The 2021 series on team offense continues with the the Chicago White Sox. The White Sox finished tied for fifth in the majors and second in the American League in 2020 with 5.10 runs scored per game.
I am using RotoChamp as a source of default lineups. That Tony La Russa order is plugged into the Lineup Analysis Tool (LAT) using Musings Marcels as the batter projections. That information produces the following results (Runs per game):
- Best lineup: 5.23
- Probable lineup: 5.17
- Worst lineup: 4.95
- Regressed lineup: 4.71
La Russa nails the bottom of the order, with Luis Robert batting seventh, Adam Engel batting eighth, and Nick Madrigal batting ninth. La Russa was an early proponent of batting the pitcher eighth (worst batter in the lineup), and it shows here. The probable lineup captures 79% of the value of the best lineup, and getting the bottom of the order right contributes a lot to that.
The other contributing factor is that the other six are all good batters, so it’s easy to mix and match. The seventh best lineup has the same players as the probable lineup if you consider them groups of three, for example. The biggest disagreement between the LAT and the probable lineup involves Tim Anderson. Anderson, a batting champion, is slated to bat lead-off for the White Sox, while the LAT tends to bat him sixth or seventh. Anderson produces a ton of hits but doesn’t walk much, so he owns a high BA and just an okay OBP.
What probably helps in batting Madrigal ninth is that he is still a new player. The Yankees do this with rookies who get on base. They batted Derek Jeter ninth, and they batted Nick Johnson ninth. It gives the rookie a chance to adjust to the majors without a lot of pressure, and gives the team the advantage of having the secondary lead-off man in the nine hole. If Madrigal’s bat starts to sing, I suspect he’ll move up in the order quickly.
You can follow the data for the series in this Google spreadsheet.
Previous posts in this series: