Andrew McCutchen gives the Pirates a potential MVP candidate. Photo: Cliff Welch/Icon SMI

The series on team offense continues with the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates finished twenty seventh in the majors and fourteenth in the National League in offense last season, scoring 3.77 runs per game.

The CBSSportsline probable batting order is the one manager Clint Hurdle 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: 4.25 runs per game
• Probable lineup: 4.05 runs per game
• Worst lineup: 3.65 runs per game
• Regressed lineup: 3.87 runs per game

The Pirates own half an offense. The first four batters in Hurdle’s lineups do at least a good job of getting on base, and Alex Presley and Andrew McCutchen hit for power. The next four in the order, however, do neither well. Rod Barajas does have some power, but it comes at the cost of a .284 OBP.

With this disparity of talent, lineup construction becomes more important. Hurdle does a good job here, putting his best four hitters together at the top. The LAT would prefer one of them to bat ninth, usually Jose Tabata, but the basic concept is there. Hurdle comes much closer to the optimum than the the opposite.

The good news for the Pirates is that they are not that far away from a decent offense. Four good players are capable of generating a decent number of runs. If at some point they can replace their sub-par players with ones capable of OBPs in the high .320s, they’ll suddenly look like an above average NL team. Slowly but surely they’re moving in the right direction.

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
• Houston Astros

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