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Given the minor league track record that Fat Strat showed, I wouldn't be too worried about a .474 OPS in just 115 PAs against lefties. Matt Holliday had a stretch from July 26, 2008 to May 26 of last year where he had a .539 OPS in 115 PAs against lefties, and he's not even left-handed. Those things happen in small sample sizes, even without considering the growing pains for a 22 year old rookie or the fact that he had some health issues this year. There's not really much reason to expect Rasmus to have a .300+ point OPS platoon split or a .184 BABIP against lefties going forward.

I like the quote from Rasmus. As long as the 2009 split doesn't get in his head, it's not something I'd worry about.

Comparing a player giving us the first data we have against lefties with a veteran, and cherry picking stats is comparing apples to oranges.

Like I said, I'm fine with him playing against them on a sometimes basis, but it's not a bad idea to me, to sit him once a week against lefties. This keeps him fresh, and maximizes his chances of success.

It doesn't matter the name on the back for the player, at the major league level, I want results. If in his time playing against lefties, he sees some success, there is no reason he can't face more and more of them as the season progresses.

You can't just take 115 PAs and say that because these happen to be the first 115 PAs against lefties in the Majors, that's what his talent level is and that's what he hits against lefties period. You have to stop at some point and recognize that a sample is just a sample, and that sample size affects how much weight you give that information. What if you have a player with just 15 PAs against lefties? Do you say that he can't hit lefties, and the results aren't there, or do you realize that you should not change your approach with a young player because a small sample of 15 PA just doesn't change that much about what you'd expect from him? Surely it would be the latter. You have to keep sample results distinct from the expectations you use to make personnel decisions. 115 PAs is still a very small sample, way too small to throw out all of a player's minor league track record and all of your scouting information on a player.

I assume you would not make the assertion that because that's what his 115 PA sample shows, that's what you would expect going forward, and that you would agree that Rasmus' expected split against lefties going forward is nowhere near a .474 OPS. In that case, it's just a matter of degree of how much concern there should be over the split. In all likelihood, it's just a fluky thing, just like the Holliday split. It's still 115 PAs that are completely anomalous to his track record, and it's 115 PAs by a 22 year old facing playing through health issues. I don't see that as a reason to put an inferior player in center field or to slow Rasmus' development.

OPS in first 115 PAs against lefties:

.476 Aubrey Huff
.523 Grady Sizemore
.527 Ryan Howard
.563 Joe Mauer

When you have enough hitters coming into the Majors, eventually you'll see some of them hit well below their talent level over their first 115 PAs in a given split just by chance. It's the same kind of cherry picking happening as with picking out a 115 PA stretch from Holliday's 845 career PAs against lefties. With that many observations of 115 PA samples, some of them will look bad, and when you pick out one that does end up looking bad (such as Rasmus) based solely on his observed split being bad, it's still cherry picking the bad results.

You make a whole heap of assumptions in your post, none of which I've ever actually typed.

Please, by all means, continue with your assumptions. Don't stop on my account...

Here is the one assumption I made about what you said (or meant):



Is that wrong?

It boils down to the fact that Rasmus isn't going to (or shouldn't) be playing 160 games this year. If we're going to need to rest him some, and we'll play probably 40 games against lefty starters this year, I'd rather rest him a majority of those games, and have a player such as Baldelli and his .800+ career OPS play against them than Rasmus, and any expected improvements against lefties from last years performance.

ZiPS says Rasmus will hit 260/327/411 overall, and everybody else's computer will say the same thing roughly. A standard L/R split on that will make him pretty much useless against LHP.

In order to get a statitically meaningful measure of a left handed batter's platoon splits, you need about 1,000 plate appearances. We don't have that kind of data for Rasmus, and won't for a long time.

Given this (which basically says take every number concerning his AB's against LHP and throw them away), and taking what I see in his swing together, I have to believe that Rasmus will *not* have a significant platoon split throughout his career. I like the say he stays in on pitches, he keeps his head down and his chin tucked even when it starts at his head.

Mark my word, he will hit lefties better this year than he did last. That's my opinion, but I feel pretty strongly about it. If I were TLR, I wouldn't "protect" him too much. I think he's a big boy and can handle it.

2010 Projections for Rasmus:

.340/.439 CHONE
.334/.428 CAIRO
.327/.427 Marcel
.323/.431 James
.327/.411 ZiPS

.330/.427 AVG

The Fans are also higher on Rasmus, but I don't know where that will be once they re-baseline the Fan projections, or what league average would be for the fans right now.

ZiPS is the lowest of any of these on Rasmus, and CHONE is much higher. The average of the 5 projections is moderately higher than ZiPS. Even the ZiPS projection with a standard split doesn't make him close to useless against lefties, though. Assuming the projection has him with a league average percentage of lefties faced (about 18% for a LH hitter) and giving him an average LH platoon split (about .075 OPS), that would give him a projected split against lefties of roughly .304/.376, which is an OPS+ of around 80 in Busch. That might sound bad, but Rasmus was .307/.407 last year and was still a 2.3WAR/.5 WAA player, so with his defense, that's serviceable.

Over 600 PAs, an 80 OPS+ is about 14 runs below average. Add in his defense (CHONE and Steve Sommer have his defense projected at about +6 in center, which is about +8 runs with a position adjustment), and he's about -6 runs, or a 1.4 WAR player against lefties, without considering his baserunning. EQBRR had him at 4.3 runs last year, so we can probably safely bump his projection against lefties up to 1.5 WAR per season (or -.5 WAA), including baserunning. That's not useless at all, and that's the lowest projection on him. The average of the five projections has him about 3 runs better on offense, which puts him within a couple runs over a full season of average. CHONE would have him right about average against lefties even without his baserunning, and a little above with it.

You probably want to use something closer to 650 PAs for a 150-game projection and I get a bit lower splits against LHP, but these are nits. Yes, Rasmus's WAR will be positive if you believe his defensive projection, so "useless" can be described as an exaggeration at the very least. But I don't think I'd want to die on a battlefield to get extra playing time for a guy that projects to ~1.5 wins over 150 games.