Hitter Profiles: Build-A-Hitter (Do Splits Matter?)

Buckle up for some analysis as we look to answer once and for all the question that all daily league managers contemplate themselves:  Do splits matter?  The concept has been around for years and hinges on some real-world strategy in the major leagues.  Many hitters have strong splits which is seen in major league lineup construction and pinch hitter selection.  So, logic would follow, that fantasy managers can look up splits and simply draft two less sexy names and play the lineup game.  With the ability to select which games a player starts; we can take two unheralded guys (say Adam Duvall and Austin Hays) to build an all-star hitter (maybe Aaron Judge).  It sounds so easy!  Time to (dis)prove that notion in this week’s hitter profiles.

The Splits:

In early NFBC ADP we have Adam Duvall coming off the board around pick 225 and Austin Hays a few slots earlier in the 215 range.  Duvall has been known to be a masher of right-handed pitching across his career with 115 of his 151 career long-balls coming off those poor righties with his splits being even more severe in 2021.  Hays on the other hand has had more balanced results including 2021 but compared to Duvall and much of the league he is a sorcerer when facing those southpaws.  Let’s check out those splits below.

While we know splits will double count games, nevertheless the combination of these two gentlemen is quite intriguing.  Maybe we are able to turn around a pretty little profit with that limited draft day investment.

Build-A-Hitter:

As our introduction indicates, we are trying to build ourselves an all-star using Aaron Judge as a comparison with an early ADP around pick 40.  That is quite a leap from these two guys that can be picked up late in the draft.  Let’s just roll with the assumption that their managers know what they are doing and have been selective in their starting assignments.  Making that leap, we can simply just add their stats together to create Adam Hays or Austin Duvall, right?

Here is where the Build-A-Hitter concept comes from in the simplest form.  Add up the stats and see where we land.  We have created an all-star with a little homework and hustle through the season!  However, is it really that simple?  Of course not.

Where it Falls Apart:

As fun as statistics are, they can always be used to tell a story and that is what we did here.  Split statistics are naturally flawed for fantasy analysis because they look at the pitcher being faced rather than the pitcher starting the game.  If we could set our lineups by at-bat then this would be great, but we act on the best information at hand when lineups lock which would be the projected starter.  So, after a little digging and manually aligning every starter for every game that Adam Duvall and Austin Hays played in 2021, we find out that they combined to start 143 games across the season in the favorable side of their splits.  The numbers below are splits based on the starter rather than our traditional splits by pitcher.

The story is noticeably different than the actual splits that we see for both gentlemen in the first chart above.  Hays has pretty even splits although relative to others in the league as he handled left-handers fairly well so matching up to the starter does not limit his upside as it does with Duvall.  Overall, there is not nearly the advantage that we first anticipated could exist.

Will the Real Hitter Please Stand Up?

So, we did not build Aaron Judge like we really were hoping, but considering how atrocious Duvall has been against lefties there has to be some advantage right?  Really, go back and look at that first chart, Duvall hit .178 with 6 homers against lefties last season.  Let us compare this more realistic version of Adam Hays (Austin Duvall) against well…Adam Duvall.

At the end of the day, the Build-A-Hitter concept is interesting and there surely are times where it has merit, but we must be careful as it is not a one size fits all.  When a lefty starts a game there will be inevitable times that a righty enters from the bullpen and vice versa.  If there is a single spot in the lineup and two hitters to fill, then there is no reason not to follow the splits.  However, making it a core part of your strategy without spending hours matching up the statistics to how our fantasy game rolls is probably not the wisest decision.