1) I am curious as to the benefit of a hitter batting 9th? Say you have 2 speedy guys but one with around 550 PA and the other with 700 PA. Would it benefit you to put the 550PA player at 9th to essentially have a second lead-off guy?

2) Is it ever beneficial to to leave power out of a lineup almost completely? If power isn't what your going for would it still benefit you to have at least one batting 4th or 5th to try and get a load of RBI's?

I'm not trying to ask "How do I make my team??". I am just curious as to everyone's experiences with it as I can't put together a good team anyways, let alone one that would allow me to test things. This is all 80mil OL.

Thanks

1) It depends on how you want to use him.  Do you want the 550 PA guy to appear in as many games as possible, or do you want him to have more PA against your main rivals and let him rest a few games against non-rivals?  Personally, I'd go with the former.

2) All sorts of lineups can be successful.  I just had a 99 win team in an OL, and I drafted just one player with more than 2 real life home runs (he had 9 RL).  Batting mostly cleanup for me, behind some high OBP players, he hit 15 HR and knocked in 161 runs; the team was 3rd overall in runs scored.

1. I might bat a hitter 9th if he's a little light on PA, he'll need fewer days off because of fatigue. when I have a pitcher who can hit half-decent I don't mind batting him 8th. Tony LaRussa had some logical reason for batting the pitcher 8th but it didn't make much sense to anybody else.

2. power isnt essential if you're not in a power ballpark. If you have a strong hitting team in a hitters ballpark then power could be a liability because you're paying too much for it.

I've won 96 games and a WS with just 1 true power hitter.  He ended the season with 43 HR, and one other guy had 20.  (106 total HR)

I've won 108 games without a true HR threat.  We only hit 71 HR, but hit 124 triples.  Our top 4 guys had 16, 13, 11, and 10 HR, no one else had more than 5.

Like rbow said, a strong hitting team in a park that fits their strengths can do very well.

When looking at position players, I don't even look at HRs.

I just finished an OL at Dodger with 108 wins, unfortunately washed out in first round of playoffs against an 82 win team, but I digress.

I didn't want to pay for power in a stadium that is -4 for doubles, -3 for trples and -1/-1 rated for Hrs.
The team hit 34 homers on the year, led by the '77 Amos Otis who I picked off the rock pile after about 50 games. He had 8 total Hrs.
The team hit 15 homers at home, and scored 392 runs there.

My #3 hitter lead the team in RBI with 115 off a .373 SLG.

Winning teams can be built to win, and often do, without any power to speak of.

And one more question. I tend to usually spend more money on 7 full-time position players and leave one open for AAA to fill and plug in hitting 8th (or higher obviously if he outperforms others throughout the season). Obviously he won't be the best of the bunch, but I usually leave an OF or 1B open so he won't do too much damage and I can essentially plug in my best AAA option regardless of position. Is this causing too much damage to my teams if the player ends up hitting badly, or do you think the upgrade at my other positions would make up for that?

tanking a position is a common strategy. you generally need more than one AAA to fill one position. an alternative is to draft a couple part-timers or not-quite-fulltimers and fill in with several backup AAA, that way you have a full lineup when you need it. if you draft somebody who plays multiple positions you have more flexibility in which AAA to use.

Don't forget to ID your AAA players. You could have a diamond in the rough which will allow to possibly use the waiver wire for another position or if your lucky you may get a pretty good 1b or oufielder AAA guy which is what you wanted in the first place.

Yeah I usually ID all my AAA players.