Alberto Callaspo keeps his eye on the ball.
Photo: Icon SMI
The series on team offense continues with the Kansas City Royals. I plug the probable lineup from CBSSportsLine into the Lineup Analysis Tool, and fill in the numbers with Marcel the Monkey projections. The results:
- Best lineup: 4.86 runs per game
- Probable lineup: 4.80 runs per game
- Worst lineup: 4.55 runs per game
- Regressed lineup: 4.53 runs per game
The Royals scored 4.27 runs per game in 2008.
Despite Dayton Moore’s failure to follow through on bringing in players who get on base, the Royals offense looks like it will be better in 2009. The probable lineup agrees with the best lineup in four slots. If you look at it in thirds, the 1-3, 4-6 and 7-9 sections use the same three players in both the probable and best lineups. Hillman looks like he’s going to come close to getting the most out of this order.
The big boost actually comes at the bottom of the order. Last season, these three slots generated OBAs of .288, .310 and .281 seven through nine. With the seven and nine slots both projecting over .330 with Alex Gordon and Alberto Callaspo, the Royals should actually get some runs at the back end of the offense.
There’s lots of room for improvement here, but the offense looks like it’s moving in the right direction. Somehow, they should be able to do better than Mike Jacobs at first. I wonder if they’ll be able to pick up Nick Johnson cheap at some point?
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
- Pittsburgh Pirates
- Arizona Diamondbacks
- Houston Astros
- Toronto Blue Jays
- Cincinnati Reds
- Los Angeles Dodgers
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