The series on team offense continues with the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Diamondbacks finished fourteenth in the majors and fifth in the National League in 2013 with 4.23 runs scored per game.
The CBSSports.com projected lineup that Kirk Gibson may use is plugged into the Lineup Analysis Tool (LAT) using Musings Marcels as the batter projections. For the pitchers, the actual 2013 numbers for the Diamondbacks were used. That information produces the following results:
- Best lineup: 4.60
- Probable lineup: 4.32
- Worst lineup: 4.00
- Regressed lineup: 4.07
I’m a bit surprised that Gibson’s batting order is so far off from the optimum. He gets the general grouping right, with the same top four and the same bottom three, just in different orders. The big problem seems to be Miguel Montero, projected to have a high OBP but a low slugging percentage. He did spend time on the disabled list with a back injury in 2013, and that may have led to his drop in power. If the DBacks see him returning to his pre-2013 power levels, he’ll make more sense in the fourth slot, but at these levels, he might make more sense in front of Paul Goldschmidt than behind the slugging first baseman. I actually like Gibson’s order, and given that Montero catches, batting him high in the lineup, but not too high makes sense.
You can follow the data for the series in this Google spreadsheet.
Previous posts in the series: