Predicting the Orioles’ O-pening Day lineup

I did a fun exercise at my old blog a few years ago where I polled other O’s bloggers and my Twitter followers to put together a predicted Orioles lineup for Opening Day. To celebrate the launch of Eutaw Street Report, I wanted to do something similar.

So, with that in mind, I asked followers of ESR on Twitter (@EutawSTReport) to submit their predictions for the O-pening Day lineup. The idea was then to take a simple average of where in the order each respondent had the player, and then rank them 1-9.

However, it wasn’t quite that easy. With the health of Nick Markakis and Nolan Reimold still a bit up-in-the-air, and with many not sold on Brian Roberts staying on the field even through March, I had to account for the fact that “average” didn’t really paint an accurate picture (this is a situation where “mode” will work more for some players than “mean” for those who remember high school statistics).

Anyway, boring explanations aside, here is a list of those who participated in the predictions:

@lmaciolek

@MDSportsNet

@RichardDent8

@mattyboh17

@jcollins424

@Hedbone

@BalSportsReport

@MattCLund

And, myself.

Here were the results:

1. Brian Roberts – 2B

All nine respondents had B.Rob in their lineups, so – at least in this small sample size – it seems O’s fans are confident in Roberts, at least in the short term. Seven of the nine had him leading off, while the other two had him batting ninth.

2. Nick Markakis – RF

Markakis was in eight of the nine lineups submitted. Seven of those had him batting second, with the other batting him third.

3. Adam Jones – CF

AJ was – obviously – another in every lineup submitted. Seven had him third, and the other two cleanup.

4. Chris Davis – 1B

The Deputy was in every submission, anywhere from fourth (four) to sixth (one). The other four had him fifth.

5. Matt Wieters – C

Fourth – three, Fifth – five, Sixth – one.

6. Nolan Reimold – DH

Reimold only made it into six of the nine lineups submitted. Of those, he was as high as second (one), and as low as eighth (one). Others had him at sixth (three) or third (one).

7. J.J. Hardy – SS

O’s fans are eager to move Hardy out of the #2 spot that he occupied all of last year. “Mr. Pop-Up,” as many came to know him would be much more effective lower in the order. Five respondents had J.J. seventh, and two each sixth and eighth.

8. Manny Machado – 3B

The youngest member of the lineup was always in the bottom third, either seventh (two), eighth (four), or ninth (three).

9. Nate McLouth – LF

Nate was in eight of the nine lineups submitted, with some having him at leadoff (two – the same two that had Roberts ninth), another second, another seventh, two others eighth, and two others ninth.

Others receiving votes:

Wilson Betemit – three of the nine submitted lineups had “Meat” somewhere.

Conor Jackson – C.Jack was in two of the lineups.

We’ll all find out how accurate we were in our predictions in two weeks!

Post your prediction in the comments.