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Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Does a balnced offense score more than an imbalanced one?
If you were hoping for a nice study, you will be disappointed. While I’ve always wondered this, I have not yet studied the issue. However, I did run a couple of lineups through my sim to see what it would come up with.
Here is an exactly league average lineup (total lwts of exactly zero, according to my projections), which is comprised of two of the best hitters in the NL plus a bunch of below average hitters. I even put a bad one in the leadoff spot, so that you have a bad hitter, a very bad hitter, and the two really good ones in Braun and Fielder, followed by 5 more below average ones. Here is that lineup:
Alex Escobar
Craig Counsell
Ryan Braun
Prince Fielder
Casey McGehee
Matt Gamel
Jason Kendall (boy does he suck)
Frank Catalanotto
It generated 4.515 rpg versus a average RHP and 4.171 versus an average LHP for an average of 4.343 rpg.
Now, here is also a league average lineup (total lwts of zero) but much more balanced:
Dexter Fowler
Seth Smith
TroyTulowitzki
Chris Ianetta
Garrett Atkins
Ryan Spilborghs
Carlos Gonzalez
Ian Stewart
This lineup scored 4.331 versus a LHP and 4.562 versus a RHP, for an average of 4.446.
That is .1 rpg better than the previous lineup, which is a lot: 1.6 wins a year.
Now, my sim includes base running and of course batting order makes a difference, so don’t put too much weight in this little experiment. I thought the results were fairly interesting though.