Lineup Analysis of Doom

I’ve been putting this off for a while now. The tools were there. The Baseball Musings lineup analyzer. The Bill James Handbook predictions. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

But with Aaron Rowand now set to man centerfield and hopefully no major acquisitions forthcoming I thought it was time to see just how bad the 2008 San Francisco Giants lineup could be.

Here’s the lineup I used:

C: Benjie Molina
1B: Dan Ortmeir
2B: Ray Durham
3B: Kevin Frandsen
SS: Omar Vizquel
LF: Randy Winn
CF: Rowand
RF: Nate Schierholtz

The names and numbers went in and out came the answer: 3.698 runs per game.

That translates to 600 runs in 162 games. That would have put the Giants dead last in the NL last year by 70 runs (Washington scored 673, the Giants 683). Here’s the link to the full report.

But that is kind of a worst-case scenario. The best has the lineup scoring closer to 700, better than last year’s team, which included Barry Bonds. But that is still more than 150 runs behind the Phillies and Rockies.

This exercise isn’t a prediction that the Giants will score exactly 695 runs next year. It’s just a way to temper my expectations for the year. Looking at past and likely future performance, the 2008 Giants will be around the worst team in the league but not historically bad. With a few breaks, who knows.

Of course Ray Durham could be traded mid-year, Pedro Feliz could be resigned or Brian Sabean could decide Jason Lane is the best young player in the game and must be acquired at all costs. And really, this is all just for fun anyway.

UPDATE: I wanted to add the annual Diamond Mind sims at Replacement Level Yankees Blog to the mix. They have the Giants scoring 714 runs in 2008, which is close to the best lineup the generator spit out. Of course the Diamond Mind excercise is a little more complex than what I ran, so hopefully (or not depending on how low you'd like to see the draft pick be) that's closer to the truth.