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December 09, 2003

The Lost Art Of Platooning

In the late nineties and early aughts, baseball teams threw around top dollar and multi-year deals to any Joe Shmoe or Todd Zeile who came along. However, that practice has changed alongside baseball's economic landscape. Teams are busy trying to undo the mistakes made by prior administrations and, short of inventing the baseball equivalent of , have to trim payroll wherever they can. Thus the now-ubiquitous event known as the non-tender.

When a team decides not to tender a contract to a player, it is usually because they fear that the potential arbitration settlement is too high. Typically, players who have completed three years of service in the major leagues are eligible for salary arbitration. The exception are those known as "super-two" players. According to the 2003-2006 MLB Collective Bargaining Agreement, this is:

a Player with at least two but less than three years of Major League service shall be eligible for salary arbitration if: (a) he has accumulated at least 86 days of service during the immediately preceding season; and (b) he ranks in the top seventeen percent (17%) (rounded to the nearest whole number) in total service in the class of Players who have at least two but less than three years of Major League service, however accumulated, but with at least 86 days of service accumulated during the immediately preceding season. If two or more Players are tied in ranking, ties shall be broken consecutively based on the number of days of service accumulated in each of the immediately preceding seasons. If the Players remain tied, the final tie breaker will be by lot.

After three years of service (or super-two), a player has three arbitration years. A team can offer arbitration to such a player, and the player is required to accept. This results in a one-year contract with a salary to be determined in an arbitration hearing. After those three seasons, the player no longer has to accept salary arbitration and can become an unrestricted free agent.

Until recently, a team would seemingly always offer arbitration to their arbitration-eligible players (between 3 and 6 years of service). However, with the pursestrings tightened, more and more players are given their unconditional release and sent off to find work elsewhere. While many of these players are crummy, it is certainly possible to find some affordable production in the non-tender bargain bin. Which brings us to...

The Platoon. The idea behind platooning is to take two complementary players who, while not very impressive individually, actually combine to be a pretty useful if not very productive player. With a modicum of cash to spend, one can put together some decent platoon positions among the many warm bodies on the non-tender bonfire. For a semi-complete list of non-tenders, check out this post at Batter's Box.

Player            AB    AVG   OBP   SLG  HR   RBI
Reggie Sanders    136  .301  .368  .647  12   33    (vs LHP)
Matt Stairs       273  .304  .402  .582  18   53    (vs RHP)

The 136 at-bats for Sanders against left-handed pitching this past season is a small sample, I'll admit. But he's posted a .970 OPS (.314 GPA) since 2001 in 386 at-bats). Sanders would probably cost $1.5 million for one season, with Stairs probably getting around $1 million. So that's $2.5 million for a player who could put up a .950 OPS, 35 HR and 100 RBI.

There are a number of other players who would provide productive platoon splits. The following non-tenders have put up very productive numbers over the past three seasons against lefties or righties:

Player            AB    AVG   OBP   SLG  HR   RBI
Andres Galarraga  291  .289  .356  .495  14    49   (vs LHP)
Tony Graffanino   304  .293  .367  .497  11    37   (vs LHP)
Brian Jordan      280  .318  .381  .582  18    71   (vs LHP)
Eric Karros       307  .316  .389  .515  12    44   (vs LHP)
Carl Everett     1309  .290  .367  .509  47   170   (vs RHP)
Fred McGriff      950  .297  .380  .532  56   175   (vs RHP)

All of these players can be had for a reasonably small contract, and can provide good production against one type of pitcher. It's an inexpensive way to maximize production out of a particular position.

Eric | 10:46 AM EST | TrackBack: 1

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