Better Allocation, Better Alignment, Better Outcomes for Cubs

[Matthew Trueblood]

Unsurprisingly, it's beneficial to slot the players with the least defensive responsibility highest in your batting order.

Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports

There's meant to be some division of labor in baseball. Sure, you want the two-way stars, and you want dynamic players who help score or prevent runs in multiple ways, but a great team is built around the idea that everyone has something to contribute--and ideally, that means not putting too great an onus on any one player, or two. In other words, while high-volume offensive creators who also play premium defensive positions (Bobby Witt Jr., Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman, Jarren Duran, and so on) are exceptionally valuable, there's an inherent tinge of inefficiency to that kind of value concentration.

In a world with more perfectly aligned resources, batting orders would roughly resemble the defensive spectrum introduced by Bill James nearly half a century ago. You'd lead off with your DH, your catcher would bat ninth, and the stepdown from one defensive position to the next would be smooth. Your first baseman would bat second, your left fielder third, your shortstop eighth.

Obviously, that's just a vague hypothetical possibility. Players are too different from one another to, with any seriousness, try to map such a rigid and simple formula onto lineups. What you can do, more fairly, is loosely state the efficiency of a lineup based on how well it fits these principles. Do the hitters who play the corner infield and outfield spots and DH merit placement in the top five places in the order? Do the up-the-middle defenders play well enough in the field to stay in the lineup despite less-than-terrifying bats?

Here's how the Cubs have lined up, almost every game since the trade deadline:

1. Ian Happ - LF
2. Michael Busch - 1B
3. Seiya Suzuki - RF
4. Cody Bellinger - DH
5. Isaac Paredes - 3B
6. Nico Hoerner - 2B
7. Dansby Swanson - SS
8. Pete Crow-Armstrong - CF
9. Miguel Amaya - C

That's pretty good. It's reflective of the fact that Jed Hoyer has had a vision for this roster, all along. That doesn't mean the plan is flawless, or even all that good. Hoyer falls victim to the planning fallacy and ends up shorthanded or one star shy, time and time again. For the second year in a row, though, we're getting a prolonged stretch in which it's easy to see the thought process involved in building the team. This is the lineup Hoyer hoped would come together, with Paredes as the perfect replacement for Christopher Morel, settling down a few slots in both the offensive and defensive lineups at once.

To wit: over the last 30 days, the Cubs have gotten more plate appearances by the five most offense-focused positions in the top five spots in the order than any other team, at 451. They've gotten more by the four defense-oriented positions in the sixth through ninth spots than any other team, at 306. They're as optimally aligned as anyone. They're a well-rounded team. Second, in both of these aspects, goes to the Cleveland Guardians, whom the Cubs will play at Progressive Field for three games this week.

It's not as though the tumblers falling into place has turned this team into a juggernaut. They're 5th in MLB in runs per game since the trade deadline, at 5.6, but they're 22nd over that aforementioned 30-day window. Nor would we be noticing or commending them for their resurgence, if not for the offensive production from the guys the team explicitly expects the least from: the .763 OPS from those up-the-middle guys in the bottom half of the order the last month is around .030 higher than that being put up by the so-called sluggers hitting in front of them. Sometimes, baseball is that fluky. Not every hot streak means you've solved the game; not every cold streak means things are broken.

Still, there's something real here. For one thing, this kind of lineup build is not solely about run creation. The implication of this kind of lineup is that they also prevent runs well, by playing strong defense. That's precisely what the Cubs have done lately. Opponents reach base on balls in play (be it via hit or error) less often against the Cubs than against all but five other teams, since the deadline passed. For another thing, there will be a leveling out and a balance found between the overachieving hitters whose main jobs are defense and the guys who are being paid big bucks to pile up big hits. Even when Amaya, Crow-Armstrong, and Swanson come back to Earth, it should be balanced out by steadily rising production from Happ, Suzuki, and Paredes. The Cubs have a lineup that shows off its careful assemblage. The next seven weeks will be about finding out how much tensile strength that construction has.

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