I would have thought you would want views from both sides of the coin. I did not mean to imply that you had nothing to add to this discussion but if you disregard statistical evidence out of hand, you can see how that might create problems when the title of the forum is "Statistical Analysis". No one ever assumed there was no interaction among batters, quite the opposite. I think many researchers were suprised when they couldn't find any real statistical evidence of protection and other related phenomena. They realized that a batter's performance is relatively consistent, irregardless of his place in the batting order and the players around him. When that realiziation was made, it justified using simulators in order optimization studies. Again, it's not my claim that their are no such effects; only that they are most likely small enough as to be masked by statistical noise. Also, I didn't mean to suggest that the difference between the worst and best lineup was insignificant just suprisingly small. Since the tradational batting lineup (like what you posted) is a fairly reasonable way to contruct a lineup in the first place, further optimization results in only a modest gain in runs scored. It is because of that fact that it's usually not worth all the discussion teh topic usually generates.