My catcher draft strategy, is it sound?

[George_Foreman]

The fact that the second C only adds an additional 20% of "favorable" ABs doesn't fatally damage this strategy, IMO. You will still be able to play matchups (starts at favorable fields, vs. favorable RH starters, etc.) with the platoon; you just won't be getting their vs. LHP numbers. And for two super-late picks, that's definitely not the end of the world.

Now, with that said, it's probably worth noting that Molina's career line vs. LHP is considerably worse than his line from last season: an OPS of .830 instead of .950. Again, this flaw certainly isn't fatal, but there are probably other platoons out there that are more effective.

[MrT]

I would not pick Kendall; he is useless. B. Molina will not be available for your last pick

[GotowarMissAgnes]

The fact that the second C only adds an additional 20% of "favorable" ABs doesn't fatally damage this strategy, IMO. You will still be able to play matchups (starts at favorable fields, vs. favorable RH starters, etc.) with the platoon; you just won't be getting their vs. LHP numbers. And for two super-late picks, that's definitely not the end of the world.

Now, with that said, it's probably worth noting that Molina's career line vs. LHP is considerably worse than his line from last season: an OPS of .830 instead of .950. Again, this flaw certainly isn't fatal, but there are probably other platoons out there that are more effective.

Great point, George. One year splits can be very fluky, especially given the small number of PAs versus lefties. I'd look at lifetime or 3 year splits before drawing a conclusion about platoon splits.

[davidmarver]

Let's pick a #, if each rotation has 40% lefties, then the chances that one of the two faces a lefty is 80%, but you are still stuck on 20% of days with a catcher who faces a righty.

Nope. If rotations were 40% lefty, the odds that one of the two faces a lefty is 64%, not 80%. 16% of the time they both will be facing lefties, and 36% of the time neither will.

Personally, I don't think the strategy will work too well. Those two players lefty/righty splits may have been drastic last season, but over their careers it's probably much closer to being around the same...to the point where you effort is probably spent better at another position (like finding good spot starts).

[deutschland]

Bench spots are too valuable to waste on a platooning catcher.

[Snakes Gould]

i dont understand why you wouldnt pick 2 catchers where 1 was great vs lefties and one was great vs righties. then whenever the ugy faces a lefty you plug him in...

[zig zag daddy]

Its nice to see a creative strategy...but I dont see why you would want the headache...especially when i doubt it would net you the points even david ross would get you.

[GotowarMissAgnes]

i dont understand why you wouldnt pick 2 catchers where 1 was great vs lefties and one was great vs righties. then whenever the ugy faces a lefty you plug him in...

Actually, the platoon strategy works best if you have two lefties who both hit righties well. Then you have:

Player A faces righty, B faces righty = .7 x .7 = .49
Player A faces righty, B faces lefty = .7 x .3= .21
Player A faces lefty, B faces righty = .3 x .7 =.21
Player A and B both face lefty = .3 x .3 =.09

So, only about 10 percent of the time do you end up with a bad matchup.

I've mentioned to others before, I think this works better in situations where you can rotate 3 players through 2 positions, which reduces the bad matchup to only about 3 percent of the situations. I've done it a lot with my last OF/Util position and find that I can typically get round 8-12 production out of guys I pick between round 18 and 25--all lefties with big splits.

[Snakes Gould]

very very intresting... never though of it like that...very good point.