Believe it or not, I avoided this thread today. I didn't want to try and keep up with it while constantly being interrupted with pointless bullshit, like doing stuff for my job. I wanted to save it for after I got home, ate dinner, took care of any pending family matters, and finally had an hour or so blocked off to stretch out in the easy chair with the laptop.
It was worth the wait. Great thread.
Because the Earl Weaver theory worked so well for last year's club?
I don't have anything substantive to add here, but in the interest of historical accuracy, I want to clear up something about Earl Weaver and his managing style.
Because he is admired by many of the same sort of people who would tell you Berkman should hit 2nd, Weaver gets lumped in with them and the sort of three-walks-and-a-cloud-of-dust, it-works-great-in-fantasy offensive philosophy favored by some of those people. I don't have a problem with anyone admiring Weaver. I admire him greatly, myself. But he was by no means a proponent of the sort of stuff he sometimes gets associated with.
Don't take this wrong, MM, I am not trying to single you out. I see this a lot.
Weaver's offenses featured all the things you'd ideally want in order to score a lot of runs - fast guys who could get on base at the top (Don Buford, Al Bumbry), middle of the order hitters with power and OBP skills (both Robinsons, Boog Powell, Bobby Grich, Ken Singleton, etc.), a deceptively effective catching platoon (Hendricks/Etchebarren, Duncan/Hendricks, Dempsey/Graham, Dempsey/Nolan), and defense-first guys with some narrowly defined offensive attributes, which Weaver tried to optimize (Paul Blair, Belanger, Dauer, DeCinces and, for that matter, Brooks Robinson.) The Baltimore teams Weaver managed were consistently at the top of their league in runs scored, OBP, etc. They often did this without a slew of great stars. Weaver was good at finding guys no one else wanted much, but who were useful in defined roles. He was masterful at putting together platoons. He had a long bench full of misfits, role players, and ne'er-do-wells who he usually managed to get the most out of.
But what those Baltimore teams were really known for, in their time, was pitching, defense, and speed. Weaver had a pitching coach, Ray Miller, who may have been the best of his era. They conisistently fielded an outstanding "big four" of starter pitchers, and a bullpen of role players (Weaver was one of the first managers to use his relievers one inning at a time with regularity.) They had maybe one of the best "up-the-middle" defenses ever in the mid-1970s (C platoon-Belanger SS-Grich 2B-Blair CF), and they always had guys who could run.
Weaver, who tended to use bat-handling middle infielders in the two-slot, would never consider Berkman at #2, I am guessing. He knew a guy like that wouldn't hit the same way (or likely as well) at #2 as he would at #3 or lower, and it would be wasting a valuable resource.
If the Astros had followed the Earl Weaver theory the last few years, there probably would not be a need for this sort of thead.