Inspired by a post about the Mets lineup by SNY’s Ted Berg, I decided to use the Baseball Musings Lineup Analysis to have some fun looking at the Yankees lineup.

First, I went to Fangraphs and used the Bill James 2010 Projections. Why James? Nothing more than because it was first on the list. Even someone as statistically clumsy as I can understand you can’t go by last year’s results! Anyway, was first discussed at NoMaas, and reiterated by yours truly earlier this week, the best Yankees lineup averaged 6.1 runs per game and had Nick Johnson in the leadoff spot:

Nick Johnson
A-Rod
Jeter
Teixeira
Posada
Cano
Granderson
Swisher
Gardner

Ironically, the analyzer had Nick Johnson in the leadoff spot for every one of the thirty top possibilities. Why A-Rod in the number two hole? Again taking a quote from the noMaas piece may give us an idea as they cite “The Book” from Tango, Litchman, and Dolphin:

Put your best hitters in the #2 and #4 spots, with the better slugger hitting cleanup. The leadoff hitter should be of similar quality and have high on-base skills.

- The #3 hitter should be of a lower quality than the 1, 2, and 4 hitters because he comes up in lower leverage situations on average (ie, he comes up more often with 2 outs and nobody on). In fact, the #5 hitter gets the higher overall run value chances vs the #3 hitter.

- The #3 hitter faces the most double play situations.

- Leverage your good baserunners by putting them in front of good hitters, regardless of their power numbers. Ideally, the hitter should be one who puts the ball in play a lot and hits a lot of singles and doubles.

- In attempting to optimize the batting order, any single lineup alteration is likely to result in a only a very small gain (usually less than one run over the course of an entire season).

Earlier today NYBD contributor Frank Russo discussed the possibility of Curtis Granderson hitting the two-hole. The thirty worst lineups had Granderson in that spot four times, each with Cano batting leadoff. The two worst had Granderson as the leadoff hitter.

Obviously belief in this type of lineup depends on two things: 1) the accuracy of the Bill James predictions and 2) statistical theories by Tango, Litchman, and Dolphin. The bigger question is will these players perform up to capabilities in those particular slots? Is it the player or the lineup position that produces results? Personally I believe the player has a lot to do with it, but the position in the lineup certainly will help. Lineups need a certain flow to work together and ultimately score runs. Individual performances don’t make a lineup work productively. Of course, this analysis only uses OBP and Slugging to calculate runs, which theoretically are independent of lineup position.

Here is the good news for the Yankees. Whether they use their best lineup or worst, they should score between 955 and 1,000 runs in 2010. That means their offense is more potent than the 2009 group that won the World Series. Four Yankees teams in history have scored 1,000 runs (1930-32, and 1936). This study indicates this year’s Yankees, minus Damon and Matsui, will score in the same vicinity as the 1998 and 2007 group. Considering the pitching could be as good as 98′, and certainly better than 2007, we could see this team win somewhere in the vicinity of 110 games.

Of course, this is all on paper and we know paper doesn’t win championships. From first glance I think the Yankees lineup may be worse than a year ago, but if you use projections and advanced metrics it appears that belief couldn’t be further from the truth.

Mike Silva is a freelance writer and radio host since March of 2007. This website is his own personal "digest" of New York Baseball He's also hosts NYBD Radio on Blog Talk Radio and 1240 AM WGBB. Check out his sports media commentary at www.sportsmediawatchdog.com. Check out his official website, www.mikesilvamedia.com

Mike Silva

View all posts by Mike Silva
Mikes website

Tags: Analysis of the 2010 Yankees Lineup, Bill James Projections, Curtis Granderson, Dolphin, Litchman, New York Yankees, Nick Johnson, Tango, The Book