The Best Royals Lineup They Can Field

We talk so much about roster construction, but let's see what the Royals lineup should look like in 2024.

There are three very basic things that every manager gets judged on before anything else. The second is when they pull the starter. The third is who they bring in to replace him. But the first is the lineup he puts out day in and day out. I’m sure it’s the same everywhere, but lineups get critiqued like nobody’s business. I’ll put the starting nine (10 really, I guess) on Twitter and the responses are kind of hilarious to me. Similar to the argument over first base defense, lineup construction is more important than many believe and way less than others believe.

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But still, there is importance here. You want your best hitters getting the most at bats and your worst getting the fewest. That’s pretty obvious, but I actually think there’s more to it than just that, especially with the three-batter minimum rule. While roles have changed in the bullpen, I actually think that you can ideally alternate left-handed and right-handed hitters in an attempt to force opponents into difficult matchups in those situations.

Years ago, the idea was to put your fastest hitter at the top of the lineup, a guy who can handle the bat second, your best hitter third and your best power hitter fourth. From there, it was usually a couple of power guys and then a hodgepodge in the seventh and eighth spots followed by a “second leadoff hitter” in the nine spot. That isn’t how it works anymore. Can a team win with this formula? Sure! Are they making it easier on themselves by doing that? Absolutely not!

Take a look at the numbers by spot in the batting order in 2023 compared to 2010:

First of all, the #9 spot in the 2010 numbers is AL-only since pitchers hit in the National League way back when. Why did I pick 2010? I don’t know, it seemed like a relatively recent season and a round number. The point is that you can see how lineup construction has changed by league numbers over the last decade plus. You’ve got legitimate power guys at the top of a lineup now where they were previously saved for the middle of the lineup. Look at some of the guys who hit first at least 200 times in 2023 and their slugging percentages in that spot:

Ronald Acuña Jr. - .596
Mookie Betts - .579
Lane Thomas - .540
Jose Altuve - .531
Fernando Tatis Jr. - .529
Yandy Diaz - .524
Julio Rodriguez - .513
Ketel Marte - .505

Do you know how many guys had 200+ plate appearances hitting leadoff with a slugging percentage of .500 or higher? It was two! They were Stephen Drew and Martin Prado. Fast forward a year and the Royals were part of the trend with Alex Gordon hitting at the top of the lineup a little, but even then, it was only four people.

But also note the OBPs from top to bottom in last year’s league splits. The OBP starts at its highest point in the leadoff spot and drops each subsequent spot. The wRC+ almost shows that same pattern, but not quite since the second hitter is actually the best in a lineup in today’s game.

Let’s take a look at what I expect the Royals lineup to be as of right this second using the ZiPS projections, just because those are very accurate season-to-season. Remember with projections that they are 50th percentile. I can’t find the tweet right now, but Dan Szymobrski, the creator, noted that the percentiles hold pretty darn true. So just keep that in mind with the numbers. Anyway, with the lineup, there can be some changes, but I’m basing this off this week’s roster projection.

This isn’t quite to modern standards, but it’s actually not terrible. You’ve got what are sadly three of your best four OBPs at the top and the lesser ones down the lineup. There’s also a level of common sense here. For example, the Royals feel good about Kyle Isbel this season. He had a nice second half and all that good stuff. So you can look at his projection, but he’s also a career .232/.281/.370 hitter with a 75 wRC+. I hope the projection is right, and if it is, he can move up, but for now, I’m not going to believe that he’s going to have the fifth-best OBP on the team.

Either way, now we’re getting into an interesting question of how we move this lineup around to optimize it. There is a tool on the internet that I have used for a million years called Baseball Musings Lineup Analysis. It’s super cool. You plug in a player’s name, their OBP and their slugging percentage and it optimizes the lineup for you. I’m not going to do that just yet (we’re on the honor system, I promise I haven’t done it) before I offer up what I would do on this lineup with handedness alternating, best hitters at the top, true best hitters hitting second, etc. Without even thinking about it, using what I’ve just discussed, I think this is what I’d do:

Bobby Witt Jr.
Vinnie Pasquantino
MJ Melendez
Salvador Perez
Michael Massey
Maikel Garcia
Nelson Velazquez
Hunter Renfroe
Kyle Isbel

Okay, that was harder than I expected. There are only four left-handed bats in that lineup and two of them belong in the lower half. I think if I’m being honest and I was given a Royals jersey and the manager’s office, I might bump either Velazqeuz or Renfroe up to fifth and knock the rest down a peg, but this is a lineup that needs some guys to step up and may need Garcia to actually hit leadoff because he can get on base even if he can’t hit for the power that today’s leadoff hitter does. So let’s amend this some:

Garcia
Pasquantino
Witt
Melendez
Perez
Renfroe
Massey
Velazquez
Isbel

I guess not too far off from what I’m expecting to see on Opening Day. Let’s plug it in to the Lineup Analysis tool using these ZiPS projections and see what this lineup brings.

Here’s the good news. With this group and this projection, the very worst runs per game total I see is 4.4 runs per game, which would still be a huge boost over last season’s offense. The very best is 4.7 runs per game, so there isn’t a whole lot of variation. The lineup above would be good for 4.623 runs per game based on the tool. What’s the best lineup you ask?

Pasquantino
Melendez
Isbel
Witt
Renfroe
Perez
Velazquez
Massey
Garcia

Every one of the best lineups has Pasquantino leading off and Garcia hitting ninth. In my heart of hearts, I know that’s probably the way to go based on the modern game and is SUPER interesting, but I also know that’s never going to happen. The “best” lineup is also one that is pretty friendly to opposing bullpens with three lefties at the top. I find it interesting that so many of these lineups show Isbel hitting third, the spot that used to be reserved for the very best hitter on the team. For whatever it’s worth, the lineup I think the Royals put out shows at 4.634 runs per game, so that’s even better than my lineup.

I think we have a pretty good idea that Garcia and Witt are going to be 1-2 to start the season. I think your 3-4-5 are Pasquantino, Perez and Melendez. I’m not sure that I can pin down how the bottom of the order is going to look, but if the Royals are going to score enough runs to win a division, they’re going to have to optimize the lineup as best they can and hope someone steps up to make more of a clear case for who should hit sixth and who should hit ninth. One of the downfalls of the Royals offense last year wasn’t who was hitting at the top but rather that they simply couldn’t score the guys at the top with the poor hitters at the bottom.

Whether it’s Velazquez or Nick Pratto winning a job and showing out like he did in 2021 in the minors or Massey or whoever stepping up, they need at least one more bat to provide a clear differentiation. If they can do that, they’ll score enough runs. Since 2008, the Royals have scored 700 runs as a team just three times. They’ll need to make it a fourth if they want to have a real shot, so the lineup posts every day will be under even more scrutiny than they have been before.