This article about who should lead off for the Blue Jays prompted me to take out the Lineup Analysis Tool, so I decided to start the team by team analysis of offense. I usually cover the teams in order of their previous year’s finish in runs scored, highest to lowest. I’ll do that after this introduction.

CBSSportsIine no longer publishes probable lineups, so I use a combination of the depth chart and last year’s popular lineups to come up with a probable one myself. I then plug OBA and slugging percentage from the Marcel the Monkey projections into the Lineup Analysis Tool (LAT).

In addition to posting runs per game for the best, probable and worst lineups, I’ll also post the regressed value of the probable lineup. In general, teams do not keep the probable lineup on the field the whole season, and this formula should help adjust for that.

Here are the results:

• Best lineup: 4.95 runs per game
• Probable lineup: 4.85 runs per game
• Worst lineup: 4.73 runs per game
• Regressed lineup: 4.57 runs per game

What’s clear from looking at the nine likely hitters is that there is no great option at lead-off. I would put Lyle Overbay there, and so would the lineup tool, based on the Marcels. The article talks about using Jose Bautista or Joey Gathright, but the better option probably is Travis Snider. The LAT likes Snider, too, as he’ comes up first in a number of the top lineups. On top of that, his recent minor league OBPs were good, and as he’s very young, he still has room for improvement.

As a whole, the lineup is poor. There are no great hitters, and three poor ones (Wells, Buck and Gonzalez). While the Blue Jays can hope for Wells to rebound, the longer it takes to happen, the less likely it becomes (think Eric Chavez). If the Jays are going to win with this lineup, they will need outstanding pitching, or a couple of career years from the hitters.