On base percentage is an important statistic in baseball. One's batting order should--all things being equal--be constructed so that you stack those players who get on base the most at the top of your lineup and work down. There is a very, extremely, wildly, blatantly clear reason for this--the higher in the batting order one is, the more plate appearances one sees.
Ron Gardenhire has always been incapable of realizing this very simple fact, but he has taken it to new proportions this year. Matt Tolbert started and batted second in the lineup AGAIN last night. If I owned the Twins, I would make sure that someone chewed Gardenhire out for this kind of garbage managing. Jason Kubel should be batting second, or if one wants a little bit more a traditional feel to it, Danny Valencia could be inserted there. It doesn't really matter to me as long at that player has a .300+ OBP. That's desperate . . . but Matt Tolbert's OBP is at .183. That works out to getting on base once per 11-12 innings (when batting second).
Joe Mauer should have been the guy batting second for the past five seasons. He is the prototypical 2-man.
A few years from now, Aaron Hicks should be in that role. Hopefully Gardenhire won't be around to mess that up then.
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