Team Offense, Cleveland Indians

Shin-Soo Choo hopes that his winter army workouts adds to his power numbers. Photo: Tony Ding/Icon SMI

The series on team offense continues with the Cleveland Indians. The Tribe finished sixteenth in the majors and ninth in the American League in offense last season, scoring 4.35 runs per game.

The CBSSportsline probable batting order is the one manager Manny Acta is likely to write up this season. The OBP and slugging percentage used come from the Marcel the Monkey forecast system. Plugging those numbers in the Lineup Analysis Tool (LAT) produces the following results:

Best lineup: 4.96 runs per game
Probable lineup: 4.83 runs per game
Worst lineup: 4.71 runs per game
Regressed lineup: 4.47 runs per game

While 4.83 R/G seems close to the optimum lineup, it actuall lies closer to the worst lineup than the best. The good news there is that no matter what order Acta writes in, the team should score decently. On the other hand, Manny is not doing the most he can to maximize the team’s chance to win.

One problem Acta faces is the lack of an obvious lead-off hitter. Shin-Soo Choo, Carlos Santana, and Travis Hafner do the best job of getting on base, but all three are more middle of the order types. The team failed over the last three seasons to replace the oft-injured Grady Sizemore. It seems to me that Acta’s best bet would be to use Asdrubal Cabrera and Jason Kipnis 1-2 rather than Michael Brantley followed by Cabrera.

Where is Matt LaPorta? He currently ranks third on the depth chart at first base. He turned out to be a disappointing pickup in CC Sabathia trade.

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

Previous articles in this series:

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March 15, 2012

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