Tonight should bring about a great baseball game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Chicago Cubs.
Unlike the Cubs, the Pirates should not have any huge surprises when it comes to manager Clint Hurdle deciding on
his final lineup, but he still has mixed things up quite often throughout the regular season, even near the end of the year.
Personally, I would not be surprised if Hurdle keeps the same lineup as the last time Cole pitched, but below are a
few points on why a different lineup may be the better choice.
Gregory Polanco:
Gregory Polanco has been sharing the lead off role throughout the season with Josh Harrison, but when comparing the
two offensively, Polanco seems to be the better lead-off hitter. Batting 1st, Polanco has a wOBA (weighted on-base average)
of .313 compared to Harrison's wOBA of .305, but more importantly as a leadoff hitter is the fact that Polanco has a higher
rate of scoring per plate appearance in the lead-off role than Harrison (13.0% vs 11.6%). It is not much, but this Wild
Card game may very well have a final score of 1-0.
Josh Harrison & Starlin Marte:
Starlin Marte batted 2nd in Gerrit Cole’s last start, but Josh Harrison is actually the best Pirates hitter while
batting 2nd in the lineup. In 73 plate appearance he has an OPS of .766 and a wOBA of .338. Additionally, this
allows Starlin Marte to bat 4th, which is the spot he is also the most productive at. Of course this would be assuming
that Aramiz Ramirez does not get the start at third base, which seems to be unlikely, but still possible. In the last Pirates
last game against Jake Arrieta, Ramirez did play.
Aramis Ramirez, Pedro Alvarez and Neil Walker:
If Aramis Ramirez plays third base, he seems well suited in either the 4th, 5th, or 6th spot. Both his OPS and wOBA
are roughly the same no matter which slot he is in. An interesting take on creating the lineup would be to have Alvarez
bat 5th where he has performed his best throughout the season based on OBP and wOBA and then have Neil Walker bat 4th and
Ramirez bat 6th. Although Walker does not perform as well as a power hitter in the 4th spot, Arrieta has only allowed 2
home runs in 18 starts since July. If Walker were to bat 4th, I would suggest that he takes an approach at the plate
similar to if he was batting 2nd and not focus on power.
Optimal Lineup:
Below is what I feel are two optimal lineups for the Pirates going into the playoffs. However, as noted in my
last post for the Cubs, this does not take into account some important factors such as how the players have performed
in the past against Jake Arrieta, how they perform at PNC Park, and how they perform depending on who else is around them
in the order.
NOTE: All statistics accurate as of 10/06/15
By Danny Malter
AriBall.com
