FanPost

Lineup Optimizer

During these dark times, a schism has formed in the Braves fandom, dividing fans into Rabblers and Righters. Rabblers are an angsty, fickle breed who go on and on about how the team is awful, and so and so sucks, and fire this guy, ect. And while this is fun and entertaining for awhile, it is also stupid and quickly decays into spam. Rightersare a bi-product of the rabbler spam, righteous souls who attempt to calm and reassure the fans that it's not the end of the world to go on a losing streak. These people utilize their ability to think back further than a week ago to form opinions. Still, they come off like a parent; lame, preachy and devoid of fun. So instead of making another one of these kind of posts, I decided to do a pointless lineup post! I'll be using methodology from The Book (which everyone should read) to fill out my lineup cards.

Before we continue, realize that the difference between an optimized lineup and what Bobby runs out there is only 5-15 runs over the course of a season. Still, I enjoy this kind of stuff and maybe you will too.

Who's in the Lineups?

I'm going to use the opening day starters plus the dreaded (cue spooky sounds) Cabrera/McLouth/Diaz PLATOON OF DOOM!!

Where do the best hitters go?

1, 2, and 4. Ideally 1 has the highest OBP, 4 is the power hitter and 2 is a mix. The next two best slot in the 5 and 3 holes respectively. Yes the 5 spot is more importantthan the 3 spot (home runs have a higher run expectancy in the 3 spot though so a low OBP high slugger fits well here). After that sort the 6-9 batters in descending order.

What about Platoons?

It is imperative that the lefty are split up in the lineup to avoid the opposing manager leveraging a LOOGY late in the game. Lefties generally have larger platoon splits than righties. Because of these splits, we need to make different lineups for LHP and RHP.

What about GIDPs?

The Book says the most GIDP opportunities occur in 3 hole by far, followed by the 2 hole. So try to put the GIDP machines somewhere else.

Where does the speed guy go?

The Book says to put good baserunners in front of good contact guys (eg Prado, Chipper) and good basestealers in front of crappy or singles hitter who might need help getting them over.

Why did you switch the 8 and 9 guys?

The 9 hitter will hit in front of the top of the order (ie the best hitters on the team), so the penalty for less PAs is offset by this interaction. Note this really only works if the difference between the two worst hitters is severe (eg. a pitcher).

What stats did you use?

I used Zips ROS (rest of season) projections from Fangraphs. The stat I used to determine who rocks and who sucks is wOBA. Then I regressed each players platoon splits (1000 PAs for LHB and 2200 PAs for RHB). For more information on regression clicky here and here. No one on the team is a good basestealer so I left that out, and I don't have BProaccount so I didn't have any info on baserunning. For GIDPs, I went to baseball reference and kinda eyeballed the difference between league avg GIDP% and what I thought the player's true talent was. For power I used the Zips ISO projection.

Lets look at the raw data in a typical bobby cox lineup.

Name Position wOBA wOBA v LHP wOBA v RHP ISO %GDIP diff
Nate McLouth CF L .357 .331 .366 .189 3
Martin Prado 2B R .357 .369 .349 .138 -2
Chipper Jones 3B S .391 .391 .391 .179 1
Brian McCann C L .376 .349 .387 .209 -2
Troy Glaus 1B R .348 .367 .341 .184 -2
Jason Heyward RF L .345 .324 .356 .158 2
Yunel Escobar SS R .339 .346 .335 .118 -8
Matt Diaz LF R .353 .372 .337 .145 -3
Melky Cabrera OF S .319 .319 .319 .117 -1

Ready to see a lineup?

Optimized Lineup vs RHP

Name Position wOBA ISO %GDIP diff
Chipper Jones 3B S .391 .179 1
Nate McLouth CF L .366 .189 3
Troy Glaus 1B R .341 .184 -2
Brian McCann C L .387 .209 -2
Martin Prado 2B R .349 .138 -2
Jason Heyward RF L .356 .158 2
Yunel Escobar SS R .335 .118 -8
Pitcher P ? ?? ?? ??
Melky Cabrera LF S .319 .117 -1

This one practically wrote itself. The top three are Chipper, Nate, a BMac and all three slot perfectly in the top spots. Glaus and Prado slot nicely too, though you could switch them if you felt Glaus is worse at GIDPing. They're both bad about hitting into them though, and I feel more confident saying Glaus has more power and is a worse hitter than Prado. You could put Heyward into the 5 hole, but it comes at a terrible price to 1,2,4 holes.

Optimized Lineup vs. LHP

Name Position wOBA v LHP ISO %GDIP diff
Martin Prado 2B R .369 .138 -2
Matt Diaz LF R .372 .145 -3
Brian McCann C L .349 .209 -2
Chipper Jones 3B S .391 .179 1
Troy Glaus 1B R .367 .184 -2
Yunel Escobar SS R .346 .118 -8
Jason Heyward RF L .324 .158 2
Pitcher P ? ???? ???? ?
Melky Cabrera CF S .319 .117 -1

At the last second I swapped Chipper and Diaz, I like it a lot better this way. Not a whole lot to say really, I wish the 3 hole hitters didn't GIDP so much but it can't be helped.

Feel free to discuss my lineup or post your own in the comments.

Big thanks goes out to Matt Klaassen aka Devil Fingers for his Lousy Lineup Series over at Driveline Mechanics that inspired this post, and his fangraphs article that taught me how to regress platoon splits.

This FanPost does not express the views or opinions of Battery Power.