Nationals "Optimal" Lineups

Based on MARCEL projections (no access to PECOTA, had to choose between that, ZiPS and Bill James).

Done through Baseball Musings' Lineup Analysis.

Special thanks to Royals Review for the idea.

Here are the baseline numbers I put in:

The "optimal" lineup is always:

1) Werth

2) Zimmerman

3) Desmond

4) Laroche

5) Morse

6) Ankiel

7) Espinosa

8) Pitcher

9) Rodriguez

When Livan Hernandez starts: 4.317 runs/game

When John Lannan starts: 4.238 runs/game

When Jordan Zimmermann starts: 4.292 runs/game

When Jason Marquis starts: 4.410 runs/game

When Tom Gorzellany starts: 4.132 runs/game

Thoughts:

The Nats have fairly good hitting pitchers in Hernandez, Zimmermann and Marquis.

The Nats have fairly terrible hitting hitters, as FJB pointed out on Friday.

I came up with 693 as the Nats' run projection. They scored 655 last year. On paper this is good, but it fails to take into account injuries, failure to progress, on/off seasons, pinch hitters, DH games, etc. I'm not optimistic that the 2011 Nats will outscore last year's version.

Replacing Pudge with Ramos would improve the Nats by .161 runs/game.

Morse's projection looks awfully optimistic, but Werth's and Zimmerman's look at least a little pessimistic.

Feel free to run your own projections on the site linked at the top and talk about them in the comments section. If you want some things to read about the pros/cons of hitting the pitcher 8th, here are some articles.