Fun with lineup analysis

As mentioned below, I'm going to take David Pinto's lineup analysis and run with it a bit in regards to the Pirates offense in 2008 (if you've been reading a while, you're probably realizing this is one of my favorite things to do in the off-season as I've done it each of the past two years). As always, this comes with the disclaimer that we're working in hypotheticals here and nothing's set in stone. I'm just using this tool to try and guess at the answer to some questions we all have during the off-season. All of the projections I'm using are going to be Dan Szymborski's ZiPS, which I'll include the first time I name a player. Let's roll with this and see where we go.

Lineup #1

1. Nate McLouth - CF (.259/.329/.415)
2. Freddy Sanchez- 2B (.298/.340/.415)
3. Jason Bay- LF (.265/.361/.478)
4. Adam LaRoche- 1B (.272/.348/.492)
5. Xavier Nady- RF (.258/.319/.449)
6. Jose Bautista- 3B (.249/.329/.415)
7. Ronny Paulino- C (.263/.321/.366)
8. Jack Wilson- SS (.261/.313/.361)
9. Pitcher- (.170/.168 ... these are the numbers Pinto used and seem as good as any to me)

That lineup is good for 4.258 runs per game. For a measuring stick, that's 690 for a full season assuming that this exact lineup played every single at-bat of every single game (and they won't, I'm giving the full-season numbers for perspective only). That's pretty brutal and if this happens, Neal Huntington is going to feel like a huge idiot for predicting that as many as five players will improve this year.

Lineup #2- This one's the same as lineup #1, except with Steve Pearce (ZiPS: .267/.324/.462) plugged in for Xavier Nady. That gives us 4.284 runs per game. For comparison, that's 694 runs per game. ZiPS and the lineup analysis don't see much of a problem swapping those two out. There's no objective reason to keep Pearce in the minors this year.

Lineup #3- LaRoche out (we'll say traded for no one major league ready), Pearce in. That gives us a paltry 4.171 per, or 675 runs over 162 games.

Lineup #4- This is the "Break in case of Jason Bay trade" case. 4.156 runs per game (673 per 162). As with the -LaRoche lineup, that's freaking brutal.

Lineup #5- Take Lineup #1 and sub in Brian Bixler for Jack Wilson. This tells us that if we traded Jack, we'd score 4.234 per game, which is 686 over a season. Losing Jack barely even registers.

Lineup #6- If the Pirates took my advice and traded Freddy, plugging Bixler in at second, they'd score 4.105 runs per game, which is the lowest total yet (a paltry 665 over the season).

So what can we conclude from this, if anything? It seems pretty clear to me that if Huntington can't trade Nady, keeping Nady in the starting lineup does nothing but block Pearce's development. All of the projections I've seen thus far have predicted Pearce for a better season than Nady. The usual caveat that goes with projections applies here, but they're really pretty good when it comes to predicting offense and since ZiPS and Bill James (who has Pearce down for .314/.366/.518!) both agree on Pearce being better than Nady, it's at least a good bet that Pearce will outhit Nady in 2008. I would say that we wouldn't miss Wilson that much, but I think Bixler's projection is waaay too optimistic I'm not going to make that leap. Trading anyone else will create a decent sized gap in the offense, but it's worth noting that the difference between the highest seasonal run total here (694) and the lowest (665) is only three more losses. Trading any one of Sanchez, Bay, or LaRoche isn't going to do much but drop us from a 70 win team to a 67 win team.

A full fire sale, however, would make for a historically bad offense. Lineup #8 is Morgan (CF), McLouth (LF), Pearce (1B), Nady (RF), Bautista (3B), Paulino (C), Wilson (SS), Bixler (2B), Pitcher. That gives us 3.802 runs per game, which is only 616 runs for a season and is probably at least a 100-loss team. Again, remeber that none of these things are set in stone and the full-season numbers are for fun and comparison's sake only. Ryan Doumit will probably tear the cover off the ball for a month of the summer before his hammy goes kaplowie. Bay could destroy the ball at a high clip and get shipped off in June. We could certainly get major-league ready players I don't even know about yet in trades for any of these guys or for a guy like Snell. One thing's for sure though- if any of the ZiPS are even close to accurate this year the Pirates may have a tough time matching the 724 runs they scored in 2007, and that's a bad thing for anyone that's hoping to see a competitive team in black and gold this year.