Can anyone explain how Ryan Garko is hitting so poorly? 

Over 3.5 seasons Garko is hitting only .254/.341/.446/.787. His batting ratings are 78/78/72/64/80.

Yet somehow Peter Poole is hitting .268/.326/.493/.819 over that same time period and his batting ratings are 77/86/55/65/40. 

Shouldn't Garko be getting on base at a higher percentage? And at the very least his BA should higher than Poole's right (obviously his on base percentage is higher, but it doesn't make sense why the batting average is lower)? I can't seem to get Garko to hit. Are his relatively low Vr rating hurting him that much? Poole's Vr is basically the same and his Eye is only half of Garko's and yet he seems to be able to get more hits over a pretty decent sample size...


 Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Peter Poole
 Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Ryan Garko

L/R

Yes but Poole's VL is way worse and his Vr rating is only 1point higher... Combined with Garko's ability to make contact/SIGNIFICANTLY better eye, I'd have thought that Garko would be able to hit better.

No.  Which side he hits from.  LH or RH.

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/6/2013 2:03:00 PM (view original):
No.  Which side he hits from.  LH or RH.

Ah... Thanks! That makes sense.

So would you expect Garko to be a sub .800OPS guy for the rest of his career?

He's facing mostly righties, and righty pitchers have better ratings against right-handed hitters than lefties, generally.  Gap between the 2 is about .040 in OPS, sounds about right.  Garko DOES have a better OBP.

His career ops is prolly what he will average.   

This is why I have a mini HBD man-crush for switch-hitters.

Posted by tecwrg on 12/6/2013 3:40:00 PM (view original):
This is why I have a mini HBD man-crush for switch-hitters.

+1

Pervs.

Like you've never enjoyed a man who would go both ways for you!

I realize this an old thread but could someone explain the discrepancy between these two batters to me again?  

I checked all starting pitchers in my world and discovered the following

A little less than 60% of starters had vR > vL and the average difference was 10.5 pts.  Their avg L/R split was  ~64/74

A little less than 40% of starters had vL>vR with an average difference of 10.2 pts.  Their average L/R split was ~72/62

The remaining few % of starters had vL=VR but they worked out to the same averages I will derive below

Profile for RH batter
60%  to face 74 vR
40% to face 62 vR
Avg vR = ~69

Profile for LH batter
40% to face 72 vL
60% to face 64 vL
Avg vL= 67

My conclusion is that the disparity in splits is far too modest and cannot account for the gap in the batting records of those two players.  This is even more exacerbated if you crunch the numbers and realize that Garko's superior OBP is HEAVILY inflated by HBP (presumably due to his low temper).  

Furthermore, since the same effect shows up between other L/R comparable batters, I believe there is a built in matchup advantage independent of player ratings. It seems lefty batters get a significant overall boost vs rightys.  The net advantage seems to be about .05 OPS.

All worlds are different and player usage varies.   Two players who have been with me their entire careers.

Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Al Nolan

.278

.342

.425

.767

Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Willie Delgado

.253

.319

.416

.735

Nolan is a lefty and has never really been a full-time player.   Delgado is a righty and has been a full-time player his entire career.   The ratings are pretty close but Nolan has had favorable match-ups most of the time(VR).    Consequently, he has superior numbers when it appears to me that Delgado should be the better hitter.

I'll add that I have a formula that is pretty good at projecting who will be the better hitter in any given season(using RC27 as the barometer).   It's tweaked a little to be park specific but, plugging those two into my Cooperstown formula, Poole should be about 5% better than Garko.    Looking at their careers, that's pretty close(Poole is about 3% better).