How Optimal Was The Royals 2014 Lineup

My simulator is a good tool for looking at optimal batting orders.  It can play tens of thousands and even millions (with a smaller set of games) of games while keeping the opponent static which can give you a good idea which lineups win more games.  I am using the Royals most common lineup that they used in the 2014 season and seeing how optimal the simulator thought it was.  After doing this for the Dodgers and Cardinals, I decided to move on to the Kansas City Royals.  I put in some filters to cut down on the number of lineup permutations.  I tried to mimic what the Royals manager tended to do in not hitting lefties back to back other than the 9th then leadoff hitter etc...    Of course you can't expect any manager to be implementing the most optimal lineup but you also don't want him to be giving away fractions of wins each game that can add up over a 162 game season.  So down below, I list the Top 10 lineups along with the most common 2014 lineup in a table sorted by Wins/162 games.  I also list a table showing the frequency of where each player batted in each of the top 50 lineups.  I love the batting order frequency tables as they show you which players have a few dedicated positions in the order they should be hitting in and which players are more versatile in giving you an optimal lineup.  I used 2014 final season stats as the input projections for each hitter because that is for the most part similar to the data that the manager went by.  And I did all the simulations with the opposing team using a right handed starting pitcher.

Before we begin, here is the common Royals lineup that I compared against

Aoki-Infante-Hosmer-Butler-Gordon-Perez-Moustakas-Escobar-Dyson

                                        Top 10 Lineups

Lineup	Wins/162 GB
Aoki-Infante-Moustakas-Perez-Gordon-Escobar-Hosmer-Butler-Dyson	0.000
Aoki-Escobar-Moustakas-Perez-Gordon-Infante-Dyson-Butler-Hosmer	0.065
Aoki-Escobar-Moustakas-Perez-Gordon-Butler-Dyson-Infante-Hosmer	0.111
Aoki-Infante-Moustakas-Perez-Gordon-Escobar-Dyson-Butler-Hosmer	0.143
Aoki-Escobar-Moustakas-Perez-Gordon-Butler-Hosmer-Infante-Dyson	0.164
Aoki-Escobar-Hosmer-Perez-Gordon-Infante-Moustakas-Butler-Dyson	0.166
Aoki-Escobar-Moustakas-Perez-Gordon-Infante-Hosmer-Butler-Dyson	0.207
Dyson-Infante-Moustakas-Perez-Gordon-Escobar-Aoki-Butler-Hosmer	0.238
Aoki-Escobar-Moustakas-Perez-Hosmer-Butler-Gordon-Infante-Dyson	0.308
Moustakas-Escobar-Hosmer-Perez-Gordon-Butler-Aoki-Infante-Dyson	0.354

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             Batting Order Frequency Table

	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th
Aoki	30	0	0	0	9	0	5	0	6
Escobar	0	32	0	0	0	11	0	7	0
Moustakas	4	0	26	0	5	0	10	0	5
Perez	0	3	0	39	0	5	0	3	0
Gordon	9	0	0	0	30	0	10	0	1
Infante	0	14	0	0	0	19	0	17	0
Hosmer	2	0	24	0	6	0	10	0	8
Butler	0	1	0	11	0	15	0	23	0
Dyson	5	0	0	0	0	0	15	0	30

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Note:  The most common lineup ended up 0.56 wins per 162 games behind the most optimal lineup.  Not too bad.  The simulator liked batting Perez cleanup which the Royals did not do.  The simulator also liked hitting Escobar second instead of Infante (basically switching them).
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