How Blue Jays could optimize their batting order based on matchups

Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo talks about how impressed he was last year with Cavan Biggio's ability to adjust in-season to MLB pitchers, especially when going through pretty significant struggles at the plate.

As spring training shifts from “best shape of my life” quotations to actual baseball games, one of the sport’s greatest traditions has returned: the analyzing of lineups.

During Grapefruit League action it’s possible to run out all kinds of bizarre lineups, but the starting nine the Toronto Blue Jays debuted on Saturday looked a lot like what you might expect to see on Opening Day.

Manager Charlie Montoyo has also discussed his lineup a fair bit in Dunedin, and appears to have pretty solid ideas about how he wants to deploy his group, particularly at the top where he favours Bo Bichette and Cavan Biggio as his one-two punch.

That small piece of information alone opens the door for criticism. Biggio’s penchant for drawing walks and underrated base-stealing acumen would play perfectly in the leadoff spot, while Bichette projects to draw free bases at a below-average clip and his power is best leveraged in a spot where he’ll have more runners on base.

Scrutiny of Montoyo’s lineup decision-making won’t stop there, though, especially if the Blue Jays win enough that maximizing their day-to-day effectiveness has real consequences. It will continue all summer as a reliable go-to discussion point for fans and media alike.

The difference between whether the Blue Jays become a surprise contender or march through another losing season may not come down to lineup construction, but there are runs to be had by doing it right and they shouldn’t be left on the table.

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Realistically, this team doesn’t have the components to form an elite lineup, but what’s the best they can do?

To answer that question you first need to acknowledge the difficulty of the task. Pencilling in a lineup is a form of prediction, and predicting baseball is tricky. At any moment an Eric Sogard type could burst onto the scene or a reliable producer could fall into a deep slump.

For example, below is a chart showing the players Montoyo wrote into his lineup on Saturday – and a couple of others who could figure into the Blue Jays plans in 2020. The manager clearly filled out his lineup based on what he saw from his guys in 2019, but a projection system like ZiPs has something very different to say about their fortunes this year.

Player  2019 OPS Rank 2020 ZiPs OPS Rank
Bo Bichette 0.93 1 0.807 2
Cavan Biggio 0.793 4 0.724 9
Lourdes Gurriel Jr. 0.869 3 0.75 8
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. 0.772 6 0.846 1
Rowdy Tellez 0.742 7 0.753 7
Randal Grichuk 0.738 8 0.777 3
Teoscar Hernandez 0.778 5 0.771 5
Derek Fisher 0.647 9 0.754 6
Danny Jansen 0.64 10 0.69 10
Travis Shaw 0.551 12 0.771 4
Reese McGuire 0.872 2 0.673 11
Brandon Drury 0.642 11 0.671 12
Anthony Alford 0.519 13 0.6 13

Making a judgement call on just the matter of who your best hitters are is harder than it looks. Shaw, for instance, could be anywhere between one of the Blue Jays best hitters and utterly unplayable. Just about every statistical measure available indicates there isn’t much of a chance of Alford becoming an offensive contributor in 2020, but his athleticism makes him the kind of guy who could conceivably click at any time. A number of these projections are so similar that matchups should be a deciding factor on a daily basis.

So, in order to try and sort through this mess I took a combination of these players projections, 2019 numbers, career left-right splits, and track record against certain pitch types to take my best stab at the six best lineups the Blue Jays can run out.

The reason there are six is to account for six basic types of matchups: Fastball-heavy right-handers, breaking ball-heavy right handers, offspeed-heavy right-handers and their southpaw counterpoints. This six pitcher type classification is an oversimplification, but no one wants to see a proposed lineup for every single starting pitcher in the American League.

You’ll notice that no utility infielder like Joe Panik is included in any of these lineups, but that’s not because they won’t play. There’s just no statistical argument to made for playing a guy like that over Bichette or Biggio, they’ll just get their reps when one of those two needs a rest.

