February 12, 2002

Aim For The Head

Set Lineups

by Keith Woolner

This week's question (actually, it's an old question, but I'm just now getting around to answering it) comes from P.W., who writes:

As a Red Sox fan, I enjoy watching the Jimy Williams game of pretending that everyone is a regular. It got me thinking about lineups and percentages of playing time that go to a set lineup. Specifically, I'm wondering if have a set lineup correlates at all with winning. (I believe the pennant-winning 1986 Red Sox had one of the most set lineups in recent history.)

There are a couple of ways that we can think about how "static" a team's lineup is over the course of a season:

1. How many different lineups are used?

2. What teams used the same lineup and batting order the most frequently?

Each of the above options gives a slightly different perspective on the question, though they are obviously closely related. The first measures the total amount of lineup juggling (is the manager thrashing around for some lineup that works?); the latter option considers whether a manager has a favorite lineup he sticks to whenever possible.

Throughout this discussion, I'll be looking at the nine-player starting batting order for American League teams, but will exclude the pitcher for National League teams, so as not to confuse position-player stability with rotation or pitching-staff stability. I also exclude (or segregate) strike years, because fewer games were played and thus fewer lineup cards were filled out, which helps make perceived stability easier to attain (fewer opportunities for injuries, etc.). The data span 1978-2000, as I do not have the detailed information to include 2001 yet

Let's look at the first definition: the number of different lineups used over the course of the year:

Team-seasons using the fewest different lineups (non-strike years):

Year Team               Lineups

1984 Boston Red Sox        42
1993 Atlanta Braves        47
1978 Detroit Tigers        52
1978 Montreal Expos        54
1979 Montreal Expos        54
1985 Toronto Blue Jays     55
1986 Boston Red Sox        55
1982 Philadelphia Phillies 56
1985 St. Louis Cardinals   56
1983 Pittsburgh Pirates    57
1980 Atlanta Braves        58
1992 Toronto Blue Jays     58
1983 Houston Astros        60

Team-seasons using the fewest different lineups (strike years):

Year Team               Lineups

1981 Cincinnati Reds       42
1981 Philadelphia Phillies 47
1981 Montreal Expos        48
1981 Los Angeles Dodgers   49
1981 Atlanta Braves        51
1981 Chicago White Sox     53
1994 Cleveland Indians     53
1994 Chicago White Sox     54
1994 Los Angeles Dodgers   55
1981 St. Louis Cardinals   57

The 1984 Red Sox and the 1993 Braves were the most extreme when it came to stable lineups. Just 42 lineups were used by the Red Sox, matching even the most stable team did during a strike year. The Braves were the only other full-season team under 50 lineups, with 47.

How did these two teams fare? The Braves won 104 games, the second-highest total of their 1991-2001 streak run, and won the NL West before losing to the Phillies in the NLCS. The Red Sox went 86-76, finishing in fourth place in the seven-team AL East, sandwiched among four teams who won between 85 and 89 games. The Tigers ruled the division and won the World Series.

So, we have one great team and one average team at the extremely stable side. How about the least stable teams?

Year Team               Lineups

1985 California Angels    155
1990 California Angels    153
1996 Kansas City Royals   152
1999 Minnesota Twins      152
1979 Oakland Athletics    151
1993 Oakland Athletics    149
1992 Texas Rangers        148
1996 Cincinnati Reds      147
1997 St. Louis Cardinals  146
1992 New York Mets        145
1982 Oakland Athletics    143
1983 California Angels    143
1983 New York Yankees     143
1999 Montreal Expos       143
1989 Minnesota Twins      142
1992 Oakland Athletics    142
1989 Oakland Athletics    141
1990 Kansas City Royals   141
1990 Minnesota Twins      140
1991 Cincinnati Reds      140
2000 Boston Red Sox       140
1979 Baltimore Orioles    140

The 1985 Angels won 90 games and finished in second place by a single game, while the '90 Angels went 80-82 and finished fourth. The '96 Royals won 75 games and finished in last place (fifth). The '99 Twins lost 97 games and finished last, and the '79 Athletics lost a miserable 108 games, finishing last, 13 games behind second-worst Seattle in the AL West. For the most part, this is a sad lot of teams, but not exclusively: the '85 Angels had the fourth-best record in a 14-team league while setting the gold standard for lineups used.

What we really need to do is look at all teams, check their records, and the number of lineups they've used, to see the overall trend. I've plotted this below.

