No, its not a terrible assumption. The 6th hitter is not near as valuable as the 3rd hitter. If you believe that then I guess you believe in fairies and leprechauns as well. They haven't had a #3 hitter which has been my point. This isn;t even a debate in my mind. Look at the numbers surrounding Ortiz. Youkilis has a 1.18 OPS hitting behind a hitter with a .599 OPS. See anything wrong with that or why no as many runs would be scored? Not to mention an .880 OPS hitting behind him. Now let's switch #3 and #6. Now you have a 1.04 OPS in front of a 1.18 OPS guy. Do you see more runs there?? Especially with guys like Ellsbury and Pedroia hitting in front of that new #3 hitter. Where's the debate?? Yu say that the middle to bottom of the order has been doing everything. THAT'S BECAUSE ORTIZ HAS KILLED THE TOP HALF PRODUCTION!! Ortiz has sucked balls and costs a lot of runs just by himself. He hit .209 w/RISP. The only terrible assumption is that it hasn;t cost the Red Sox anything. It has, wins.