Thursday, March 02, 2006

"The Book" and Optimal Batting Order - Part 2

A Hardball Times article talks more about optimal batting orders, as defined in "The Book." "The Book" says:

Your three best hitters should bat somewhere in the #1, #2 and #4 slots. Your fourth- and fifth-best hitters should occupy the #3 and #5 slots. The #1 and #2 slots will have players with more walks than those in the #4 and #5 slots. From slot #6 through #9, put the players in descending order of quality.

Following those rules as best as I can (the article also mentions putting the pitcher 8th) and using PECOTA projections, I come up with this lineup for the Brewers:

BA OBP SLG OPS

1 Fielder 0.268 0.349 0.489 0.838
2 Weeks 0.267 0.361 0.462 0.823
3 Jenkins 0.272 0.347 0.479 0.826
4 Lee 0.282 0.347 0.506 0.853
5 Koskie 0.251 0.351 0.431 0.782
6 Hardy 0.264 0.342 0.418 0.760
7 Clark 0.281 0.349 0.402 0.751
8 Pitcher 0.150 0.150 0.100 0.250
9 Miller 0.250 0.320 0.390 0.710

Koskie doesn't really fit at the 5 spot, since he walks more than anyone on the whole team. Since he had the 5th highest projected OPS, I decided to there, however.

It would never happen, but it sure would be interesting to see what that one through four could do!

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Actually, it would recomend Jenkins (or Weeks since he projects below Jenkins) and Koskie flipping positions because of the #3 hitter coming up mroe often with 2 outs and no one on. So you'd take the guy with thr lower BA since you want to maximize the impact of hits and the 5th spot would do that batter. The big question is whether the 10-15 runs mentioned is compared to average or the worst possible.

11:30 PM  
Blogger rluzinski said...

First, I was trying to take a more subjective approach, so I basically ignored Jenkins' 3 extra projected points of OPS. Weeks walks alot, so I thought he fit perfectly in the 2 hole.

As I mentioned in my post, I agree that Koskie doesn't really hit in the 5 hole, but I took the comment, "Your fourth- and fifth-best hitters should occupy the #3 and #5 slots." as in, respectively. I certainly could see the value of Kosie in the 3 spot, since his walks with no one on has the same value of a single in that situation.

I should have "The Book" sometimes this week. I'm sure I'll have a better understanding of the correct lineup structure (and the suns scored implication) after I read it.

Thanks for commenting...

8:29 AM  

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