ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 17, 2018 20:57:20 GMT -5
I've revisited my Table-Set and Knock-In metrics for the first time since late in 2016, and they make the best lineup for this year, and the remaining alternative scenarios, pretty clear. Xander has to move up to 2 (or 3), with Hanley dropping to 5. So you get:
Betts Bogaerts * Benintendi * Martinez Ramirez Pedroia [/ Nunez] Devers Vazquez / Leon Bradley
(When Betts, Benny, or JDM are out of the lineup, Moreland hits 5th and Hanley 3rd or 4th. )
*There's an argument for batting Benny 2 and Xanders 3, chiefly in that Benny is much more a table-setter and Xander much more a teammate-RBI guy. But doing it this way follows the rule of thumb that the better hitter should hit 2nd, and it also surrounds Benny with 4 RHB, which will really minimize the number of LHR he faces.
Scenario 1: Benny disappoints and is clearly not as good as Hanley. He and Hanley swap.
Scenario 2: Pedey is tremendous. He can hit 5th (as the leadoff guy for the second half of the lineup) and Hanley 6th.
Scenario 3: Devers exceeds expectations and is every bit as good as Hanley and Benintendi. He moves up to 5, Hanley hits 6th, and 7-8-9 is JBJ, catcher, Pedroia.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Apr 17, 2018 21:47:18 GMT -5
Relevant: In your projections, what is the difference between this lineup and the one being used right now?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 18, 2018 1:55:43 GMT -5
Relevant: In your projections, what is the difference between this lineup and the one being used right now? You mean the one with Benny 2, Hanley 3, and Bogaerts 5? That entirely depends on how good Bogaerts is relative to Hanley. But a big thing here is that JDM provides fewer RBI opportunities than anyone else in the lineup (in part because he clears the bases so often himself). Coming into today, Xander was leading the team in the ability to knock in his teammates, by a mile. And even after Mookie's monster night, Xander still leads. (Both are currently ahead of JDM's performance last year.) You don't want to put your best teammate-RBI guy after your worst table-setter, right? Put another way, Xander was 4th in MLB in wRC+ among guys with his PA or more. If he can keep to anywhere near that level, it's hard to keep him out of the top of the lineup. Put a third way, the top three table-setters this year are Benintendi, Betts, and Bogaerts. Last year Bogaerts and Pedroia were virtually tied for first, then Mookie, then Benny and Vazquez. If you have a guy who's one of your top 2 or 3 hitters and one of your top 3 table-setters, you don't hit him 5th in front of the guys in the order with the lower knock-in skills. IOW, 5th is the seemingly reasonable position in the order that makes the least sense for a guy as good as Xander. Elite table-setter in front of weaker knock-in guys, elite knock-in guy after the worst table-setter. This is why guys that good shouldn't hit 5th. (An ideal guy to hit after JDM would be a near-to-his prime Pedroia.) BTW, if the difference is just half a win (I suspect it's more), that's what you expect from many deadline deals. If you can find a handful of those during the season, they can easily add up to mean a division title instead of a WC. The whole "batting order doesn't mater that much" meme overlooks that.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Apr 18, 2018 11:53:07 GMT -5
It was an honest question. I'm curious how much value we're talking about is all.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 18, 2018 15:50:50 GMT -5
It was an honest question. I'm curious how much value we're talking about is all. I took it as such! My answer is, we have no idea yet, but even the worst case makes it worth doing. The standard finding for optimizing a typical lineup is 5 to 15 runs. Ours would be at the top end of that or even beyond it, because the guys are so good and so stylistically extreme. Of course, I'm mostly just talking about swapping two guys in a lineup that's pretty well lined up, so my conservative guess for getting Xander up to 2 would be 10 runs / 1 win. Now, that's excluding any gain from pressuring the crap out of opposing pitchers by making them face first Mookie and then Xander to start the game. Lineup optimizing studies assume that everyone gets pitched to hits the same no matter where they are, and that's demonstrably not true.
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