Here. Now I just feel slightly depressed about it.

but a few of notes in fraternity:

• Kyle Farnsworth has a better chance of outpitching Joakim Soria in 2009 than there being a credible study ever being evidence published that showing that “protection” matters.

• To the extent that lineup spots do matter, most lineup analyzers show that the best hitters should go in the 1, 2, and 4 spots.

• There should be separate lineups for facing LH and RH starters, not that most managers systematically do this (sigh).

• Against RH starters, the best hitters are David DeJesus and Alex Gordon (tied, Gordon probably takes the lead next year), and Mike Jacobs (distant third — OBP matters a lot. Also, he has to face major league pitching now).

• Now, obviously, you can’t have LH hitters next to each other, but that’s fine, we don’t want Jacobs anywhere near the top of the lineup (although better there than at first base, or at the stadium on nights when the Royals are facing a lefty). So against RHP, Gordon and DDJ need to be occupying two of the 1, 2, and 4 spots. I don’t really care which, probably 1 and 4, as those are the most important, given that they are the most likely to lead off innings during a game. And, really, it doesn’t matter which one hits. I like the idea of giving Alex a shot leading against off for a while, given his patience, speed, and baserunning skills, but it really doesn’t matter.

• The main problem with where to bat Jose Guillen, other than the fact that he’s done as a league-average hitter (barring another lucky BABIP year a la 2007, and that’s done as an average hitter, position-neutral), is that it means he’ll have to play the field. Well, at least he won’t be as bad as Jacobs (knock knock).

• FRAA is only slightly more useful as a defensive metric for contemporary baseball than Mike Jacobs is useful as a defensive player.

Of course that doesn’t take makeup, grit, fire, heart, moxie, chutzpah, voodoo or magical fairy dust into account, but I can live with that.

I have a horrible habit of ignoring lineup vs. LHP. I really should have distinguished both sets in this article. From the top of my head, the lineup vs. LHP would probably look vastly different. Isn’t the difference about 75-25, anyway (between RHP and LHP)?

Also, I remember reading somewhere that the #2 and #8 slots are for your OBP sinkholes.

what we need are better hitters. I buy putting DeJesus in the leadoff slot, and I think that I might not want Crisp as #2. I’m not sure that anybody else fits much better IMHO. I know this is sacrilege on this site, but I do think that there is something to having people who can actually hit the baseball. I don’t think it’s as simple as saying you want high OBP guys

To me, OBP is somewhat of a derivative of the ability to do damage with actually being able to hit the ball solidly. I mean, if you took me for example, as patient as I want to be at the plate, the pitcher is going to be able to easily get me out because he’s going to go right after me. I can’t do any damage with the bat.

Why does Barry Bonds have such a good OBP, just to throw out the example that comes first to my mind? It’s partly because he has good pitch recognition, to be sure, but it also partly has to do with the fact that pitchers are somewhat afraid to pitch to him, does it not?

I guess what I’m saying, is in my mind, I get the fact that getting on base and not making outs is very important. But, how much of that is derived from the fact that the player is a good hitter in the first place?

To take an example from another sport, in football there’s all kinds of studies that show how turnovers have a correlation to success/failure in a football game. But what is left unsaid, is that there may be a large of amount of correlation, but the causation may not match up. I mean, how much of the turnover margin may be due to the fact that a team is coming from behind and taking gambles or simply not as good as the other team? Again, if there were 11 HRTC playing a football game, we could have as our number one goal to not turn the ball over, but the chance of us winning would be almost nil (maybe slightly better against the Chiefs or Lions). And, we may not be able to prevent turnovers anyway because the other team is going to be faster and stronger.

I guess what I’m getting at, is that talent is what wins, and I wonder how much of OBP is derived from the player’s ability to actually be productive with the bat as opposed to simply a mindset that you’re going to take walks? I mean, after all, the ability to take walks would also seem largely a function of being able to recognize pitches that you can’t do anything with and either laying off of them or fouling them off until you get a pitch that you can hit solidly.

To carry the thought a step further, if you put a player in a spot (say #4) in the lineup, where they are “expected” to drive in runs, would that player be as successful and be able to maintain their strike zone discipline in a “higher-leverage” situation? I know that studies have shown that there is no such thing as clutchness, but there’s got to be some aspect of being able to maintain focus in pressure situations, doesn’t there?