There's a very slight relationship in which teams that use fewer lineups tend to win more games. As you can see from the scatter chart, it's not very strong, and explains only a portion of variance. Of course, the cause and effect are important to consider: teams that are healthy and winning have less incentive to voluntarily change lineups, since what they are doing is working. It's the teams who are losing who might as well try something different, from changing the batting order to taking a look at some prospects. Injuries will force any team to adapt. Mostly, though, strong teams lead to using fewer lineups, not vice versa.

Another approach would be to see which teams used the same starting lineup and batting order the most, and consider how often they won. The following is a list of teams that started the same position players in the same batting order 27 or more times.

Year	Team	G	Lineup
1984	Boston Red Sox	66	Wade Boggs Dwight Evans Jim Rice Tony Armas Mike Easler Bill Buckner Rich Gedman Marty Barrett Jackie Gutierrez
1978	Detroit Tigers	48	Ron LeFlore Lou Whitaker Rusty Staub Jason Thompson Steve Kemp Milt May Tim Corcoran Phil Mankowski Alan Trammell
1990	Pittsburgh Pirates	44	Wally Backman Jay Bell Andy Van Slyke Bobby Bonilla Barry Bonds Sid Bream Mike LaValliere Jose Lind
1983	Atlanta Braves	38	Brett Butler Rafael Ramirez Claudell Washington Dale Murphy Bob Horner Chris Chambliss Glenn Hubbard Bruce Benedict
1998	Atlanta Braves	33	Walt Weiss Keith Lockhart Chipper Jones Andres Galarraga Ryan Klesko Javy Lopez Michael Tucker Andruw Jones
1978	Montreal Expos	30	Dave Cash Andre Dawson Ellis Valentine Tony Perez Larry Parrish Warren Cromartie Gary Carter Chris Speier
1979	Pittsburgh Pirates	30	Omar Moreno Tim Foli Dave Parker Willie Stargell John Milner Bill Madlock Ed Ott Phil Garner
1998	Toronto Blue Jays	30	Shannon Stewart Shawn Green Jose Canseco Carlos Delgado Jose Cruz Jr. Tony Fernandez Darrin Fletcher Craig Grebeck Alex S. Gonzalez
1995	Cleveland Indians	30	Kenny Lofton Omar Vizquel Carlos Baerga Albert Belle Eddie Murray Jim Thome Manny Ramirez Paul Sorrento Tony Pena
1998	Philadelphia Phillies	29	Doug Glanville Gregg Jefferies Scott Rolen Rico Brogna Mike Lieberthal Bobby Abreu Mark Lewis Desi Relaford
1984	Chicago Cubs	28	Bob Dernier Ryne Sandberg Gary Matthews Leon Durham Keith Moreland Ron Cey Jody Davis Larry Bowa
1978	Los Angeles Dodgers	27	Davey Lopes Bill Russell Reggie Smith Ron Cey Steve Garvey Dusty Baker Rick Monday Steve Yeager
1979	Montreal Expos	27	Warren Cromartie Rodney Scott Andre Dawson Tony Perez Gary Carter Ellis Valentine Larry Parrish Chris Speier

Again we see the Ralph Houk's 1984 Red Sox as an extreme outlier. No other team in the past 23 years has come close to submitting the same lineup card 66 times in a single season.

Looking at the above chart, there are a few things to note: It's rare for a team that wins fewer than 70 games to stick with one lineup more than 15 times. That makes sense, given the roster shuffling that occurs in an attempt to find the guys who can play. However, the reverse isn't true: successful teams often have constantly changing lineups. Only four teams that won more than 100 games used the same lineup more than 20 times, while several more 100-game winners never used one lineup more than 10 times. Perhaps highly successful teams have managers who can rapidly adapt to changing circumstances. The statistical analysis of this chart is similarly uninteresting: just a .112 R^2 value for the linear model.

To summarize, other than a very slight positive tendency between using a set lineup and winning (in which the causal arrow is most likely: winning leading to set lineups), there isn't a very interesting relationship between lineups and winning. Perhaps the most interesting fact that has come out of this analysis is how much of an anomaly the 1984 Red Sox were.

Thanks for the question P.W. Remember to keep sending your "Aim For The Head" questions to kwoolner@baseballprospectus.com.

Keith Woolner is an author of Baseball Prospectus. You can contact him by clicking here.

Keith Woolner is an author of Baseball Prospectus. 
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