Team Offense, Houston Astros

The series on team offense finishes with the Houston Astros. The Astros finished last in the majors and the National League in 2012 with 3.60 runs scored per game. Houston joins the American League West this season.

The CBSSports.com projected lineup that Bo Porter may use is plugged into the Lineup Analysis Tool (LAT) using Musings Marcels as the batter projections. That information produces the following results:

Best lineup: 4.58
Probable lineup: 4.54
Worst lineup: 4.42
Regressed lineup: 4.27

The first thing to notice is that there is not much difference between the best and worst order that Bo Porter can write on the lineup card. That usually means the hitters are pretty consistent throughout the lineup. Indeed, while there are no great OPBs or slugging percentages in the lineup, there are few bad ones. Porter does a good job of arranging these players. As I was tying in the lineup, I thought it would score well against the optimum, and Bo captures 75% of that value.

The upshot is that this team will probably be about league average in OBP and slugging percentage as a unit, meaning they’ll be close to league average in runs scored. That would be a huge improvement over 2012. On the other hand, this is the function of the Marcels. We don’t have a lot of information on many of these players, so the Monkey brings them toward league average. If nothing else, the Marcels give the Astros fans hope.

That hope may be well founded. I looked at the Bill James projections, which include minor league experience, and most of the James numbers would improve the outlook of the team. Be prepared for a pleasant surprise this year in Houston.

You can follow the data for the series in this Google spreadsheet.

Previous posts in the series:

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March 28, 2013

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