Dodgers Optimized Lineup

by kretz on Mar 23, 2009 10:40 PM PDT Comment 8 comments

I was reading Beyond the Box Score and came upon this post about Optimizing your Lineup. Now I've never read The Book before and I'm really not an expert at Optimizing lineups but I think it would be fun to give it a try. If it's popular enough we should get polls going like we did for the all time Dodger lineup.

1. Martin Highest OBP player not named Ramirez

2. Kemp Calling a breakout year for him

3. Furcal

4. Ramirez

5. Ethier

6. Hudson

7. Loney

8. Blake

9. We're not St. Louis we don't need a hitter here

I'd consider switching Kemp and Furcal but the rest I think looks good. Unless we bat Hudson 9 and move everyone up 1 spot.

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Read More: dodgers optimized linueup, Los Angeles Dodgers, Optimizing Your Lineup By The Book(Beyond the box score)

Comments

I like this idea

Using the weighted mean projections from Baseball Prospectus, here are the 2009 Dodgers by position:

C – Martin .292/.382/.433
1B – Loney .286/.347/.446
2B – Hudson .279/.350/.392
3B – Blake .261/.330/.434
SS – Furcal .290/.363/.406
LF – Manny .295/.390/.537
CF – Kemp .293/.351/.480
RF – Ethier .293/.369/.465

The Book lineup would probably be something like this:

Martin C (OBP is king here)
Ethier RF (2nd best hitter in lineup, plus high OBP)
Furcal SS (3rd spot not as important, OBP is key)
Manny LF (best hitter)
Kemp CF (best hitter after 1, 4, 2 assuming he doesn’t live and die by the long ball)
Hudson 2B
Loney 1B
Pitcher P
Blake 3B

6-9 are sorted by OBP, with the pitcher batting 8th

by Eric Stephen on Mar 23, 2009 10:59 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

That lineup looks pretty good actually

But it’ll never be used of course. I’d settle for:

Furcal
Hudson
Ethier
Manny
Kemp
Loney
Martin
Blake
Pitcher

by Brendan Scolari on Mar 23, 2009 11:35 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

OBP isn't key in the third spot.

It’s usually whoever the fifth best hitter is. Sometimes the 4th best hitter if he’s extremely dependent on HRs for his value. Since that’s not Furcal at all, he probably should be lower – fifth or sixth so his SBs are productive in front of singles hitters.

Taking the projections listed and doing (1.75*OBP + SLG)/3 to create a wOBA like number, we get the hitters ranked in this order:

.407 Manny
.370 Ethier
.367 Martin
.365 Kemp
.351 Loney
.347 Furcal
.337 Blake
.335 Hudson

Manny’s obviously the best hitter. Then we need two of Ethier/Martin/Kemp. Martin is the most OBP dependent for his value and doesn’t hit many HRs. He’ll lead off. Manny probably fits best fourth, so let’s put Ethier second for his OBP, although Kemp’s not a bad option, either.

Kemp then goes fifth, as the next best hitter, and Loney third. Loney’s not a great option for the third spot, as he’s not a big HR guy, but Furcal’s even worse and nobody else is good enough to bat that high. Another nice thing about putting kemp fifth is that his steals are valuable in front of the high contact Furcal. After Furcal comes Blake, who’s power will hopefully clear off any baserunner before the pitcher bats. Finally, Hudson’s at the bottom of the lineup, who’s OBP is quite useful in front of the top of the lineup and who’s lack of SLG doesn’t matter as much coming after the pitcher.

Things, of course, might look different with a different projection system. Take CHONE, for example, with the hitters ranked by runs per 150 games:

35 Ramirez
11 Ethier
9 Martin
8 Kemp
4 Loney
-2 Furcal
-3 Hudson
-3 Blake

Well, pretty similar ranking, actually, except that Furcal is closer to Hudson and Blake than Loney.

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on Mar 25, 2009 5:58 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs