The Barajas/Phillips Super Platoon!

[TrueBlueJay]

Fmradioguy brought up an interesting point about how Barajas can't hit lefties very well, so I decided to look furthur into the stats of Barajas and Phillips:

Barajas hits much better vs. righties than lefties. He hit .279 versus righties last season for example.

Barajas' 3 year splits from 2004-2006 (his 3 years as starter) he hit .258 with a .746 OPS.

in 855 AB versus righties he hit 54 doubles, 35 HR, and 119 RBI.

I figure he should get 425 AB if we start him mostly just against righties next year, and judging by those stats, could be expected to hit:

.258 with 27 doubles, 17 HR and 60 RBI

Jason Phillips on the other hand, hits lefties much better than righties. His career average versus lefties is .271 with a .765 OPS.

in 325 at bats versus lefties he has 24 doubles, 8 HR and 50 RBI.

If the Jays give him the majority of the at bats versus lefties, he'd probably get about half of that, maybe 160 at bats, and if he maintained pace, would hit .271, with 12 doubles, 4 HR and about 25 RBI.

Add those two projections together and you get:

585 AB, .261 AVG, 39 doubles, 21 HR, and 85 RBI, along with an OPS of about .755.

Not saying they are going to do that, but if Barajas was used strictly vs. righties, and Phillips strictly vs. lefties, thats what the averages work out to

[Ultimate]

Its a good way of splitting the games behind the plate because you get the better player in Barajas out there about 2/3 of the time which is about the amount you want to play him anyway. I am very much in favour of a strict platoon behind the plate. Of course some pitchers are bound to prefer one catcher over the other and with day games after a night game it will never be a 100% platoon, but for the most part they should split it up this way.

[MapleLeafBlueJayBoy]

That is a good post Trublue. I was also thinking of the strict Phillips/Barajas platoon as well, I think that will work nicely.

[TrueBlueJay]

thanks guys