New Chicago Cubs manager Craig Counsell has said, generally, his batting order philosophy is the very simplistic (and very correct): just get your best hitters the most at bats. Sure, there’s some play in that to set up good match-ups, get guys on base in front of certain batters, protect other batters, etc. But lineup order does only so much, and the most important thing is to just make sure you’re putting the best hitters near the top, and ideally in a cluster.
To that end, Counsell has confirmed that Ian Happ will be leading off for the Cubs tomorrow in Texas, and in so doing, also strongly suggested who the next two guys in the order will be.
“Yeah, Ian will lead off on Thursday,” Counsell said, per Marquee. “He’s gonna hit at the top of the lineup. His skillset and the people around him, I think it’s a good spot for him. This is a guy that walked 99 times last year, which in today’s game, a really, really impressive number. So getting on base for guys like Seiya and Cody [Bellinger] is a great recipe for scoring runs for us.”
Counsell had already hinted at Seiya Suzuki being the two-hole hitter for the Cubs (typically where your best overall hitter should go), and Cody Bellinger batting behind Suzuki then makes a whole lot of sense.
So, then, I suspect we’ll see Happ-Suzuki-Bellinger as the top three not only for Thursday’s opener, but also for a good long while thereafter in most games, at least against righties. Those three, in addition to having power, project to be the team’s best on-base guys, so all the more reason to have them see the most plate appearances. It’s old school at this point, but I do still like the idea of emphasizing batters who don’t give up precious outs. You get only 27 of them, after all.
After that top trio, I wonder if we’ll see some names moving around depending on the match-up and who is playing that day. Christopher Morel would be a pretty obvious cleanup man on most days, especially because that continues the L-R-L-R thing, but there may be some days when you want Michael Busch right behind Bellinger (against a righty with huge splits, for example?). But if the pitcher match-up is right, you might even want any number of other guys in that four spot. I just expect we’ll see a lot of maneuvering from 4 on down, until and unless it becomes clear that a particular structuring is working too well to mess with. Player comfort is a factor, too.
Against lefties, we might see some days where Nico Hoerner leads off, with Happ sliding down into the middle of the order. But I’d bet Suzuki and Bellinger stay where they are.