Sometimes it can be easy to miss some of the coolest features on our site because there's just so much information assaulting your senses (in a good way, that is). One of the best tools on the site, in my opinion, is one of the most underrated for this very reason.

I'm talking, of course, about the team batting order and lineup pages that you can access from each team's main page under the "Other [+]" tab. I'm sure more than a few of you have seen these pages and are acutely aware of them, but a surprising number of users don't know they exist. Personally, I love them because they can represent in a very visual way how a team's personnel tendencies have changed as the year goes by. For instance, at the beginning of the year, the Red Sox were batting David Ortiz third; then, as Ortiz's play became more and more excruciating to watch, the team put Kevin Youkilis in the 3-spot and slotted Big Papi either 5th or 6th. Now they're batting newcomer Victor Martinez 3rd most often and having Youk bat cleanup.

I like being able to see these kinds of patterns in teams, especially as the season goes on, because in concert with the team's schedule page, it lets you get a feel for why a team's record had certain ebbs and flows. The same goes for the lineup pages, which shows who's injured or who has fallen out of favor with the manager. All of these aspects of the pages can be valuable tools when researching a team for an upcoming regular-season matchup, and especially for the playoffs or at the beginning of a new season.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 3:37 pm and is filed under Site Features, Tutorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.