In 2008 the Giants scored 640 runs, or 3.95 per game.
At the Winter Meetings last week, Bruce Bochy floated a trial-balloon 2009 lineup to the press, and it didn’t look much different than 2008. But is it so dire? Before the Giants make any more roster moves, let's crunch some numbers. Statheads, beware. This is going to be crude. Feel free to pick it apart at length.
First we'll find OBP and SLG '09 estimates for each player by splitting the difference between the Marcels and the Bill James projections (you can find them on each player’s page at Fangraphs). Then we'll grind them suckers through the Lineup Analysis doo-hickey and see how many runs the Giants might score. To refresh your memory, here’s Bochy’s lineup (with projected OBP/SLG):
RF Winn (.344 / .414)
SS Renteria (.345 / .412)
3B Sandoval (.351 / .486)
C Molina (.311 / .426)
LF Lewis (.352 / .421)
CF Rowand (.340 / .438)
1B Ishikawa (.342 / .457)
2B Franburlez (.338 / .375)*
P Lincecum (.183 / .168)
* That's the new second baseman, a combination of Frandsen, Burriss and Velez. How did I get that estimated OBP/SLG, you ask? Frandsen and Velez are projected by Marcels and James almost identically (.325 / .402). Burriss’s split-the-difference projection is .349 / .356. For our exercise I’ll split the differences again, this time between Burriss and Frandsen/Velez. Like I said, crude.
For Lincecum I used his actual 2008 numbers. If you want to cheat, you can plug in Noah Lowry’s career OBP/SLG.
Projected runs per game: 4.42.
The Lineup Analysis says the Giants could squeeze out another 2/10 of a run per game with this permutation: Lewis, Ishikawa, Renteria, Sandoval, Winn, Molina, Rowand, Lincecum, Franburlez.
Now let’s sub Josh Phelps (who I still think is a longshot to make the team) as Ishikawa’s platoon partner. Marcels projects Phelps with .353 / .435.
Projected runs per game: 4.41.
Note these projections don’t take into account platoon splits. They also don’t factor in Sandoval’s L/R splits, which suggest he’ll need a platoon partner against lefties. It also doesn’t factor defense. Swapping Renteria for Vizquel & Co., plus another year of decline for Rowand, and a full year of Sandoval at third, could make things a lot worse. But Burriss or Frandsen at second instead of Durham, and a lot of playing time for Ishi at 1B could make things better. So let’s save D for another discussion and stick to O.
Unless the Lineup Analysis is totally whack, it at least gives us the sense that the Giants without making further personnel moves might score a half-run more per game next year. That’s 80 runs more, or 720. Nothing special, but in 2008 it would have tied them for 10th in the league. With one more big bat, the Giants could have a league-average offense. Combine that with excellent pitching, and…
