Team Offense, Milwaukee Brewers

The 2017 series on team offense continues with the Milwaukee Brewers. The Brewers finished tied for 11th in the National League and tied for twenty fifth in the majors in 2016 with 4.14 runs scored per game.

I am using RotoChamp as a source of default lineups. That Craig Counsell order is plugged into the Lineup Analysis Tool (LAT) using Musings Marcels as the batter projections. For the pitchers, slot, I used the actual values for the Brewers in 2016. That information produces the following results (Runs per game):

Best lineup: 4.38
Probable lineup: 4.16
Worst lineup: 3.84
Regressed lineup: 4.02

The Brewers have a huge wild card in the middle of their order, Eric Thames. Thames has not played in the majors over the last three seasons. I gave him the 2016 MLB average for non-pitchers as his Marcel projection. Other systems give him a much better projection, based on his success overseas. If we use the Depth Chart projection (.336, .504), which combines a couple of systems, Thames absolutely belongs in the cleanup slot. Those number produce a best lineup of 4.55 runs per game, a probable lineup of 4.36 runs per game, and a worst lineup of 3.98 runs per game. So reality for Marcus Thames might add 0.2 runs per game to the Brewers average, or about three wins. Since his is projected to bat fourth, the Brewers likely believe that level of offense from first base.

This was a good job by Counsell. The fifth best lineup with the better Thames numbers looks a lot like the projected lineup. The LAT likes Jonathan Villar, and Domingo Santana batting behind Thames. The Brewers might be ready to surprise some opposing pitching staffs.

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

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Previous posts in this series:

Correction: Eric, not Marcus Thames. It was correct in the LAT.

March 22, 2017

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