To make a long story longer, I guess what I want is guys that can hit, guys that can recognize pitches that they can do something with and pass on the ones that they can’t by either fouling them off or taking.

So to bring it full circle, one could simply order players in their order of XOBP and go from there, which has been discussed before. Obviously, that’s not going to happen, so you’re left with doing the best with the options you’ve got available.

I like DeJesus at leadoff, and I would want somebody who can “handle the bat” in the 2nd spot – again, I don’t know that we’ve got great options overall here. Let’s say we go Crisp b/c I’m not sold on Mike Aviles. I like Gordon #3, Guillen #4, and Jacobs #5, Butler #6, Callaspo #7, Olivo #8, and Aviles #9.

Anyway, probably too long of a post, and I hope I’m making sense with what I’m trying to say.

All hail the Cleveland Indians!

However, that was not Trey Hillman’s lineup. A reporter made up that lineup and Hillman politely said it looked good. In fact, Hillman mentioned that he got in trouble last year when he provided a lineup, and that he wasn’t going to do that again.

Having said that, I enjoyed this post – a lot of good points being made.

lf dejesus-keep the obp up here, stolen bases should not dictate lineups
ss aviles-solid hitter, willing to go the other way for contact (ideal for 2nd hitter)
3b gordon-great obp to set up those that follow, high power potential
1b butler-hard to imagine him not improving on a generally weak ops(definitely has more power and patience than he showed last year)
rf guillen-guillen is a 5 hitter, a RBI man not suited well to getting on base for others
dh jacobs-see guillen, jose, but more power, less patience if possible
cf crisp-decent power guy, very similar to dejesus w/ much more speed, probably will have more doubles and triples than ever before in his career, speed also will help w/ olivo afterwards
c olivo-the above post hates on olivo, but if he gets a chance to be a full time guy, .240/.290/.490 (15-20 homers) would be great especially if his arm and defense stays at 2008 levels
2b callaspo-good 9 hitter, could work at 2, 7, or 8 as well, patient contact hitter

I have not been a huge fan of Crisp, but have warmed up to him a bit. I figured Teahen’s bat would make for Crisp’s glove.

Using Marcels predictions (I have Bill James’s also, but he has every Royal getting better in 2009, can’t really believe that) and lifetime UZR/150, I came up with the best OF LF to RF of:

Dejesus – Crisp – Guillen

They score on average 4.86 runs per game while Guillen-Dejesus-Teahen score 4.89 or 5.3 runs over 150 game (needed to use 150 for UZR). D-C-G cost us .5 wins vs G-D-T when batting.

The big difference is on the defensive side where G-D-T have a combined UZR/150 of -3.8, while D-C-G have one of 28. We would gain over 3 wins with D-C-G playing defense.

Next I will look at which 1B-DH combo will create the most runs, while allowing the fewest.

With DDJ-Crisp-Teahen they score 3 more runs than DDJ-Crisp-Guillen, but give up .5 more runs.

One weighting the Defense, that might be great, but some of the samples are pretty small right now and I didn’t want to cherry pick who to change stats on.

Assumptions:

1. Kila taken out of picture. This might change, but I would like for him to get 1/2 a year at AAA before being totally set on him.
2. Looked at Bulter, Shealy and Jacobs.
3. Compared the 2 and picked the best defensive one and other became DH

It looks like a tie pretty much — as long as Shealy is at 1B when given the opportunity and Butler is 1B when teamed with Jacobs.

Runs Scored: Butler-Jacobs with Shealy-Bulter 7 runs behind and Shealy-Jacobs 7.5 runs behind

Runs Allowed: Shealy-Jacobs and Shealy – Bulter tops with a UZR/150 of 14 and Bulter – Jacobs with 6

So once combined: Shealy – Bulter outperform Shealy -Jacobs by .5 runs and Bulter-Jacobs by 1 run.

1. DeJesus
2. Gordon
3. B. Pena
4. Jacobs
5. Butler
6. Guillen
7. Aviles
8. Crisp
9. Callaspo

5.097 runs per game

If you replace B. Pena with Olivo at his career averages, you get this optimal lineup:

1. DeJesus
2. Gordon
3. Crisp
4. Jacobs
5. Butler
6. Guillen
7. Aviles
8. Olivo
9. Callaspo

5.011 runs per game

You often see this kind of thing with the optimal lineup. The best overall hitters at 1, 2 and 5, an unimpressive hitter at 3 and less impressive hitters that have decent power at 4 and 6.