Rox Talk

A couple of year's back I read an article in Hardball Times (?) that linked to another website that did an analysis of the possible runs scored based on OBP and SLG of your line up.  The gist of the site was that conventional wisdom (i.e. today's managers except maybe LaRussa) doesn't always hold up.  So in another look at projections I used this site, Baseball Musings Lineup Analysis, to check out the lineups. 

My projected 2008 Lineup:

Taveras

Tulo

Helton

Holliday

Atkins

Hawpe

Nix

Torrealba

Pitcher (OBP last year was .199 and SLG of .166)

Using 2008 ZiPS the above lineup scores 4.929 runs per game (or 798 runs) while an optimized lineup would score 5.029 runs per game (or 815 runs).  The optimized lineup would be:

Helton

Hawpe

Tulo

Holliday

Atkins

Nix

Torrealba

Pitcher

Taveras

Using 2008 PECOTA's the original lineup gives you 5.164 runs per game (or 837 runs) while an optimized lineup would give 5.259 runs per game (or 852 runs).  The optimized line up would be:

Helton

Holliday

Tulo

Hawpe

Atkins

Torrealba

Taveras

Nix

Pitcher

Using 2008 Bill James' projections the original lineup gives 5.167 runs per game (or 837 runs) and an optimized lineup would give 5.273 runs per game (or 854 runs).  

Using 2008 Chone's projections the original lineup gives 5.138 runs per game (or 832 runs) and an optimized lineup would give 5.228 runs per game (or 847 runs). 

So there you have it.  In my earlier projections based on runs scored, I found a spread of 823 - 829 runs so these numbers were a bit higher; 826 for established lineup versus 843 for an optimized lineup.  It will be interesting to see how things shape up this year.  Finally wouldn't it be great to see Helton batting first and Hurdle bust tradition?  Maybe in Bizarro world!