How the Astros Line-Up

I found this awesome tool at Baseball Musings. Basically, it uses some advanced statistical modeling to allow you to plug in nine player's on base percentages and slugging averages into the model and then, after some thinking, it'll spit back a line-up that will optimize your run-scoring probability. It also provides about a dozen or so other line-ups and their predicted run-scored values, as well as a dozen or so ways you could construct the line-up to suppress run scoring.

As the Astros were getting schlacked 4-1 through the first inning last night, I plugged into the model our line-up, with Brad Ausmus catching, for 2008, with each players exact OBP and SLG as they were through 6/30/08.

This was the best combo:




It was a little depressing, but intriguing none the less. I was especially depressed to see that our line-up, as it has been for most of the season (Bourn, Matsui, Tejada, Berkman, Lee, Pence, Wigginton, Ausmus, Pitcher Du Jour), comes out to about 4.3 runs scored. Remember this is the average runs-scored that would be expected from this line-up, not there maximum potential. To try your hand at it, see the numbers or to take a look through all of the results (the worst line-up combo's are pretty spectacular) cick here (it takes a little while to load, so be patient). Feel free to play around with it, substituting some bench guys or a projections to see what you come up with, and let me know how it turns out

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