J.D. Martinez is one of the young players the Astros hope develop into stars. Photo: Ed Wolfstein/Icon SMI

The series on team offense continues with the Houston Astros. The Astros finished their penultimate season in the NL twenty sixth in the majors and thirteenth in the National League in offense last season, scoring 3.80 runs per game.

The CBSSportsline probable batting order is the one manager Brad Mills is likely to write up this season. The OBP and slugging percentage used come from the Marcel the Monkey forecast system. For the pitchers, I used the team’s actual numbers from 2011 at that position. Plugging those numbers in the Lineup Analysis Tool (LAT) produces the following results:

• Best lineup: 4.14 runs per game
• Probable lineup: 3.97 runs per game
• Worst lineup: 3.72 runs per game
• Regressed lineup: 3.81 runs per game

One of the problems in evaluating the Astros is that their projections tend to have low reliability scores. Carlos Lee, with a long career behind him, comes in at 0.87 (1.00 would be perfect), while Jose Altuve, Brian Bogusevic, and J.D. Martinez are all under .50. They’ve been heavily regressed to the league mean, so they might perform much better than their estimate, or much worse. The Astros and their fans hope for better.

Bogusevic, for example produced high OBPs in the minors. If he can do the same in the majors, the LAT is right to put him in the lead-off slot. Altuve was even better in the minors at reaching base, and J.D. Martinez topped them both. Looking just at these three youngsters, there’s plenty of potential for the Astros to exceed these projections and score more runs.

On the other hand, the team lacks a true power hitter at the moment. Martinez might turn into one, but there won’t be a lot of support behind him. A lack of extra base hits by the team would mean they are going to need to keep the bases filled to score a lot of runs.

The Astros are starting to rebuild under new ownership and a new front office. At least they are sending out three hitters who could become a solid core for them for many years.

You can see the results of all the teams on this Google spreadsheet as the series progresses.

Previous articles in this series:

• Explanation
• Boston Red Sox
• New York Yankees
• Texas Rangers
• Detroit Tigers
• St. Louis Cardinals
• Toronto Blue Jays
• Colorado Rockies
• Cincinnati Reds
• Arizona Diamondbacks
• Kansas City Royals
• Milwaukee Brewers
• New York Mets
• Philadelphia Phillies
• Baltimore Orioles
• Tampa Bay Rays
• Cleveland Indians
• Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
• Chicago White Sox
• Chicago Cubs
• Los Angeles Dodgers
• Oakland Athletics
• Atlanta Braves
• Washington Nationals
• Miami Marlins
• Minnesota Twins

If you like the Lineup Analysis Tool or series like this, please consider donating to the Baseball Musings Pledge Drive.