Fantasy Baseball Debate - Part 4

The last several posts have been a lot of theory. You are most likely wondering by now how any of this information can actually help your 2009 fantasy baseball team. So, let's talk about real players!

Consider the following 3 first basemen's 2008 statistics:

Name	Plate Appearances	HR	RBI	AVG
Prince Fielder	694	34	102	280
Adrian Gonzalez	700	36	119	280
Carlos Pena	607	31	102	250

Now consider the portion of these 3 first basemen's statistics that they compiled versus right handed pitching:

Name	Plate Appearances	HR	RBI	AVG
Prince Fielder	461	24	67	300
Adrian Gonzalez	431	24	81	320
Carlos Pena	392	23	75	280

Look at those high batting averages! HR and RBI production are also up against right handed pitching (RHP).

Imagine if you had these 3 first basemen and platooned them in your 1B and utility slot (and kept one of them on the bench each night). Assuming 75% of starting pitchers are right handers, there would be an 84.4% chance that 2 or all 3 of your first basemen would be facing right handed pitching on any given night. 14.1% of the time only 1 of your first basmen will face a RHP, and you will have to fill your 1B and utility slot with one good and one bad matchup. Finally, 1.6% of the time all 3 of them will face LHP and you will have to fill your 1B and utility slot with bad matchups (If you're wondering how the 84.4%, 14.1%, or 1.6% were calculated, let me know and I'll post the math).

The bottom line here is that you can dramtically increase the value of some of these hard hitting left handed hitters by picking a few of them that are eligible for the same position and then platooning them. Other hard hitting first basemen who in 2008 had batting averages versus RHP that were over 15 points higher than their overall averages include Ryan Howard (268 vs 251), Adam Dunn (253 vs 236), Aubrey Huff (321 vs 304), and James Loney (305 vs 289).