Baseball Musings: Team Offenses

January 21, 2008

Team Offenses

During this slow period of baseball news, I'd like to start looking at how team offense stack up for next season. I'm planning on going in order of the 2007 ranking in runs per game. We'll start with the Yankees. In 2007, the Yankees scored 5.98 runs per game, the highest rate in the majors.

I plugged in a likely lineup to the Lineup Analysis Tool, using the Marcel the Monkey predictions from Tom Tango.. Note that I'm using Giambi at first base despite the fact the Yankees are talking about platooning there. The lineups rate as follows:

Best: 5.98 runs per game
Given: 5.89 runs per game
Worst: 5.72 runs per game

That's a pretty narrow range, and reflects the depth of the lineup top to bottom. The worst OBAs in the starting nine are Damon and Cabrera at .350. The AL average OBA was .338 in 2007, giving the Yankees a lineup well above average. They look poised to lead the league in runs scored again.

Bobby Abreu
John Sommers II/Icon SMI

Note too, that Jeter and Abreu are interchangeable players. One works just as well as the other in a particular lineup slot, and the best lineups do have them batting consecutively.

Substituting Betemit for Giambi lowers scoring a bit:

Best: 5.87 runs per game
Given: 5.80 runs per game
Worst: 5.59 runs per game

Betemit widens the spread between good and bad lineups, but doesn't hurt that much offensively, especially if you think he can make up the lost 17 runs with his glove at first. Now substitute Shelly Duncan:

Best: 5.89 runs per game
Given: 5.81 runs per game
Worst: 5.60 runs per game

A little better than Betemit. Even though Wilson and Shelly are not Giambi in terms of OBA and power, they still project to hit well. That gives the Yankees two players off the bench capable of getting on base at better than a league average clip. That's flexibility Joe Girardi should appreciate. Quite simply put, what every combination the Yankees settle on will be among the league leaders in runs scored.

Posted by David Pinto at 11:14 AM | Team Evaluation | TrackBack (0)

Comments

i believe that the yankee hitting will become more aggressive under the new manager. any pitcher could just about grove the first pitch down the middle of the plate, because the yankee hitters would take it , and being 0/1 there were in the defensive mode right (no pun intended) the bat.

Posted by: james r kostyk at January 21, 2008 04:19 PM

I'm not convinced that I'd want, were I a Yankees fan, Girardi to say anything to most of the Yankees hitters other than 'Good year in 2007, just do what you were doing last year.' Especially to Jeter and Posada. I doubt there's a lot of evidence that the Yankees spent a lot of time hurting themselves by being insufficiently aggressive.

Posted by: NBarnes at January 21, 2008 07:12 PM

They were inconsistent though, they're just a good scoring team in the first 2 to 3 month then turned into a abosalutle video game mode starting July . did you see that the Yanks had like 5 guys lead the AL in hits that month? and one of them (Matsui) lead in HR too, ridiculas.

Posted by: RollingWave at January 21, 2008 08:08 PM

Yes, please Girardi, give your team horrible horrible advice about hitting. I would love to see a free-swinging Yankees team swinging at balls in the dirt.

Please listen to the posters #1 and #3 -- all non-Yankee fans will love you for it!

Posted by: Sal Paradise at January 21, 2008 09:38 PM

woo, i didn't say that i like to see the Yanks free swing. I'm just pointing out that in 07, they were fairly inconsistent month to month, being simply only a good scoring team from April to June, then suddenly went into abosalute beserk mode in the later half. it was obviously reflected in their record . and the reason for it was obviously because other than A-rod and Posada and to a lesser extend Jeter, everyone else on the team was poor / hurt / ok / terrible in the first few month . ( Cano / Giambi / Damon /Matsui / Abreu / Cabrera )

Posted by: RollingWave at January 22, 2008 01:20 AM