Mariner lineup composition
Using the Baseball Musings Lineup Analysis tool (see also this link for more info) and the 2006 PECTOA projections:
The best lineup it came up with was (surprisingly)
Johjima
Sexson
Everett
Ibanez
Beltre
Betancourt
Ichiro
Lopez
Reed
at a whopping 5.016 runs a game. Fun fact: in the “best lineup” section, Sexson bats 2nd every time and Johjima or Reed bats first.
Worst lineup, at 4.792 r/g:
Lopez
Betancourt
Reed
Everett
Ichiro
Ibanez
Beltre
Johjima
Sexson
Of course, standard caveats apply: we’re using the weighted mean forecasts, it doesn’t take into account L/R advantages or tactical concerns, much less player contentment. But it’s still interesting. If for no other reason than to think that using this methodology, the difference between best and worst lineup is .2 a game, which is over 20 runs a season, which is two games in the standings!
Still, the difference between the best guess at what the actual conventional-wisdom lineup will be and the ideal lineup is only .1 runs/game.
I’ll spare everyone my super-long rant about lineup optimization, but I find this stuff fascinating. And you know who gave us the idea for this post? Peter White! Yes that Peter White!
Moyer, Petagine, more Sunday news
TNT: Moyer watches video! Shocking! Roberto Petagine wants to break into the majors.
In the Times, Bob Finnigan writes about what the team’s doing with their shortstop surplus, but if you only read one article, check out Larry Stone’s great piece about former Mariners in spring training with other teams. This is why we love Stone so much:
On one side is the St. Louis Cardinals camp, where (cue the scary music) Scott Spiezio has resurfaced as a backup infield candidate. This may surprise those who believed, based on last year’s .064 average, that Spiezio would have difficulty winning a backup job on a high-school team. Never mind a pennant contender.
In various recent interviews, Spiezio has had the gall to intimate that his pathetic two-year stint with the Mariners was the fault of: a) stick-in-the-mud teammates who broke his spirit; and b) management that didn’t give him a fair shot; rather than c) an abject inability to perform.
Nice.