lead off with hatteberg! (really though)

[Wally Mo Pena]

There's a pretty cool tool available at baseball musings (http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-b...upAnalysis.py?) that allows you to figure out the optimal batting order for 9 guys based on obp and slg, and projects the runs per game that the lineup will score. it's based on some really rigorous research that i've read and they cite, so don't dismiss what it says too easily.

here's what i found. i mostly used last years stats, but i guessed at some stats for EdE, used hatteberg's career numbers, chose larue over valentin because he's more likely to repeat what he did, and used paul wilson because he's about the average of pitchers we have at the plate.

The best lineup scored 5.362 r/g (50 runs more than last years offense):
hatteberg, dunn, larue, grif, felo, EdE, kearns, wilson, freel

weird huh? every good lineup had wilson batting 8, because it sets up the good hitters more to have a high OBP guy batting 9. The key to thinking about these new-fangled lineups is to realize that the leadoff hitter only "leads off" the game, and that the 9 guy is important to setting up the 2-4 hitters too.

the best lineup with womack pretty much the same, and scored 5.214 r/g:
hatteberg, dunn, larue, grif, felo, EdE, kearns, wilson, womack

what i imagine will be Jerry Narron's lineup scored 4.923 r/g:
womack, felo, grif, kearns, dunn, EdE, larue, hatteberg, wilson

and the worst lineup scored 4.553 r/g:
wilson, womack, EdE, hatteberg, kearns, larue, felo, dunn, grif

someone should send the link to Narron. The difference between his lineup and the "optimal" lineup would be about 71 runs over the season! Not that he would ever try something like that, it's definitely not "the right way" to make a lineup.

also, by those projections, just switching womack for freel costs the reds 24 runs over the season, about the same amount the reds improved by adding arroyo to the rotation. So Narron can effectively kill that trade by starting womack.

[griffeyfan3]

Yea, does anyone have Narron's email address?

[love_that_reefer]

That's why actual humans manage baseball teams and not computers. Hatteberg at leadoff makes my eye twitch.

[Wally Mo Pena]

this lineup was also near the top of the projections:

Freel, Dunn, EdE, Grif, felo, Kearns, Larue, Wilson, Hatteberg

the thing that these analyses show is that you are balancing two things in constructing a lineup: 1) getting your best hitters the most ABs, and setting up slg heavy guys with obp heavy guys all throughout the game.

The way lienups are conventionally set up stresses the first part there, and puts the pitcher right in front of your best hitters (who are up top to get the most ABs), which prevents a lot of runs.

hatteberg has a good career obp (.356 i think) and so he works nicely in the 9 hole to set up the top of the order guys.

[Kingdom]

redsfan28 can attest to the failures of hatteberg leading off, using a computer that is

[redsrbetter]

Great job running through this Wally. +rep.

Its weird seeing LaRue batting third and it being a great lineup. That makes no sense to me, but I guess it works.

We all know that Narron wouldn't even consider a fantasy lineup like this, but the thought of Freel leading off vs. Womack is more encouraging. We need Narron to know this, though he won't.

Thanks for sharing this Wally!

[McKain]

This is going to help me immensely in my OOTP leagues.

Pitiful fools, BWAHAHAH.

[homerun21]

Hey, you said you retired from OOTP!

[Geki Ace]

Using Hatteberg's career numbers is stupid, since he's a washed up bum.

[Kingdom]

This is going to help me immensely in my OOTP leagues.

Pitiful fools, BWAHAHAH.

Not even a miracle saves the mattymo Royals.

[love_that_reefer]

Simply saying Hatteberg should leadoff is stupid.

[missionhockey21]

The tool is pretty awesome. A keeper for me and OOTP as well.

But I think the overall problem this faces with us and and teams in general is that Hatteberg will very likely decrease production this season (as Geki mentioned) and then players like Ed E are likely to see a massive increase in production. If someone with some resources and maybe a wealth of stats... *cough*... looked into doing something that combined past year stats with the new year's projections. Well, I'd pay to see that. Obviously with a free tool here, what can you expect and as it's pretty neat even for the novelty of it.

I do think it's an excellent way to show why starting Woemack is such a terrible terrible idea. But I suppose computers don't know how to play the game the right way.

+Rep.

[Fishercat]

I'll rep this too, and for kicks, I'm going to use this for OOTP for a bit.

[albbla2000mu]

whenever I run it it tells me the hitter should be hitting 8th and the worst regular hitter should be hitting 9th. Anyone else get that? I guess Tony Larussa is managing the team.

[ghettochild]

i don't like this because it doesn't take in account LHP/RHP splits and stuff like that