The Indians didn’t lack much in the run-scoring department throughout their memorable 1995 season, yet three of their four losses to the Braves in the World Series that year were each decided by just one run.

Somehow, though, that isn’t even the most agonizing factoid of the series.

The final out in each of those defeats — Games 1, 2 and 6 — came with Albert Belle, the Tribe’s cleanup hitter and fearsome slugger, stuck in the on-deck circle like a Superman villain trapped in the Phantom Zone.

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Today, we are more in tune with the benefits of optimizing a lineup. We get how dropping each spot in the order results in fewer chances over the course of a year — or, in this case, series. But nearly 25 years ago, lineup concepts revolved around much different ideals.

What could Belle have accomplished with just one more trip to the plate in each of those losses? What if the game’s most feared hitter that year had actually occupied, say, the two-hole, the lineup slot where, as research indicates, your best overall hitter should reside?

And beyond just Belle, what if their entire order was restructured using ideas we consider to be important today, things like on-base percentage and maximizing your best hitters?

Simply stopping at what if is not exactly a satisfying conclusion. We deserve an answer. And since we’re still a little under a month away from the real thing, we needed a break from poring over last year’s leaderboards.

So, before we start daily arguments over their current lineup, let’s have some fun. Let’s explore other ways the star-studded 1995 batting order could have been structured to maximize their overflowing offensive talent.

Then, let’s put those lineups to the test in the nerdiest way possible — a computer simulation of the 1995 season, courtesy of the quality legwork provided by our friends at Out of the Park Baseball, using the latest version of their in-depth baseball simulation game.

Would the Indians put up better offensive numbers? Does Belle, in a different scenario, slug more than 50 homers? And if not, does his simulated version take out his digital frustrations on a computerized thermostat?

OK, so we’ll be at the mercy of some digital madness, hidden in their complex algorithms. But, dammit, who doesn’t love a little random anarchy to accompany our 20-20 hindsight?

On most nights, Mike Hargrove’s starting lineup looked something like this.

1. Kenny Lofton (.815 OPS, 109 wRC+)
2. Omar Vizquel (.684 OPS, 80 wRC+)
3. Carlos Baerga (.807 OPS, 107 wRC+)
4. Albert Belle (1.091 OPS, 173 wRC+)
5. Eddie Murray (.891 OPS, 128 wRC+)
6. Jim Thome (.996 OPS, 158 wRC+)
7. Manny Ramirez (.960 OPS, 145 wRC+)
8. Paul Sorrento (.847 OPS, 112 wRC+)
9. Tony Peña/Sandy Alomar (.679, 74/.810 OPS, 108 wRC+)

With Belle in the familiar fourth slot, their offense was already a powerhouse, a boogeyman looming in the closet of hurlers. They scored a league-best 840 runs. The belted 207 homers. They led baseball with a .839 team OPS. With so many talented hitters, you probably could have generated a different Tribe lineup each night by drawing names out of a hat and still come away pleased.

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But something about positioning one of their least impactful hitters, Omar Vizquel, over the likes of some future and potential Hall of Famers seems … less than ideal, and Vizquel actually finished with the team’s second-highest total of plate appearances that season.

Furthermore, for all the good intentions of letting Belle feast on table setters (the main point behind the past notion that your best power bat must hit fourth), the top two slots in their lineup that year contributed an on-base percentage of just over .330, two of their lowest three batting slots in OBP that season.

Simply, not only was Belle failing to receive as many chances by hitting fourth, but also the guys behind him — Murray, Thome and Ramirez — were actually reaching base more frequently than the hitters in front of him.

Again, that doesn’t seem ideal.

A miscast of that magnitude wasn’t Vizquel’s fault. It wasn’t even necessarily the fault of Hargrove. The narratives tied to building a batting order were just different in that era, and thankfully, ideas have evolved.

Thanks to books like Tom Tango’s “Playing the Percentages in Baseball,” things like on-base percentage are more valued. Through research, we can understand the value of putting your three best hitters at first, second and fourth in the lineup. We get that the fourth- and fifth-best bats should probably slide into the third and fifth slots, respectively.

