Once again, this is the weekly series where I plan take the top 9 Indians in terms of OPS and feed them into Dave Pinto's Lineup Analysis Tool to determine the theoretical ideal batting lineup.
This Week's Results
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This Week's Ideal Lineup
Fasano
Sizemore
Francisco
Shoppach
Choo
Peralta
Dellucci
Garko
Gonzalez
Changes From Last Week
The players remain the same, but outside of Grady Sizemore, almost no one is in the same spot in the lineup.
Theoretical Runs Per Game
5.355, down 0.183 from last week. Yet the team has still been winning.
Theoretical Improvement
The Indians are currently scoring 4.836 runs per game. That's an improvement of 0.519 runs per game, which in turn leads to 84 runs over the course of the season, or 84 more wins. Theoretically, they'd move into third place, but still wouldn't be close to the division leaders.
Defensive Plausibility
Once again Sal Fasano mans the hot corner.
Fan Believability
As before, Fasano playing third and batting leadoff is a good way to get a manager fired.
My Take
The first thing that jumped out at me is that Jhonny Peralta is cooling off again, and this lineup reflects it. Even if you ignore Fasano in the leadoff spot, though, this isn't a bad nine.
Random Indians Thought of the Week
It's hard to say whether or not baseball should be in the Olympics. I say this even as a person who loves baseball. In many ways, the Olympics should be the pinnacle of sports competition, as it is for swimming and track. Countries like Cuba treat Olympic baseball as that pinnacle, as Fidel Castro wants to prove to the world that his country is the best at his favorite sport. But for countries like the USA, the pinnacle of baseball is the World Series, and it shows too, as teams debate even sending their AA talent to the Olympics. So should baseball come back to the Olympics in 2016? That remains to be seen.
