March 24, 2015

Team Offense, Milwaukee Brewers

The 2015 series on team offense continues with the Milwaukee Brewers. The Brewers finished fifteenth in the majors and sixth in the the National League in 2014 with 4.01 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. The choice between Scooter Gennett and Carlos Gomez for the lead-off slot seems to be going to Gennett. Both project to the same .337 OBP, but Gomez projects to a high slugging percentage that should be useful lower in the order. That Ron Roenicke lineup is plugged into the Lineup Analysis Tool (LAT) using Musings Marcels as the batter projections. For the pitchers, I used their actual averages from 2014. That information produces the following results:

Best lineup: 4.63 runs per game
Probable lineup: 4.39
Worst lineup: 4.03
Regressed lineup: 4.10

Roenicke pretty much gets the order right, but one off from the LAT. His two through seven hitters match the LAT’s 1-6 hitters exactly. Given the order is similar, I’m surprised that batting Gennett seventh instead of first makes such a huge difference. While Jonathan Lucroy‘s OBP makes him a great potential lead-off hitter, it’s tough for a catcher to bat at the top of the order.

What I really like about the Brewers is their power. While no one projects to a .500 slugging percentage, most of the players have some pop. If healthy, this should be a greatly improved lineup compared to 2014.

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

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