The 2022 series on team offense continues with the Toronto Blue Jays. The Blue Jays finished third in the majors and the American League in 2021 with 5.22 runs scored per game.
This season I am using FanGraphs Roster Resource Depth Charts* as the source of default lineups. That Charlie Montoyo batting 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: 5.44
- Probable lineup: 5.34
- Worst lineup: 5.10
- Regressed lineup: 4.82
One feature of the LAT is that the worst hitter bats eighth. This allows higher slugging players to bat at the top of the order and have someone more likely to be on base when those great hitters bat. It seems to me that if the Blue Jays are really going to bat two .500 sluggers in George Springer and Bo Bichette at the top of the order, it would be better to bat Danny Jansen eighth and Caven Biggio ninth.
It’s a small thing, as even the worst batting order the Jays could put on the field would do pretty well. The Jays did lose eight more games than expected in 2021 given their runs scored and allowed, so scoring a few more runs with a slightly better batting order should be worth it to this team.
You can follow the data for the series in this Google spreadsheet.
Previous posts in this series:
*This is the best version of this information I’ve seen, with everything you might want to know on one page.