Do you plan on playing fantasy baseball as a profession or hobby?
you can go into as much detail as your time allotment will allow you. I think for the most part if managers look at split stats they will look at righty/lefty stats. I did have a team a couple of years ago that had Helton on it so I did play the home/away platoon with him. I also would be more inclined to play a platoon system with my lower players and than it is likely past 10 days stats. The reason most don't worry about stats in the detail that you presented is that you want your best players in your lineup as they is why you drafted them and there is a very good chance that your replacement option will not produce enough to sit your higher drafted players.
You shouldn't really be concerned about split stats with your early picks like Hart. They should be drafted for the whole package. When you get down to a guy like Wandy Rodriguez and his insane home/away splits, then you start to keep a closer eye on it.
Polar Bear wrote:Take a look at Corey Hart's AVG split stats last year.
Left AVG: .281 (167 AB) Right AVG: .263 (445 AB)
Home AVG: .253 (293 AB) Away AVG: .282 (319 AB)
Day AVG: .297 (239 AB) Night AVG: .249 (373 AB)
I'm using Hart since he had some pretty significant swings especially in the Day/Night Split.
Should I put much emphasis on splits in general?
Well this is pretty simple. If Hart is facing a righty at home in a night game, you should probably sit him because his average is then the multiplication of the three individual averages:
.263 * .253 * .249 = .017
Pretty easy sit call to me...
Okay I'm just kidding. The only time I ever consider splits is when I have players of equal value in general. Most often I'll look at right vs left split and home vs away with preference on right vs left split. Day vs Night is usually much too small of a sample size to draw any major conclusions. Like GP said this works best for the guys at the end of your rosters...
You should try to not see things that aren't there.
For example Hart was better at home and at night in '07, the opposite of his '08 splits.
If I end up with extra hitters on the bench I might look at lefty/right splits, who the opposing pitcher is and recent stats (like last 10 days) if I need to start/bench someone. But that is about it.
It takes about 3 years of data to establish a good baseball, so that means you need about 6 years of split data. So, if 6 years of split data shows a big split, you might want to act on it. In same cases--park effects--we don't have to look at individual players to get a sense for the overall impact.
"I don't want to play golf. When I hit a ball, I want someone else to chase it."
I stopped worrying about left/right splits a long time ago because it sucks to bench a guy who's weak against, say left handed pitching, who ends up hitting a late game home run against a right handed reliever.
I figure as long as my normal hitters are starting on any given day, I'll stick them in the lineup regardless, you never what will happen in a game. It's like the time I benched Sammy Sosa because he was facing Johan Santana one day and he ended blasting a dinger, same thing happened when I benched Chris Duncan because he was a facing a left hander and he ended up hitting a grand slam, it's just not worth the effort.
I'll qualify that with one thought, the one time I like to look hard at splits is when I am grabbing a hitter off the WW for a single game spot start, and it's always hitter versus specific starting pitcher - you'd be amazed how much Troy Glaus has owned Jake Peavy.
In daily change leagues... If a player has a definite hole in his game against Lhp/Rhp then you can draft that guy knowing you'll platoon him with someone else and get better than normal production from him. I usually go hitting-heavy early and if I miss out on a good 1B or #3 OF, I'll start to incorporate potential heavy-split guys into my thinking. That doesn't mean I reach for them much above ADPs, but I might think about taking two 1Bs, for example, that both hit RHPs well and suck against LHPs. I can platoon them so that they never start against a LHP and get greatly increased production from them.
Not something I ever "plan" to do at the start of a draft, but something I think is worth researching so you know who would be available for that should you need to go that route.
Also as several have said don't take 50 at bats and assume you know that someone has huge splits. Multiple years of stats (minors and majors) and/or scouting notes on them not hitting LHP/RHP well are needed to consider someone for a split platoon.
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by Polar Bear » Mon Mar 09, 2009 1:09 pm 
