I've spent the entire year wondering why the Cubs have Soriano in the first spot in the order. He doesn't have a high OBP (.332), yet he has a ton of power. He now has 30 HR, but because he hits first, only 61 RBI.
Over at Baseball Musings Cyril Myrong, Ken Arneson and Ryan Armbrust have a lineup optimizer based on their research. I plugged in the most common Cub lineup, as follows:
Soriano
Theriot
Lee
Ramirez
Floyd
DeRosa
Jones
Kendall
Pitcher (I used Marquis).
According to the lineup optimizer, this should produce 4.664 runs per game for the Cubs. The Cubs have actually scored 4.62 runs per game this year. That's damned close, considering all the lineup variations they have used (120, not counting pitchers).
Cubs pitching has given up 4.29 runs per game. Using pythagenport to estimate what the Cubs' record should be based on runs scored and runs allowed, we get 82-72. Their actual record is 81-73. So far, so good with our predictive measures.
The lineup optimizer says that the Cubs best lineup (assuming those same 9 players) is as follows:
DeRosa
Lee
Theriot
Ramirez
Floyd
Soriano
Jones
Marquis
Kendall
According to the lineup optimizer, this batting order would produce 5.102 runs per game. Substitute that into our pythagenport and the Cubs record would be 90-64, a whopping 8 wins better than predicted with their common lineup.
In fact, in the top 8 run producing combos for the Cubs with these 9 players, Soriano hits sixth each time. In the other top 17 scenarios, he hits either sixth or fourth.
If this is accurate, there shouldn't even be a pennant race in the NL Central.
