Reds' Best Lineup?

There is a lineup analysis tool on the Internet (wow, I think this thing may catch on!). It does some cipherin' on the best lineup you can have to score the most runs, based on on-base percentage and slugging percentage.

Put in the 2006 Reds lineup, using 2005 stats.

Don't know why I did this, but here are the top 10 results.

Best Lineups Runs per Game 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

4.942 Jason LaRue Adam Dunn Austin Kearns Ken Griffey Felipe Lopez Wily Mo Pena Edwin Encarnacion Aaron Harang Ryan Freel

4.941 Adam Dunn Felipe Lopez Austin Kearns Ken Griffey Jason LaRue Wily Mo Pena Edwin Encarnacion Aaron Harang Ryan Freel

4.938 Adam Dunn Felipe Lopez Jason LaRue Ken Griffey Austin Kearns Wily Mo Pena Edwin Encarnacion Aaron Harang Ryan Freel

4.937 Jason LaRue Adam Dunn Austin Kearns Ken Griffey Felipe Lopez Edwin Encarnacion Wily Mo Pena Aaron Harang Ryan Freel

4.937 Adam Dunn Jason LaRue Austin Kearns Ken Griffey Felipe Lopez Wily Mo Pena Edwin Encarnacion Aaron Harang Ryan Freel

4.936 Adam Dunn Felipe Lopez Austin Kearns Ken Griffey Jason LaRue Edwin Encarnacion Wily Mo Pena Aaron Harang Ryan Freel

4.936 Jason LaRue Felipe Lopez Austin Kearns Ken Griffey Adam Dunn Wily Mo Pena Edwin Encarnacion Aaron Harang Ryan Freel

4.934 Adam Dunn Austin Kearns Jason LaRue Ken Griffey Felipe Lopez Wily Mo Pena Edwin Encarnacion Aaron Harang Ryan Freel

4.934 Adam Dunn Felipe Lopez Jason LaRue Ken Griffey Austin Kearns Edwin Encarnacion Wily Mo Pena Aaron Harang Ryan Freel

4.933 Jason LaRue Adam Dunn Felipe Lopez Ken Griffey Austin Kearns Wily Mo Pena Edwin Encarnacion Aaron Harang Ryan Freel


http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/LineupAnalysis.py?Player0=Jason+LaRue&OBA0=.355&Slug0=.452&Player1=Felipe+Lopez&OBA1=.352&Slug1=.486&Player2=Adam+Dunn&OBA2=.387&Slug2=.540&Player3=Ken+Griffey&OBA3=.369&Slug3=.576&Player4=Austin+Kearns&OBA4=.333&Slug4=.452&Player5=Ryan+Freel&OBA5=.371&Slug5=.371&Player6=Wily+Mo+Pena&OBA6=.304&Slug6=.492&Player7=Edwin+Encarnacion&OBA7=.308&Slug7=.436&Player8=Aaron+Harang&OBA8=.027&Slug8=.027&Model=0


And here's the tipsheet I found at another website.

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/

1. This is the most OBP-centric spot in the lineup. Your hitter here might very well be your best hitter, IF his best attribute is his OBP. A hitter with a .425 OBP and a .500 SLG would fit in here well, provided that there's not a better OBP threat elsewhere on the roster. When I looked at it, I decided that Derek Jeter is really the optimal leadoff hitter. He has a good OBP and acceptable power, and he's generally a solid hitter.

2. The 2-hitter should be the lineup's most balanced hitter, a good combination of OBP and SLG. David Wright fits the bill here, as does the player I chose, Chase Utley. The first guy I thought of was Mike Lowell in his prime, when I looked at the results and coefficients.

3. This was the biggest surprise: the 3 hitter should be the player that doesn't fit into any of the other spots. Every other spot has some significance, but if I were building a lineup, I would just put the leftover player in the 3 hole. This seemed very counterintuitive to me when I first heard it, but David Pinto noted, "Part of what it's telling us is that you need to spread out your easy outs." I still struggled to get this, but I'm starting to, now. Marc said something to the effect of "the worst players have to go somewhere." I guess this is really it; the other spots just have greater needs. If you can get a good hitter here, it means that your lineup is very deep.

4. This is the bopper. This guy's best attribute should be his power, with OBP being of secondary importance. He should be the foil to the leadoff hitter, in a way; both players could be similar if they're both very complete. Andruw Jones, though, is an ideal #4 hitter: slightly above average OBP, and "phenomenal cosmic power," to quote Aladdin.

5. Picking the 5 hitter is simple: it's the second choice for the two slot. Paul Konerko, who I picked for this spot, had a very similar line to our #2 hitter, Chase Utley.

6. The 6 hitter shows the biggest difference between SLG and OBP on the roster. This is because you're going to want to have guys driving in the leftovers. The 6 hitter is the most exclusively power-dependent hitter of the bunch. His OBP is VERY unimportant. Alfonso Soriano and Jay Gibbons are good picks for this
slot.

7. The 7 hitter is the less extreme version of the 6 hitter, with less of a need for power and more usage for OBP. I picked Vernon Wells here.

8. This is the worst hitter in the lineup. If it's the pitcher, he goes here, unless it's Dontrelle Willis or Jason Marquis or someone similar. This is because you'd rather not put the pitcher close to two of the best hitters in the lineup: the 1 and 2.

9. The 9 hitter should be a "punchless wonder," of sorts. Scott Podsednik, Gregg Zaun, and Brad Ausmus fit into this role nicely: guys with acceptable OBPs and absolutely no power. This is the "stereotypical leadoff hitter" to the extreme. He's not actually leading off because you don't necessarily want these guys to imbibe plate appearances, I think.

This is all very new stuff, and I could have interpreted this wrong. I think that Cyril Morong is onto something because you CAN rationalize these positions, even if there's a high level of initial cognitive dissonance. I would say that you should try to go over this checklist when you try and optimize the lineup for whatever team you want, and see if it checks out or comes close to it.