Best Lineup - Kansas City Royals

In my previous post I used my baseball simulator to look at the best lineup for the New York Mets. Up at the plate this time are the Kansas City Royals. In this exercise I will use my simulator to play actual baseball games, in fact over 2 million games per lineup to find out which lineup is the most productive vs both a RHP and a LHP. Each lineup is compared in wins per 162 games against the default lineup from MLB Depth Charts. Bob Ellis over at Kings Of Kauffman came up with his own hand-picked best Royals lineup, so I will also be comparing to his suggested lineup. In this exercise all player projection inputs come from Bill James.

Below are the results...

Default lineup from MLB Depth Charts.

1. Lorenzo Cain
2. Alcides Escobar
3. Alex Gordon (L)
4. Billy Butler
5. Mike Moustakas (L)
6. Salvador Perez
7. Eric Hosmer (L)
8. Jeff Francouer
9. Chris Getz (L)

Lineup from Kings Of Kauffman (vs RHP)
1. Alex Gordon (L)
2. Eric Hosmer (L)
3. Salvador Perez
4. Billy Butler
5. Mike Moustakas (L)
6. Lorenzo Cain
7. Jeff Francouer
8. Alcides Escobar
9. Chris Getz (L)
Wins/162 Games Better Than Default Lineup: 0.705 (vs RHP)
Wins/162 Games Better Than Default Lineup: 0.293 (vs LHP)

Best Lineup vs RHP (Simulator)
1. Alex Gordon (L)
2. Eric Hosmer (L)
3. Mike Moustakas (L)
4. Billy Butler
5. Jeff Francouer
6. Lorenzo Cain
7. Alcides Escobar
8. Salvador Perez
9. Chris Getz (L)
Wins/162 Games Better Than Default Lineup: 0.831

Best Lineup vs LHP  (Simulator)
1. Alex Gordon (L)
2. Eric Hosmer (L)
3. Mike Moustakas (L)
4. Billy Butler
5. Jeff Francouer
6. Lorenzo Cain
7. Alcides Escobar
8. Salvador Perez
9. Chris Getz (L)
Wins/162 Games Better Than Default Lineup: 0.408

Skinny: A couple of things pop up quickly when looking at the lineups.  The first is that the best lineup vs RHP is the same lineup vs LHP.  The simulator does not want the Royals to change their lineup if facing a right-handed or left-handed pitcher.  The MLB Depth Charts lineup is a pretty efficient one, but Kings Of Kauffman does a pretty good job on coming up with an efficient lineup.  Kings Of Kauffman is able to shave off 0.705 more wins per 162 games than the MLBDC lineup (vs RHP).  With the most efficient lineup coming in at winning an extra 0.831 vs RHP.  One thing that I kind of ignored in this exercise was worrying about stacking up too many left-handed hitting players back to back (LOOGY protection).  The Kings Of Kauffman lineup batted three lefties in a row, while the most efficient simulator lineup batted four.  MLBDC took extra care not to bat any lefties back to back.  Obviously, if I were to follow the same constraints as MLBDC did - the most efficient lineup would look pretty similar to the MLBDC lineup.  In the end not a great big difference when looking at how many wins are gained over a 162 game period, but every little bit helps.

Kings Of Kauffman and the Simulator agree on the first two batters (Gordon, Hosmer).  KOK puts catcher Salvador Perez in the third spot, while the simulator bumps him all the way down to 8th.  The simulator bats Moustakas third, while KOK bats him fifth.  Billy Butler is the choice of both for cleanup batter.  Cain bats sixth and Gets ninth in both systems, with Escobar bumped up one slot in the sim.