u/40AcresAnalytics

This seems to be more of a college and high school thing but why do baseball players do it? Is it just for looks?

I believe the “top of the order” is 1-5 and “bottom of the order” is 6-9. If I was a coach, I would treat my lineup as two groups (i.e. top and bottom), instead of one lineup 1-9. I would focus on OBP, SB, and OPS. Strikeouts per plate appearances too.

D1 Baseball’s SEC Extra’s podcast (Joe Healy and Mark Etheridge) briefly talked about this. I thought it was very interesting discussion. They made some great points. They were saying all college baseball fans want more college baseball games on TV, especially big games. But Healy and Etheridge were inquiring if college games’ long length are a deterrent for ESPN and other networks. That the networks can’t/won’t schedule a 3 1/2 or 4-hour window for a game.