According to several studies — Keith Law presents similar cases in “Smart Baseball” — by following that blueprint, a team should likely score a few more runs than a non-optimized lineup would over the course of a season, which, as you can guess, increases their odds to scratch out another win or two or more.

That might not mean the difference between the worst and best offense — you can only hide so many warts — but even if maximizing your batting order results in just a handful of additional runs, why wouldn’t you do it?

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The hybrid

Before we jump into any drastic shifts in their lineup, a good place to start might be taking a combination of old and new ideas.

For instance, Kenny Lofton at the time was considered to be one of baseball’s best leadoff hitters. Even by today’s standards, his respectable on-base percentage and stolen-base potential make him a solid choice to begin any lineup, even if his overall offensive profile didn’t position him as one of the Tribe’s three-best hitters on the 1995 squad.

We’ll leave Lofton at the top in this particular incarnation. But in this exercise, our most important goal is to bump Belle up the lineup to maximize his plate appearances. We’ll position him in the two-hole, followed by Ramirez and Thome, ensuring that we get their best offensive performers within the top four.

The rest of the starting nine would largely be ordered by declining OPS, giving us a final product that looks like this.

1. Kenny Lofton
2. Albert Belle
3. Manny Ramirez
4. Jim Thome
5. Eddie Murray
6. Paul Sorrento
7. Carlos Baerga
8. Tony Peña/Sandy Alomar
9. Omar Vizquel

Given that Vizquel carried a higher OBP than Peña — the veteran backstop actually earned the bulk of the playing time behind the plate in 1995 — we’ll see if the switch-hitter’s presence can help feed the second leadoff hitter theory better than their catching tandem.

With our first experiment set, we fed our creation to Kris Jardine, the Perfect Team Community Manager at Out of the Park Baseball, who was kind enough to handle these 1995 simulations for us.

Now, a couple of things to keep in mind before revealing our first results. One, in fairness, we split the catching duties similar to the way Peña and Alomar were used that season. Alomar, of course, was the better hitter, so limiting his playing time due to his injury was necessary.

Two, the rosters of other teams in this simulation had their lineups maximized by the game’s AI. So, just as the Tribe’s lineup might have gained an advantage, their competition might have gained one, too.

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And three, computer simulations are just as random as real baseball. The same group of Tribe pitchers fared differently in each run through the season. So, that’s why we’ll present the final results of each simulation and compare it with the actual results of the ’95 staff.

Even that makes this exercise, uhh, far from infallible — consider this your disclaimer — but quit trying to suck the fun out of it, will ya?

Now, for our first results.

Ahh, a little worse average than 1995 (.291), a similar OBP (.361) and a little lower slugging percentage (.479). But 34 more runs! And eight more homers! That’s … something.

And now, for the individual breakdown.

Six more doubles and three fewer homers for Belle, who picked up a few more at-bats despite playing in fewer games than his real counterpart. He even managed to score and drive in a few more runs.

Let’s see MVP voters attempt to ignore his lofty wins above replacement total. (Or his perfect 11-for-11 steal rate!)

As for the entire team, this simulation of the Tribe finished with 90 wins, gave up 56 more runs than their actual pitching staff and finished with an 11-game lead in the AL Central, eventually losing to the Red Sox in Game 5 of the ALDS.

Yup, Zane Smith is off the hook.

Like we said, randomness.

However, we didn’t request the simulations to see how their pitchers would perform. We already have that constant — they gave up 607 runs in 1995. If we applied that to the run total of our first experiment, we’re left with a run differential of +267. That leaves us with an expected win percentage, based on runs scored and allowed, of .675, a 97-win pace in the strike-shortened 144-game season.

Given they finished with an actual expected win total of 93 games, this (clears throat) totally scientific, one-off approach to seeking answers tells us we’ve improved what’s under the hood of the 1995 Indians! … Maybe.

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Anyway, on to the next one.

Stacked sluggers

For our next creation, we removed some of the preconceived biases about lineup building and focused solely on getting their best sluggers the most plate appearances we could. So, we stacked our second version in descending order of their slugging percentage from that season.

