Houston Astros Have Baseball’s Deepest Lineup For 2017
By Jason Burke
The Houston Astros have made some upgrades this winter, particularly in their starting lineup, that have earned them the distinction of having the deepest projected lineup in baseball.
This morning on MLB.com, Mike Petriello detailed why the Houston Astros are the team with the deepest lineup, and the reasoning makes a bunch of sense. In essence, the Astros have the most projected “average of better” players in their lineup, eight, which provides them with the deepest group.
Led by Carlos Correa, Jose Altuve and George Springer at the top of the lineup, the Astros have a solid foundation with which to work from. Evan Gattis and his power added a fourth, while last season’s late additions Alex Bregman and Yulieski Gurriel bring the total to six. Carlos Beltran and Josh Reddick, both added via free agency, round out the list.
So what does Petriello mean by average or better? Well, he’s a sabermetrics guy, so wRC+ is the measuring tool at play here. He looked at the Steamer projections on FanGraphs for each player, determined which team they’re on, and made up this article.
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Just because the Astros are looking like the deepest lineup, doesn’t mean they’ll have the best lineup. The Angels are a bit too far back to challenge for the best lineup top to bottom, but they are also where Mike Trout calls home, so we’ll use them for this example.
A player like Trout, who is extraordinary at the plate, can make up a bunch of difference over a team that is simply trotting out average or better players. Trout had an MLB best 171 wRC+ in 2016, which is 71 points higher than an average batter, so that production can be made up in other ways. The thought here being that a lineup of tougher outs makes for a productive offense and makes it possible for a lineup to produce even if one player is slumping.
With that offense, the Astros are projected to finish second to the Boston Red Sox in runs scored per game with 4.90.
The one interesting part of this experiment from Pertriello is that the A’s, who could potentially have a sneaky good pitching staff, rank in the top 11 for deepest lineups. They have six batters that are projected to have a wRC+ of 100 or better–the same number as the Cardinals, Mets, Cubs, Red Sox and Orioles. This goes to show a little bit that having a deep lineup doesn’t necessarily mean that a team will be competitive, but instead that depth can push a good team even further.
Next: Moncada Eyes Big Role in 2017
If you’d like to see where your favorite team ranks on the list, you can follow the link to the article and check out the bar graph!