The Pirates have not reached .500 since Barry Bonds departed for free agency.
Photo: Icon SMI

The series on team offense continues with the Pittsburgh Pirates. I plug the probable lineup from CBSSportsLine into the Lineup Analysis Tool, and fill in the numbers with Marcel the Monkey projections. For pitchers, I used the Pirates 2008 numbers. The results:

• Best lineup: 4.42 runs per game
• Probable lineup: 4.24 runs per game
• Worst lineup: 3.90 runs per game
• Regressed lineup: 4.18 runs per game

The Pirates scored 4.54 runs per game in 2008.
I find two things sad about this Pirates lineup. The first is that the spread between the best and worst lineups is small for an NL team, about 0.5 runs. The second is that even their best lineup is not predicted to score as much as the team did last year. Given the low prediction of runs per game, the lack of spread between the best and worst lineups shows that the team just doesn’t possess much offensive talent.
Pittsburgh has no power outside of the heart of the order, and none of their 3-4-5 hitters are projected to slug over .500. The top OBA on the team comes in at .346, which wouldn’t make a good leadoff man on most teams. The team is going to make a lot of outs, and they can’t fall back on power to make up for some of that. Unless the pitching is fantastic, the Pirates are headed for another losing season. Call it the curse of Barry Bonds.
Other teams in this series:

• Texas Rangers (see this entry for a full explanation of this system).
• Chicago Cubs
• Boston Red Sox
• Minnesota Twins
• Detroit Tigers
• Chicago White Sox
• Cleveland Indians
• New York Mets
• Philadelphia Phillies
• New York Yankees
• Baltimore Orioles
• St. Louis Cardinals
• Florida Marlins
• Tampa Bay Rays
• Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
• Atlanta Braves
• Milwaukee Brewers
• Colorado Rockies

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