The 2016 series on team offense continues with the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals finished twenty fourth in the majors and eleventh in the National League in 2015 with 3.99 runs scored per game.
Once again I am using a combination of RotoChamp and USA Today as a source of default lineups. I’m going with the RotoChamp lineup. The Cardinals seem to have decided that Matt Carpenter and Stephen Piscotty are batting 1-2. That Mike Matheny lineup is plugged into the Lineup Analysis Tool (LAT) using Musings Marcels as the batter projections. For the pitchers slot, I used the actual stats for the Cardinals pitchers from 2015. That information produces the following results (Runs per game):
Best lineup: 4.02
Probable lineup: 3.85
Worst lineup: 3.50
Regressed lineup: 3.75
The Cardinals mix in a number of good veterans with some interesting young players. The LAT likes Carpenter and Piscotty at the top of the lineup, as they appear in that order a few times in the top 20, but almost always one of them is in the top two, joined by Matt Holliday. The LAT loves youngster Randal Grichuk in the cleanup slot. He doesn’t have much major league experience yet, but so far his low OBP and high power batting matches his minor league profile. He’s still young enough that he has room for improvement. If he continues to hit like this, I suspect the Cardinals will move him higher in the order.
Kolten Wong‘s OBP might be a bit low, since he made a nice job in the stat last season, and he is another youngster at an age when the team should expect an improvement. The Cardinals use him in the lead-off slot when Carpenter doesn’t play, so they have some confidence in Wong’s ability to get on base.
The Cardinals won a tough NL Central division in 2015 with a poor offense. With three youngsters approaching their primes, St. Louis should score more runs this season. I know the trendy pick is the Cubs, but St. Louis will not go quietly.
You can follow the data for the series in this Google spreadsheet.
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Previous posts in this series:
- Introduction
- Toronto Blue Jays
- New York Yankees
- Texas Rangers
- Boston Red Sox
- Colorado Rockies
- Houston Astros
- Kansas City Royals
- Arizona Diamondbacks
- Pittsburgh Pirates
- Baltimore Orioles
- Washington Nationals
- San Francisco Giants
- Minnesota Twins
- Oakland Athletics
- Detroit Tigers
- Chicago Cubs
- New York Mets
- Cleveland Indians
- Los Angeles Dodgers
- Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
- Seattle Mariners
- Milwaukee Brewers
- San Diego Padres
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