Sausage Man with RISP

Randall Simon's three-year splits show a curious and probably significant difference in his hitting ability: with the bases empty, he's hit .275 / .302 / .401 for an OPS of 703 and an OPS*SLG of .121. That's middle infielder territory. Not good.

But with runners on, he hits .313 / .342 / .500 (842, .171), which is good. With runners in scoring position he's even better: .332 / .363 / .553 (916, .200), which is awesome. Craig A. Wilson with RISP has been .261 / .371 / .495 (866, .184). In each case we have decent sample sizes. This is a good reason to bat Simon over Wilson in the fifth spot when both are playing.

We've advocated benching Simon to play Wilson when Bay returns. We'll continue to advocate this so long as Wilson is doing a lot more with the bat than Simon. In the meantime, it's good to have both guys in the lineup.