from Amazon
Friday, January 12, 2007
Platoon Advantage
Yet another in my favorite category (straightforward, well-researched, insightful) is how often does a team take the platoon advantage. Andy showed us that teams will take the platoon advantage 78% of the time with the pinch hitter. DanAgonistes adds to that by showing relievers coming in with the platoon advantage 62% of the time. He then further breaks it down by when a manager is consciously trying to take a platoon advantage with the reliever (close game, non-ace reliever) to get a total of 66%. Which got me thinking:
What would a random result be? Your first thought might be 50%, since lefty and righty seem pretty binary. But, you’ve got about 28% of your relief games as lefties. Batters are further complicated because of switch hitters. 15% of batters are switch hitters, 29% are lefties and 56% are righties.
So, if it were random, how often would you end up with the platoon advantage? You bring in a lefty reliever 28% of the time, and he’ll face a pure lefty 29% of the time. You bring in a righty reliever 72% of the time, and he’ll face a pure righty 56% of the time. So, .28x.29 + .72x.56 = 48%.
Ha. Hardly seemed worth the effort. The reason it wasn’t higher was because of the switch hitter. Take the switch hitter out, and the result would have been 57%.