All Star Lineups

Here are the known All-Stars, starters selected by the fans, pitchers and reserves selected by inside baseball personnel. I think the fans did a great job. Note that only one of the starting 18 hitters owns a slugging percentage under .500, and only one has an OBP under .340.

David Schoenfield asks which lineup is better, but we can use the Lineup Analysis Tool (LAT) to answer that question, and find an optimal lineup for both teams.

The best AL lineup would score 7.04 runs per game. The worst would score 6.63, so this is a set of great hitters. The LAT really likes Jose Altuve first, Aaron Judge second, and Carlos Correa third, with Justin Smoak cleaning up. Note that these better lineups bat Mookie Betts last. He has a good OBP, so he would also set up Aaron Judge for RBI, while giving Judge a few more plate appearances by batting second. This would be a lineup teams would fear.

They might fear the NL lineup more. The LAT tags the best NL lineup at 7.38 runs per game. The worst lineup comes in at 7.01 runs per game, just shy of the best AL lineup. The best NL lineups are unusual, but I like the idea of Paul Goldschmidt and Bryce Harper as table setters, with Daniel Murpy and Zack Cozart batting third and fifth (alternating), with Ryan Zimmerman fourth. Buster Posey pulls up the rear, a perfect place for a high OBP catcher. The number eight slot in the batting order the LAT reserves for the worst hitter on the team, and in this case that is Nolan Arenado. When Arenado is the worst hitter on the team, you have a pretty good team.

So the NL puts up one of the strongest All-Star lineups in recent memory, and the game no longer decides home field advantage in the World Series. This is one year I would not want to be either starting pitcher.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2tGnCRt