so lets talk platoons

well more appropriately splits.

One of the misconceptions about splits is that people look at OPS as the final answer. That is far from correct. The problem is that, mostly against LHP, we have a very small sample size to go off of. BABIP can completely skew results. ISO has it's own luck factors as well. That means, the best thing to look at is actually the BB/K rates to see if a lefty can handle a lefty, if a righty can handle a righty. If a player has BABIP skills, if a player has power, that's going to translate regardless of hand. That just comes into play after hitting the ball. What a player needs to do is be able to see the ball well, and BB/K is the best thing we have to tell us that.

This is without a doubt my biggest rage when it comes to people saying Boni is better against LHP. Sure, he has a .700 OPS against them compared to a .562 OPS against RHP. He also has a .396 BABIP against LHP, while just .268 against RHP. And his BB/K? 0.19 (6/39) compared to 0.44 against RHP (27/62).

Something else to remember is that almost always there is going to be a decent size split between hands for players. Sure, there are the Coghlan's of the world who hit both hands equally well, but they're rather rare. The most important thing is, can this player his this hand well enough? This comes more into play for RHB. It's not so bad to platoon a LHB, cuz most
pitchers are RHP (I think it's something like you'll face 75% RHP? I don't know exact number). But if a RHB can only hit LHB, they're not going to get much play time.


Gaby Sanchez



Now Gaby had been a target of this constantly because of his OPS against RHP has constantly been lower than LHP. This season was more of the same, as he put up a 1.031 OPS against LHP but just a .776 OPS against RHP. For his career, he has a 1.006 OPS against LHP, .822 OPS against RHP. And BABIP does play a big part.

So he's BB/K is barely different. There isn't that drastic of a difference in power, as he still had average to above average power in the minors against RHP. The biggest difference was BABIP. This wasn't unwarranted though. He had just a 16.8% LD rate against RHP, while it was 19.7% against LHP. He also hit a lot more pop ups against RHP (16% of FBs, compared to 11% of FBs against LHP).

So, we can assume he'd have something like a .280-.300 BABIP against RHP, while having a .310-.330 BABIP against LHP.

This is rather problematic though. If we assume a rather bad case scenerio (.280 BABIP, .140 ISO), that'd just be around a .250/.320/.390/.710 line. Which should be far, far from a corner infield spot. And the ISO might go even lower. A .300 BABIP does knock him into the mid 700s, but I think it's very unlikely he gets that high.

He would absolutely mash LHP though. We're talking about something, like, .300/.375/.485/.860 (.320 BABIP, .185 ISO) with room to grow. Makes him a good bench bat, especially considering our other 1b option is....

Logan Morrison



Unfortunately, Logan has done far to prove he can handle LHP, as he has just a 700 OPS against them. Here's an amazing stat for you: He has over 100 more ABs against RHP than LHP. He has only 4 more strike outs against RHP than LHP. That just shows you how drastic the difference is.

While there does seem to be a minor BABIP difference, it's just that, minor. He still hits just as many LDs against LHP than he does RHP, he'll still produce a good BABIP against them. And his power shows not much of a difference at all. It all comes down to strike outs. It's even more drastic this season: He's striking out less than 13% of the time against RHP, which is just crazy. His strike out rate against LHP is almost double though, at exactly 25%.

So can he handle MLB pitching? Well, if we assume the K rate goes up even more against MLB (let's say 27%), while still mainting a good walk% and good enough power (9% BB, .155 ISO, .320 BABIP), he'd have around a .260/.325/.415/.740 line. That's not necessarily platoon material, but it's also not good. And that could go way down if his BABIP this season wasn't a fluke (given his LD%, it should be), same with his power numbers. But both of those also have room to grow if things start to translate. I wouldn't start him a platoon, but I'd also have a short leash with it.

He is going to be Double D Tit awesome though against RHP.

Matt Dominguez

Are you scared that his name's brought up?

Don't be. It's something to follow but not something to worry about.



As we can see, the only difference has been power. It has been a DRASTIC difference in power, which is a bit worrisome, but there is also some luck involved with power and we still don't have that good of a sample size with him. And this season it's dramatically smaller (just a 63 point difference). And he's still also at least showing enough power that he'll still handle RHP. I mean, worse comes worse he becomes Ryan Zimmerman circa 2007-2008. That's still ballin.

And there's also Scott Cousins but I had already covered him earlier in the year.  Cliffnotes: Strikes out way too much against LHP and will very very likely need a platoon.  Everything else is same line though, and he should be good against RHP with awsm defense.

If a player isn't mentioned, it means two things: Either there's not enough of a difference to worry about, or they're non-factors and not worth putting time into (If only Jameson Smith had the power he was suppose to have coming into the draft and could then become John Baker 2.0. Le Sigh). Actually there is a third option: It's Kyle Skipworth and he's showing a rather drastic split but he's so much of a project now that we can't take too much from him atm.