[Bobhead]

Quote: Originally Posted by The Commish

I don't have a fantasy draft roster but my lineup is a little different than most. I tend to employ a balanced lineup rather than a top heavy one. I'll "hide" a player at positions 2, 6 & 8 That gives me at least 2 solid hitters between the weaker ones. Generally I put my pitcher at 8. I know that statistically this is a flawed system, because you are theoretically giving a worse batter more attempts per game, but this approach allows me not have a section of my lineup that runs dry. Now if I have more than 3 batters to hide then I'll go back to the standard approach.

FYI for the Boston Red Sox last year (I just chose a random team), the #1 spot had only 133 more at-bats than the #9 spot in the lineup, total, for the whole year. Too lazy to do math but I'm guessing that's like .8 more at-bats a game

So statistically your strategy is hardly detrimental. It actually makes a lot of sense, especially if you have a weaker lineup.

Anyway, as for my lineup.

Well I like to always take one of my fastest player and put him in the #8 spot (in the NL), that way I'm punishing the opposition for pitching around him to get to the pitcher

And I care more about alternating Lefties and Righties, than I do traditional lineup rankings... so for example I will take the #4 hitter and bat him 5th or 6th so that I never have two guys batting consecutively from the same side of the plate. I think this gives me a big advantage late in games, when the opposing team starts going to the bullpen.

So for example, taking the OP's starting 9:
Austin Jackson
Bryce Harper
Carlos Gonzales
Ortiz (DH)
Hanley Ramirez
Brett Lawrie
Eric Hosmer
Jesus Montero
Manny Machado.

I'd have my order as follows:
Austin Jackson
Brett Lawrie
Carlos Gonzales
Hanley Ramirez
David Ortiz
Jesus Montero
Bryce Harper
Manny Machado
Eric Hosmer