BASEBALL teams would play better if they did away with the traditional batting line-up beloved of coaches and aficionados. Putting the best batter second, rather than the customary fourth, can substantially improve team performance, a mathematical analysis suggests. Surprisingly, the weakest hitter shouldn’t bat last.
Baseball managers have known for years that not all batting orders are created equal. If there are already players on base, a strong hitter has a better chance of getting them back to home base to score several runs – “a clean-up” in baseball parlance. For that reason, managers tend to put the strongest players…
