The 2015 series on team offense continues with the Cleveland Indians. The Indians finished eleventh in the majors and seventh in the the American League in 2014 with 4.13 runs scored per game.
I could not find updated lineups at CBSSports.com, so I am going to use a combination of RotoChamp and USA Today. In this case, I’m going with the USA Today lineup since Jason Kipnis looks like a better number two hitter to me. That Terry Francona lineup is plugged into the Lineup Analysis Tool (LAT) using Musings Marcels as the batter projections. That information produces the following results:
Best lineup: 4.86 runs per game
Probable lineup: 4.77
Worst lineup: 4.62
Regressed lineup: 4.38
The Indians should get on base at a good clip this season. In 2014, the AL OBP was .314. Every starter on the Indians is projected to do better than .320. There are also a number of players that are fairly lineup interchangeable, all with OBPs around .323 and fairly low slugging percentages.
That said, the LAT doesn’t really agree with this lineup arrangement. It likes Michael Bourn and Jason Kipnis at the bottom of the order, not the top. It likes Carlos Santana leading off. It does like Nick Swisher seventh, and often it likes Yan Gomes sixth.
There’s little difference between the best and worst lineup with this group of players, due to the consistency throughout the lineup. That should allow Francona to slot players where they feel the most comfortable and still generate plenty of runs.
You can follow the data for the series in this Google spreadsheet.
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