The series on team offense continues with the St. Louis Cardinals. The Red Birds finished fifth in the majors and first in the National League in offense last season, scoring 4.70 runs per game. They topped the NL by a wide margin, 0.16 runs per game ahead of the Colorado rockies.
The CBSSportsline probable batting order is the one rookie manager Mike Matheny is likely to write up this season. The OBP and slugging percentage used come from the Marcel the Monkey forecast system. The numbers for pitchers represent the Cardinals pitchers batting in 2011. Plugging those numbers in the Lineup Analysis Tool (LAT) produces the following results:
- Best lineup: 4.82 runs per game
- Probable lineup: 4.58 runs per game
- Worst lineup: 4.31 runs per game
- Regressed lineup: 4.28 runs per game
Most managers post lineups that are closer to the optimum than the worst possible. Matheny so far has split the difference almost perfectly. The biggest problem is his use of his worst projected position player, Rafael Furcal, in the lead-off slot. Furcal is a tough case. When he’s healthy, he’s a perfectly respectable leadoff hitter. Unfortunately:
- Furcal has not played a full season since 2009.
- He’s coming off a season where at age 33 he posted a .298 OBP.
Daniel Descalso is young and improving. Just flipping those two in the lineup brings the Cardinals R/G up to 4.61.
The biggest problem, however, is all that OBP locked up in the power hitters of the 3-4-5 slots. I would be tempted to stick Carlos Beltran in the lead-off slot, or maybe have Jon Jay bat first with Beltran second. In his first season, however, Matheny is unlikely to experiment as much as Tony La Russa might.
All of these changes produce small run increases. I really that Furcal is the only position player with a somewhat low OBP, as if he’s healthy that might go up. You can tell there was a great sabermetric influence in constructing the offense, as there are no easy outs in the lineup. Even he pitchers get on base decently for their position. They even look pretty good comapred with the Albert Pujols Cardinals of last year. With all that, Matheny really can’t go too far wrong.
You can see the results of all the teams on this Google spreadsheet as the series progresses.
Previous articles in this series:
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