The lineups below are heavily influenced by the seminal Beyond the Boxscore piece “Optimizing your lineup by the Book” which means that the best hitters inhabit the 1, 2, and 4 spots. In most cases the next best hitter goes at 5, then the 3 hole – a hitter who sees a ton of two out no base runner situations – then 6 on down is in descending order of effectiveness.

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Here we go:

Fastball-Heavy Right-Hander (Example: Lance Lynn)

Biggio 2B
Guerrero Jr. 3B
Grichuk CF
Shaw 1B
Bichette SS
Gurriel LF
Fisher RF
Hernandez DH
Jansen C

Rationale: Biggio is locked at the top of all of these lineups because he posted a walk rate of at least 15.9 percent and OBP topping .360 against both righties and southpaws. Couple that with his 81st percentile sprint speed and you’ve got a leadoff man. Guerrero Jr. has performed best against right-handers, even in the minors, so he gets the coveted two hole.

When he’s going Shaw hurts right-handers so he goes above Bichette, in part as a way to space out the lefties. It might be surprising to see Grichuk that high, but he’s slugged .572 and .612 against right-handed fastballs the last two seasons.

Breaking Ball-Heavy Right-Hander (Example: Shane Bieber)

Biggio 2B
Bichette SS
Shaw 1B
Gurriel Jr. LF
Guerrero Jr. 3B
Hernandez RF
Tellez DH
Grichuk CF
McGuire C

Rationale: Guerrero Jr.’s primary struggles as a rookie came against breaking balls so he drops down to five here. Gurriel Jr. – who was outstanding against them – climbs up into the cleanup spot. McGuire draws in on the off-chance that his .704 career slugging percentage against breaking stuff means anything. Grichuk falls way down the lineup and Hernandez rises to acknowledge their differing strengths, despite their similar offensive profiles.

Offspeed-Heavy Right-Hander (Example: Zack Greinke)

Biggio 2B
Guerrero Jr. 3B
Shaw 1B
Bichette SS
Gurriel LF
Tellez DH
Hernandez RF
Grichuk CF
McGuire C

Rationale: The big change here is Vladdy moving way up on the strength of his .654 slugging against right-handed offspeed stuff last year. It may not be a big enough sample to trust, but all year long the young third baseman handled changeups and splitters with ease. Fisher’s absence is notable in these two lineups, but almost all his MLB success – such that it is – has come against hard stuff.

Fastball-Heavy Left-Hander (Example: Eduardo Rodriguez)

Biggio 2B
Bichette SS
Grichuk CF
Gurriel Jr. LF
Guerrero Jr. 3B
Hernandez DH
Tellez 1B
Jansen C
Fisher RF

Rationale: The Blue Jays are relatively low on right-handed southpaw killers, but Gurriel Jr. fits the bill with his .928 career OPS against lefties – a major upgrade on his .767 against same-handed pitching. Bichette also showed well against left-handers last year, so those two get the two and four spots. Fisher and Tellez stay in because both have handled lefties fairly well, especially their hard stuff. To be honest, the alternatives aren’t appealing either. Shaw is only useful against righties, and it’s debatable if Drury is playable at all.

Breaking Ball-Heavy Left-Hander (Example: Chris Sale)

Biggio 2B
Bichette SS
Guerrero Jr. DH
Gurriel Jr. 1B
Hernandez LF
Grichuk RF
Drury 3B
Jansen C
Alford CF

Rationale: This lineup is ten-ply soft. The problem is that both Tellez and Fisher, who can hold their own against lefties generally, really struggle against the ball breaking away from them. Tellez hit .137 off that pitch last year and Fisher is baffled by breaking balls overall posting an atrocious 48.7 percent whiff rate against them in his MLB career. That forces Drury and Alford in. The best that can be said for this group is it gets the team’s best defenders into the game.

Offspeed-Heavy Left-Hander (Example: John Means)

Biggio 2B
Guerrero Jr. DH
Hernandez RF
Gurriel Jr. LF
Bichette SS
Grichuk CF
Tellez 1B
Jansen C
Drury 3B

Rationale: Tellez is able to draw back in here, but this still isn’t an encouraging group. These last lineups expose how an offensive upgrade over Drury would do the Blue Jays a world of good against lefties.

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