I suggested on Twitter that, while I certainly can't endorse the Dodgers' benching of their best hitter, Andre Ethier has historically fared well against right-handed pitchers. Granted, not so much this season. But before, yes.
Which led to this:
@robneyer @ArgyledPlaschke the fact that Either is not a good player anymore is more meaningful
— Corey Mohrien (@coreymohrien) October 7, 2014
Well, Andre Ethier's current talents certainly are meaningful ... but it's too easy to simply look at his 2014 numbers, which obviously don't look good. What if we had some way to measure Ethier's expected performance. We know what he's done. But what will he do?
Hurray! We have some way! They're called projections, and today we've got them. Here are projected wOBA for the Dodgers' active outfielders:
.377 Puig
.352 Kemp
.326 Ethier
.324 Van Slyke
.322 Crawford
If I'm just looking to put together my best-hitting outfielders against a right-handed starting pitcher, I could make an argument for anybody except Van Slyke, since Ethier and Crawford both bat left-handed.
The one case that's tough to make? Sitting Puig, who's clearly the Dodgers' best hitter. Complicating things is that both Kemp and Ethier are, at this point, poor outfielders. The Dodgers' best lineup against righties absolutely includes Puig and probably Crawford, but otherwise it's a terribly tough choice.
So Ethier probably can hit some still, enough to play against a right-handed pitcher. But much of what he gives you with the bat, he loses with the glove. Which is just another reason to second-guess Mattingly's decision.
