I’ve been mentally pre-drafting some player analysis, hoping to write some entries over the Christmas break, though I probably won’t publish any until January. I can’t yet start one for Adam LaRoche, though, because we don’t know what his role will be. He might continue as a platoon first baseman with a new partner (either Jurries or Thorman from the farm, or a veteran brought in). Or he might be handed the job full time, or more or less full time. (He might be traded or benched, but I don’t really expect that.)

There are some interesting parallels between LaRoche and one of his Braves predecessors, Ryan Klesko. Both are from Orange County, for one thing. Both are listed at 6-3, though Klesko is much bulkier. Both were pitchers as well as hitters as amateurs. Both are slow, or rather LaRoche is slow and Klesko takes so long to get going that, even though he runs well then, he’s effectively slow. And both came up and were platooned, even though their minor league records didn’t show that they particularly needed to.

Now the thing about the platoon differential is that it’s real, and it’s almost universal. Very few players don’t have a platoon split, and it’s generally a little heavier for lefties than for righties. Klesko has a very large split. He’s been a devastating hitter against righthanded pitching (.292/.385/.548 for his career) but hits like Eddie Perez against lefties (.238/.324/.370/).

The thing is (and I can’t prove this without more splits than I can conveniently retrieve) that Ryan is a much better hitter against righthanders when he plays every day, even though he still sucks against lefties and doesn’t get any better. His first two years in San Diego (before they moved to that awful park) were his best seasons (by adjusted OPS+) since 1995 even though he was playing more against lefties and still couldn’t hit them, because he made up for it by slamming righthanders even more than usual. The Padres could do this, because they were a poor team, both in the senses of “not very good” and “low payroll”. The Braves could never do that, because they were always in contention and couldn’t afford to put a first baseman who hit like that in the middle of the lineup, and because they always had other options.

So now we have Adam LaRoche. LaRoche isn’t nearly as good of a hitter as Klesko, plus he’s not nearly as good of an athlete. LaRoche has hit .273/.328/.481 in his career against righthanded pitching. But in limited work against lefties (68 AB in 62 G), he’s hit .206/.299/.338. That might come up if he played more regularly, especially since the bulk of those AB are against lefthanded relievers who make their living getting lefties out. But the real trick will be if playing everyday makes his work against righthanders improve. Let’s say it bumps him up to a .300 hitter — .300/.345/.508. Then is he helping the team? Depends upon how much you give back against lefties.

The problem is that LaRoche isn’t as good of a hitter as Klesko. Like I said above, the platoon differential is almost universal. It’s just that the really good hitters are good enough that they can hit 30 points lower against one type of pitcher and it doesn’t matter. A “platoon player” is often just a guy who isn’t quite good enough to play every day, but you don’t have any really good players for that position. He can’t afford to put up a .700 OPS against lefties because the heights on the other side aren’t high enough.

We may see.