Team Offense, Atlanta Braves

The 2015 series on team offense continues with the Atlanta Braves. The Braves finished twenty ninth in the majors and fourteenth in the the National League in 2014 with 3.54 runs scored per game.

RotoChamp and USA Today disagreed on a number of players in the starting lineup. RotoChamp seems to have the right starting nine, so that is the batting order used here. (I suspect there may be changes before opening day.) That Fredi Gonzalez lineup is plugged into the Lineup Analysis Tool (LAT) using Musings Marcels as the batter projections. For the pitchers, the actual averages for the Braves staff from 2014 was used. That information produces the following results:

Best lineup: 3.87 runs per game
Probable lineup: 3.64
Worst lineup: 3.27
Regressed lineup: 3.54

When a team posts a poor offensive season, then trades away two of the best hitters, the team should not expect to improve. Note that the regressed runs scored, 3.54, is exactly what the Braves averaged in 2014. They may be lucky Melvin Upton (a.k.a. B.J.) is injured. He might be worse offensively that anyone else they could put in the outfield.

As for the lineup, the LAT agrees with the default in only two places, Chris Johnson batting fourth and Zoilo Almonte batting sixth. The worst lineup is so bad, however, that giving up two tenths of a run per game still captures 60% of the distance between the bottom and top orders.

This is not the year to expect great things from the Braves hitters.

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

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Previous posts in this series:

March 29, 2015

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