Stumping for a Fontenot/Baker Platoon

We’ve had a lot of discussion around here about the 2nd base job next season. There aren’t any projection systems available yet, but I thought it might be a good idea if we come up with some numbers. The 4 players often talked about are Mike Fontenot, Jeff Baker, Placido Polanco and Felipe Lopez. Polanco and Lopez are free agents and could command a large contract. Fontenot and Baker are arbitration eligible for the first time and will likely make no more than $750,000 each next year. Mike Fontenot is so bad against lefties that you can’t seriously consider him for an everyday job. Jeff Baker is so bad against righties. Polanco and Lopez could be everyday players, but are they better than a Fontenot/Baker platoon? At first I thought Polanco would be for sure. I knew there was no way Lopez would be, but I wanted some actual numbers to use. I ignored age, ballpark and league, but calculated a weighted average using the last 3 years (5-4-3). I did this for Fontenot, Baker and Lopez. Polanco has been consistent enough that I didn’t think it was necessary. We can expect about a 340 wOBA from him. I know these numbers will be different than the projection systems that take several other factors into account, but these are ballpark projections. There’s often a big difference between projection systems, but overall I doubt these numbers will vary too much from the average of the projection systems. For defense I just used the career average UZR/150 at 2nd base for each player. I also converted OBP and SLG to wOBA using the formual wOBA = (1.75*OBP + SLG) / 3. I used EQBRR from only 2009 for baserunning. As I said, these are by no means perfect projections, but they do give us an idea of what we should expect from each of these players. Mike FontenotAVGOBPSLGOPSwOBA vs. Left0.2520.3060.3690.6750.302 vs. Right0.2750.3490.4400.7890.350 Felipe LopezAVGOBPSLGOPSwOBA vs. Left0.3030.3580.4160.7730.347 vs. Right0.2760.3480.3870.7350.332 Jeff BakerAVGOBPSLGOPSwOBA vs. Left0.2740.3300.4940.8240.357 vs. Right0.2580.3180.3800.6970.312 Baker/FontenotAVGOBPSLGOPSwOBA vs. Left0.2740.330.4940.8240.357 vs. Right0.2750.3490.440.7890.350 As you see, Baker is best against righties and Fontenot is best against lefties. Since these 2 are already under contract it doesn’t make sense to sign anyone unless they are a significant upgrade. Felipe Lopez is not that. He’s not as good as this platoon. If we use our handy dandy WAR calculator including defense and baserunning we end up with the following: Per 700 PAs Pos PA OBP SLG wOBA Hit BR Pos Fld Rep WAR FA $ WAR Fontenot 2B 450 .350 0.91 -0.10 0.25 0.96 2.00 4.02 $12.9 2.6 Baker 2B 250 .357 1.34 0.01 0.25 0.22 2.00 3.82 $7.0 1.4 Lopez 2B 700 .340 0.30 -0.44 0.25 2.00 2.11 $10.6 2.1 2009 EQBRR Fontenot: -1.1 Baker: 0.1 Lopez: -4.4 Lopez makes Ryan Theriot look like the best baserunner in the history of baseball. It’s not easy being worth -4.4 runs on the bases in one season. He was the 13th worst baserunner in 2009. We can subtract some from Baker and Fontenot because they won’t be fortunate enough to always face left or right handed pitchers. If they were, they’d be worth about 4 WAR. 3.5 seems a reasonable expectation out of these two next season if they were to play in a strict platoon. Felipe Lopez is worth only 2.1 and that’s in 700 plate appearances (total for Baker/Fontenot). There’s certainly some risk in sticking with Baker and Fontenot, but at the same time there’s less risk if that makes any sense. The Cubs wouldn’t be on the hook for any additional money so if it doesn’t work it’s not a big deal. The downside is that I don’t think the reliability in these projections for these 2 are very high. Then again, considering the career of Felipe Lopez, the downside may not be any more than it would be if you were to shell out some money for him. Either way, the right decision here is to stick with Fontenot and Baker at 2nd base in 2010. The added bonus of sticking with Fontenot and Baker is that both guys are white so the fans will adore them.