Blue Jays Batting Order

Now that the offseason has winded down and spring training games have begun, it is time to look forward to the 2011 season. An important question for this year (and any year) is what will the batting order look like? This breaks down how exactly a lineup should be constructed to optimize players' talents. Basically, the old-school thoughts on building a lineup (speed at #1, bunter #2, power hitters #3-5, worst hitters #6-9) are mostly incorrect, according to sabermetric research. The article does a nice job of explaining who should hit where and why. It does note that a specific permutation of players in a batting order does not make a huge difference, only about a maximum of one win per season. However, it is a fun exercise to construct a projected lineup.

This post was inspired by this post, which detailed the optimized lineup for the Indians. I want to do the same thing with the Blue Jays. The data I am using is the Cairo projections (found here), which project a player's upcoming season based on weighted average of a player's past few seasons. The statistic that is used to figure out the optimal lineup is wOBA, or weighted on-base average. Two good explanations of the statistic can be found here and here. In short, wOBA combines on-base percentage and slugging percentage into one statistic, scaled to OBP, so it is easy to understand. Why not simply use on-base plus slugging? For one, OPS weighs OBP and SLG equally, while in reality OBP is more important. wOBA is calculated using the actual run values of each event, so it will better predict how much more valuable something is worth rather than simply OPS.

Although it sounds confusing, and the math behind it is, the end result is one simple number which tells you how valuable a player is to his team while hitting. If this sounds similar to Wins Above Replacement, it's because wOBA is used to calculate the hitting aspect of WAR.

Now, onto the data. Here are the splits for all of the Blue Jays involved in the Cairo projections.

Player	Projected wOBA	Vs L	Vs R
Jose Bautista	.373	.367	.375
Travis Snider	.339	.314	.344
J.P. Arencibia	.335	.350	.327
Adam Lind	.331	.293	.345
Edwin Encarnacion	.331	.349	.325
Juan Rivera	.329	.343	.323
Luis Figueroa	.329	.327	.330
Randy Ruiz	.328	.339	.322
Yunel Escobar	.326	.335	.322
Rajai Davis	.325	.339	.318
Aaron Hill	.321	.336	.316
Jason Lane	.312	.323	.306
Chris Aguila	.309	.317	.304
Mike McCoy	.307	.320	.298
John McDonald	.288	.302	.281
Callix Crabbe	.285	.288	.283
Jose Molina	.283	.297	.276

 
I am going to use lineups against both LH and RH pitchers, as the projections include platoon splits. The optimal lineup, according to sabermetrics, is #1, #4, #2, #5, #3, #6, #7, #8, #9 in terms of avoiding outs. So the highest wOBA will be first, then 4th, all the way to 9th.

Lineup vs. LHP

#	Name	Position	wOBA
1	Jose Bautista	RF	.367
2	Edwin Encarnacion	3B	.349
3	Randy Ruiz	1B	.339
4	J.P. Arencibia	C	.350
5	Juan Rivera	LF	.343
6	Rajai Davis	CF	.339
7	Aaron Hill	2B	.336
8	Yunel Escobar	SS	.335
9	Luis Figueroa	DH	.327

Lineup vs. RHP

#	Name	Position	wOBA
1	Jose Bautista	CF	.375
2	Travis Snider	LF	.344
3	J.P. Arencibia	C	.327
4	Adam Lind	1B	.345
5	Luis Figueroa	2B	.330
6	Edwin Encarnacion	3B	.325
7	Juan Rivera	RF	.323
8	Randy Ruiz	DH	.322
9	Yunel Escobar	SS	.322

We can see some interesting things in the two lineups. Seven players appear in both lineups, although maybe not who you would think: Bautista, Encarnacion, Ruiz, Arencibia, Rivera, Escobar, and Figueroa. Rajai Davis and Aaron Hill are only hitting against lefties, and Lind and Snider are only hitting against righties.

The projections are obviously not perfect, if Luis Figueroa is starting every day for the Jays, but they do provide some insight into where certain hitters should hit. With a league average wOBA of .321 last year in the majors, the Jays' lineups should be much better than average again this year, even with the loss of Vernon Wells and John Buck.