgot about Brantley, oops. But isn't he out until May or so?)

I'm legitimately interested in the answer to this question. Does anyone have the historical stats savvy to look this up somehow?

[SlideRule]

And apparently they weren't done, as they signed Rajai Davis today too. Not that this changes the OFs batting 7-8-9 thing though...

[Grinch]

Brantly could be out even longer than that, and Napoli simply was pretty crappy last year. And right now it looks like Chris Johnson is going to be their DH? That pitching staff deserves a better offense to back them up...

I would think Carlos Santana would disagree there. I understand he just bought a new DH mitt to celebrate the signing.....

[mjl]

I'm legitimately interested in the answer to this question. Does anyone have the historical stats savvy to look this up somehow?

I found a place to download the Retrosheet database but it doesn't include 2014, so this isn't the absolute most recent time probably.

Before 2014, it happened 215 times, the earliest being a couple Angels games in 1974. It happened six times in 2013:

Texas June 18: David Murphy, Craig Gentry, Leonys Martin
Texas July 19: Craig Gentry, Jurickson Profar, Leonys Martin
Minnesota August 1: Chris Herrmann, Aaron Hicks, Clete Thomas
Houston August 3: Robbie Grossman, Brandon Barnes, LJ Hoes
Toronto August 30: Moises Sierra, Anthony Gose, Kevin Pillar
Toronto September 1: Rajai Davis, Anthony Gose, Kevin Pillar

There are a bunch of series where teams do it for three games, but the closest I can see to any team doing it regularly are the following:

2004 Orioles (27 games): including most of the games in July and August. BJ Surhoff, Jerry Hairston Jr, Larry Bigbie, with some Karim Garcia, Luis Matos, and Jay Gibbons.
2005 Orioles (9 games): mostly in July/August. Surhoff, Matos, Bigbie.
2006 Orioles (7 games): seven games in May/June. Mostly Matos, Jeff Conine, Corey Patterson.
2003 A's (21 games): note this is year 2 of Moneyball and the A's won the division. Mostly Terrence Long in LF, Eric Byrnes in CF, Jermaine Dye in RF, with some Ron Gant and Chris Singleton.
2010 Yankees (18 games): won the wild card. Mostly Curtis Granderson in CF, Nick Swisher in RF, Brett Gardner in LF, with some Chad Curtis and Chad Huffman.
2010 Red Sox (20 games): Daniel Nava, Darnell McDonald, Jeremy Hermida, Mike Cameron, Eric Patterson.
1991 Tigers (12 games): mostly in July/August. Rob Deer in RF, Pete Incaviglia in LF, Milt Cuyler in CF, occasionally Lloyd Moseby.

The Yankees and Red Sox never played each other with the outfield-at-the-end lineups in 2010. There have been only two games where both teams did it:

September 27, 2002, A's @ Rangers: John Mabry, Long, and Jason Grabowski for the A's, Kevin Mench, Jason Hart, Rene Rivera for the Rangers.
June 26, 2004, Braves @ Orioles: Andruw Jones, Charles Thomas, Eli Marrero for the Braves, Matos, Bigbie, and Hairston for the Orioles.

If you'd like to be able to do this yourself, here are the steps it took me:
Download MySQL Commnuity Server and MySQL Workbench (http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/).
Download the Retrosheet DB (http://www.baseballheatmaps.com/retr...base-download/), unzip and import using Data Import/Restore in Workbench as "retrosheet".

Query:
use retrosheet;
SELECT * FROM games
WHERE (away_lineup7_fld_cd IN (7,8,9) && away_lineup8_fld_cd IN (7,8,9) && away_lineup9_fld_cd IN (7,8,9)) || (home_lineup7_fld_cd IN (7,8,9) && home_lineup8_fld_cd IN (7,8,9) && home_lineup9_fld_cd IN (7,8,9));

[SlideRule]

Thanks! Great research.

I'm amazed the O's did it 3 consecutive years, although <10 games (or even <50) is hardly regular. Care to guess how many games the 2016 Indians will play with their OFs batting 7-8-9? Will it beat the record of 27?

[joncarlos]

2010 Yankees (18 games): won the wild card. Mostly Curtis Granderson in CF, Nick Swisher in RF, Brett Gardner in LF, with some Chad Curtis and Chad Huffman.

That was actually a staggeringly good offensive team. OPS+ by position

C Posada 115
1B Teix 124
2B Cano 141
SS Jeter 90
3B A-Rod 123
LF Gardner 105
CF Grandy 108
RF Swish 129

Of course the guy with the 90 OPS+ hit leadoff.