No. But allow me to rebury the lede.

Last season, the Padres received an .854 OPS from the third spot in the order. It was the team's most productive spot, and it was good for a 147 tOPS+*. Adrian Gonzalez did most of the heavy lifting, picking up 586 plate appearances hitting third and contributing a .898 OPS. He hit 27 home runs there, which is no small feat for a player playing in PETCO, but now Adrian's a Red Sox and a hole has opened in what is traditionally known as the most important spot in the lineup. To fill it, Bud Black recently announced that Orlando Hudson is looking like the man going into the season.

*tOPS+, in this case, refers to the OPS weighed against the rest of the team. If you average out all nine spots, you'd get an average of 100.

A career 100 wRC+ hitter, Hudson actually has a good deal of experience hitting third. His 979 plate appearances from the three hole equate to about a fifth of his total career PA and he's done alright, with a .793 OPS and 106 OPS+. But those aren't quite the numbers you want to see from that spot in the lineup, and they are a definite drop from Adrian's production. Looking through the rest of the team, more traditional picks would include Ryan Ludwick (115 wRC+), Brad Hawpe (114 wRC+), and Chase Headley, who showed flashes last season of the savior he came billed as. Instead, those three will likely fill out the spots behind Hudson.

Generally speaking, there's an idea of how to optimize the batting order. The top two OBP guys should hit first and second, with the top SLG guy hitting fourth. One, two, and four are the most important spots and that's where the best three hitters should go, followed by three and five. With this in mind, and with the help of Baseball Musings' Lineup Analysis tool, here is the Padres' optimal top five based on career averages:

1. Hudson

2. Hawpe

3. Headley

4. Ludwick

5. Venable

In this lineup, Hudson and his career .346 OBP are leading off while Headley takes the thankless role of hitting third. But as we've discussed before, career numbers can get kind of fishy. Ludwick and Bartlett have outliers skewing their numbers while Hawpe, Headley, and Venable have home parks skewing theirs. So, with that in mind, I took the projections from the Bill James handbook and plugged them into the equation. This is what was spit out:

1. Hawpe

2. Headley

3. Hudson

4. Ludwick

5. Maybin

James expects big things out of Hawpe and he lands in the leadoff spot, with Hudson taking the three hole. Could it possibly be that Bud's actually operating on the same analytical plane? No, probably not, considering that he has Venable leading off (hitting seventh in this optimization) and Bartlett second (hitting ninth). But as far as the subject of this article are concerned, Bud got it right. Sort of. Probably on accident.

Unearthing my lede, batting Hudson third doesn't really matter. The difference between a really good and a really bad lineup usually amounts to just one win a season. That last sentence might seem a bit glib considering how far out the Padres ended 2010 but it goes to show how important lineup optimization isn't. Over the course of a 162-game season, things will even out and the good players will produce no matter where they're hitting. Which isn't to say that order optimization doesn't matter at all. There are parts that are important but even then, hitting Hudson third doesn't really register. If you're going to have an issue with lineup, it should be with Bartlett hitting second. The spot calls for a second leadoff guy and the team's going to go with a below-average hitter.

This is the quantitative take. As far as the numbers are concerned, this is nothing more than idle Spring Training chatter. Qualitatively, however, there's something to be said about the team essentially naming a journeyman second baseman as their best hitter. I just deal with the numbers, though. I'll leave the ruminating to someone better equipped, like a poet or something.

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