Best Lineup - New York Yankees

In my previous post, I looked at the best lineup for the Cincinatti Reds.  Next up are the New York Yankees in my Best Lineup series.  The Yankees have had many injuries along with a few new faces this pre-season.  I will compare the lineup that MLB Depth Charts lists as their most likely lineup against what the simulator thinks is the best lineup and this will be done both against a RH and LH pitcher.  In order to do this the simulator plays one game millions of times and picks the game with the highest winning percentage as the best lineup.  And a last note before the results are shown.  The injury to Mark Teixeira happened after I had started the Yankees portion of this exercise.  I will address a lineup without Teixeira in a later post.  Below are the results.

Important Reading Source: Optimizing Your Lineup By The Book

Best Lineup - Cincinnati Reds Part 2

A couple of Reds fans brought up a pretty interesting idea. Instead of using the 2013 Bill James projections and the 2013 most likely lineup, they asked me to run simulations using the actual 2012 stats as input and to use the 2012 roster to come up with the best 2012 lineup and compare it against the lineup that manager Dusty Baker used the most. Let's see how many wins per 162 games the Reds could've saved themselves had they used the most efficient lineup. In this Part 2 exercise I am only going to look at the Reds vs RHP.

Most Common 2012 Lineup
1. Zack Cozart
2. Drew Stubbs
3. Joey Votto (L)
4. Brandon Phillips
5. Jay Bruce (L)
6. Ryan Ludwick
7. Todd Frazier
8. Ryan Hanigan
9. Pitchers Spot

Simulator Most Efficient 2012 Lineup
1. Ryan Hanigan
2. Joey Votto (L)
3. Brandon Phillips
4. Jay Bruce (L)
5. Ryan Ludwick
6. Todd Frazier
7. Drew Stubbs
8. Pitchers Spot
9. Zack Cozart
Wins/162 Better Than Most Common 2012 Lineup: 1.48

A quick look back at the Part One post, where the 2013 Bill James Projections had Zack Cozart hitting 5th - let's see how that lineup would look using the 2012 actual stats instead of those from Bill James. Keep in mind the Reds now have Shin-Soo Choo, so I just replaced him with Drew Stubbs, so it is not exactly a one to one comparison.

Bill James 2013 Most Efficient Lineup
1. Drew Stubbs << was Choo
2. Joey Votto
3. Brandon Phillips
4. Jay Bruce
5. Zack Cozart
6. Todd Frazier
7. Ryan Ludwick
8. Pitchers Spot
9. Ryan Hanigan
Notes: This lineup is 2.35 wins/162 games worse than the most efficient lineup using 2012 stats.

So there is a big difference in picking the most efficient lineup based on what stats you use as input, the 2012 actual stats or the 2013 Bill James Projections. The projections will have some regression built in to them, where a poor 2012 season will be regressed up and a great 2012 season will be regressed back down. Another thing to try would be to use a different set of 2013 player projections and see if they differ significantly from what the Bill James projections came up with.

Best Lineup - Cincinnati Reds

In my previous post I used my baseball simulator to look at the best lineup for the Houston Astros. Up at the plate this time are the Cincinnati Reds. 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 MLBDepthCharts. Player projections are taken from Bill James.

Important reading sources: Optimizing Your Lineup By The Book

Below are the results...

Default lineup from MLB Depth Charts.

1. Shin-Soo Choo (L)
2. Brandon Phillips
3. Joey Votto (L)
4. Ryan Ludwick
5. Jay Bruce (L)
6. Todd Frazier
7. Zack Cozart
8. Ryan Hanigan
9. Pitchers Spot

Best Simulator Lineup vs RHP
1. Shin-Soo Choo (L)
2. Joey Votto (L)
3. Brandon Phillips
4. Jay Bruce (L)
5. Zack Cozart
6. Todd Frazier
7. Ryan Ludwick
8. Pitchers Spot
9. Ryan Hanigan
Wins/162 Games Better Than Default Lineup: 1.14

Best Simulator Lineup vs LHP
1. Shin-Soo Choo (L)
2. Jay Bruce (L)
3. Brandon Phillips
4. Joey Votto (L)
5. Zack Cozart
6. Todd Frazier
7. Ryan Ludwick
8. Pitchers Spot
9. Ryan Hanigan
Wins/162 Games Better Than Default Lineup: 0.75

Now something new. I also plugged in the OBP and SLG into Baseball Musings lineup generator and plugged the lineup they projected as the best into the simulator. The Baseball Musings lineup generator does not take into account batter handedness, so I used their lineup against both RHP and LHP.

Here is the lineup they suggest.

Best Lineup (Baseball Musings)
1. Joey Votto (L)
2. Ryan Ludwick
3. Brandon Phillips
4. Jay Bruce (L)
5. Shin-Soo Choo (L)
6. Todd Frazier
7. Zack Cozart
8. Pitchers Spot
9. Ryan Hanigan
Wins/162 Games Worse Than Sim Lineup (vs RHP): 0.70
Wins/162 Games Worse Than Sim Lineup (vs LHP): 0.46


Skinny: First off, the simulator agrees with MLBDC that Choo should hit leadoff. Joey Votto is an incredible hitter, putting up amazing numbers in both OBP and SLG. The simulator likes him hitting 2nd against RHP with Bruce hitting cleanup then the simulator swaps positions with them against LHP. Other than that swap, the vs RHP and vs LHP lineups are the same. The simulator feels that Ryan Ludwick should not sniff the middle of the order, his power can be put to better use clearing the bases or drawing walks before the pitcher comes up to bat. Instead, the simulator likes placing Zack Cozart in to the 5th slot to help get some more ducks on the pond after Votto or Bruce hit. Both MLBDC and the simulator have Todd Frazier hitting 6th. Ryan Hanigan and his very unique skillset of having a higher OBP than SLG is put to use as a bottom of the order leadoff man and of course the best spot for the pitcher to hit is 8th.