I was never OK with Yuli hitting 2nd, or even Pena. I completely agree with the philosophy that your best hitters should be grouped at the top. I've thought most of the year that Bregman should be in the 2 spot in front of Yordan (I was fine with Branley when he was available), but now I think he should be behind Yordan.
Yordan/Bregman/Tucker has been a combo in the lineup even with Alvarez struggling. Edit: Though, I think in the long run, Tucker is going to be either the leadoff or No. 2 hitter with Yordan 3rd or cleanup.
Bregman in the two spot makes no sense. He's good at driving in runs and thus you want him in a slot where guys will be on base more often. That's going to happen more with guys like Altuve and Yordan hitting in front of him. If he's hitting 2nd (with how lame the bottom of the order has been) he'd only have Altuve getting on in front of him most of the time. Also if doesn't get anything to hit he's good at getting a walk which puts guys like Altuve, Yordan and Breggy on in front of Tucker. Just my humble opinion.
Vasquez was never remotely close to . 273 OBP or SLG, unless you were just counting his VERY LIMITED Astro ABs up to that point, which would be silly.
I was silly because MLB.com only listed his Astros PAs. I have to wait on Baseball Reference to run their programs to calculate OPS+, but they do list his record with both teams. It's purely a matter of convenience to follow their pattern rather than create my own.
The philosophy of bunching your best hitters is sound. I just break them down into 4 categories. The primary are those who are best at the combination of OBP and SLG. I want them batting after the best remaining OBP hitters so they have the opportunity to hit with men on base AND they can get on base themselves for those who are SLG heavy hitters, but not the best at OPS. The last is simply the remaining starters by order of OBP in an attempt to turn over the Batting order. Thus OPS in slots 3 and 4, OBP in slots 1 and 2 next, SLG in slots 5 and 6 and the rest in slots 7,8 and 9. There has been some debate for at least 40 years that you may want a speedy guy batting at the bottom of the order rather than a slower player to prevent clogging the base-paths. So that's the concept devoid of the actual players to an optimal batting order. Anytime you have players with limited PA, you will find movement with their fluctuating slash line. There is some question how far back you should go in calculating the slash lines. But these are all theoretical and apart from the players personalities. Should Hensley hit lead off because of one good game? Maybe. But if he can't sustain it his slash line would indicate he should move out of the position.
There are many thing ()usty won't go for. One thing we cannot second guess is whether a player is hurt or not. Playing with pain is different than playing through an injury. And even the doctors don't always get it right. This is why I will give an optimal batting order at times of the entire active roster and other times I optimize the players he has chosen to play that day. I am not a fan of playing lesser players at the same place in the batting order as the player they are replacing.
Bregman at the 2 slot made sense before his power returned. Even at his worst this season, he still drew enough walks to make him a premier OBP player, even with a lower BA. As his power has returned, he need to be the guy between the lefties so they get decent pitches to hit or that he can drive in because they still didn't give them decent pitches. If he hadn't rediscovered his 2018/2019 form last month, we would be in a panic over Alvarez's falloff even more than we are.