The result certainly didn’t look anything like a typical batting order, but conventional is boring and goes against our goals here, anyhow.

1. Albert Belle
2. Jim Thome
3. Manny Ramirez
4. Eddie Murray
5. Paul Sorrento
6. Kenny Lofton
7. Carlos Baerga
8. Tony Peña/Sandy Alomar
9. Omar Vizquel

Sure, maybe Belle is destined to hit a few more solo homers, but if nothing else, we’re doing our best to guarantee their best sticks get as many chances as possible.

And the result.

Ah-ha! A higher average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. More runs. Even more homers. Now we’re on to something.

And look at that power surge by Peña!

Meanwhile, Sorrento’s overall OPS is down, but ignoring the platoon splits of the left-handed power bats has inflated his home run total. And with Vizquel, the nine-hitter, getting on base at a 37.6 percent clip, Belle is still finding RBI chances at the top of the order.

Our second simulation results in a 99-win season for the Indians, one behind their actual win total. This particular incarnation made it to the ALCS, where they lost to the California Angels in Game 7. And as for how their inflated run total would pair with their actual pitching results, the slugging lineup lifts their expected win total to 98.

Continued improvement, despite still being victimized by the randomness of playoff baseball. We could be satisfied with the results and end our experiment there.

But let’s give it one last try.

The on-base order

There are only so many ways to stack their best hitters, but since we ordered based on slugging in our second experiment, it’s worth doing something similar with on-base percentage.

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Focusing just on each batter’s ability to reach base, here is our third and final lineup.

1. Jim Thome
2. Manny Ramirez
3. Albert Belle
4. Eddie Murray
5. Kenny Lofton
6. Carlos Baerga
7. Paul Sorrento
8. Omar Vizquel
9. Tony Peña/Sandy Alomar

Thome, who posted a .438 on-base percentage in 1995, might actually be the best hybrid leadoff hitter of all the scenarios we’ve explored. He’s got enough power to take advantage of a pitcher trying to ease into a game and he’s certainly not scared of taking a walk and giving others an opportunity to drive him in.

With the 24-year-old leading the top of their lineup, their offense turned in the best numbers of our trio of simulations.

As you can expect, a Thome-led group didn’t steal as much — why risk giving away outs on the bases with so many talented hitters in the mix? — but they more than made up for it in just about every other area. They scored nearly 100 more runs. Their team OPS was an incredible .870. And if we paired this run total with the actual 1995 pitching staff, they’d be looking at an expected win pace of 101.

And as for Thome, specifically, he generated a convincing case for AL MVP.

So, with the on-base lineup just oozing runs, Tribe fans must finally get a pleasant conclusion to the 1995 season, right?

Well, the Indians do finish with a 20-game lead in the Central. But for all the additional offense generated in our final simulation, Tribe pitchers also give up 705 runs, and the team faces another earlier-than-expected exit in the postseason, this time in the ALCS at the hands of the … (scans notes) … Oakland Athletics?

The same A’s that finished with an actual record of 67-77, worst in the AL West?

If that’s not proof that almost anything can happen in a one-off simulation — or real life for that matter — what is? And the final results of our three OOTP experiments highlight the unfortunate reality of this exercise: There’s no way to hop in a DeLorean and try out each of these lineups in the real world.

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No matter how much noise you try to reduce through various simulations and attempts to re-create the 1995 environment, we’ll never know for certain. But given what we now value, we can say with a degree of confidence that a reshuffled order would have increased the odds for an even more lethal output.

Whether Belle actually makes the most of his at-bats against the Braves or the Indians have enough to hold off Mark McGwire, Terry Steinbach and the rest of the 1995 Athletics, we’ll leave that to your own experiments.

Note: Special thanks to Kris Jardine, Richard Grisham and the rest of the folks at Out of the Park Baseball for running our lineups. If you’d like to try your own simulations or attempt to guide the current Indians to the World Series, you can preorder now or download their latest version March 22.

(Photo of Albert Belle and Carlos Baerga: John Cordes / Getty Images)