There is an old saying, that two heads are better than one. In baseball, we use a slightly modified variation on that axiom: two bats are better than one.
Platoons have been in use for decades. Famously, Casey Stengel made them a staple of the New York Yankees whom he led to six World Series titles in the 1950s. With the increased specialization of relief pitchers, however, the platoon does not enjoy the prominence it once did in Major League Baseball. This is largely because teams must now carry 11 or 12 pitchers at any given time, limiting the number of reserve hitters they can carry to no more than five.
One thing platoons still do exceptionally well, though, is keep costs down. If a team is playing two men only part-time at one position, they need only pay role-player salaries to each. If the players combine to make a solid offensive contribution, that can be a significant advantage.
The 2010 Chicago Cubs already plan to make use of one platoon, albeit a somewhat convoluted one. Second basemen Mike Fontenot and Jeff Baker will split that duty, barring an unforeseen acquisition.
In a perfect platoon (which would see the left-handed hitting Fontenot play about three times more often than the right-handed Baker), this tandem could produce the following numbers: .275/.347/.462. I arrived at those estimated figures by averaging the two men's career statistics against opposite-handed pitchers, and weighting for playing time.
Those guesses are suspect, because Fontenot had a miserable season in 2009, and because Baker's career rates are somewhat inflated by his previous home park, Colorado's Coors Field. If the two can even approximate those figures, they will be more than sufficient. Another potential issue with that projection is that Chicago likes Baker quite a bit, and may play him on occasion against right-handed pitching to even things out.
Meanwhile, the Cubs have one defensive position that remains unfilled: center field. After trading Milton Bradley to Seattle, Chicago has made it clear that it intends to move 2009 center fielder Kosuke Fukudome back to his more natural right field, leaving center ostensibly vacant.
The solution to this dilemma, however, may be right under Chicago's nose. Sam Fuld, their diminutive spare outfielder in 2009, bats left-handed and would introduce speed in whatever part of the order he batted. Fuld has also made a dozen sparkling defensive plays in what still does not add up to even one full season of Major-League work.
Waiting by the phone is another 2009 Cub, free agent Reed Johnson. Johnson bats right-handed, so he would be called on relatively infrequently. That helps assuage worries about his durability, after he battled injury down the stretch last season. When healthy, however, Johnson also covers the ground in center field exceptionally well.
What kind of numbers would a straight Fuld-Johnson platoon post? By the same method I used to derive the second base production, they would post a solid .285/.401/.382. Those numbers are even more suspicious, because of Fuld's tiny career sample size (he has just 124 plate appearances under his belt), and because the Cubs feel he is over-matched by Major-League pitching.
It is somewhat hard, however, to determine exactly why GM Jim Hendry and manager Lou Piniella feel this way. Fuld simply hasn't ever been over-matched: he does not hit for power, but his career low for on-base percentage in the Minor Leagues was still a robust .358, and he has an above-average on-base plus slugging in his limited big-league work. He might not sustain his career .403 on-base percentage if asked to play nearly every day, but there is no good evidence to suggest he would fall flat, either.
The Johnson-Fuld option in center field would cost the Cubs somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.5 million, figuring Johnson for a small pay cut and Fuld for a very modest raise.
Marlon Byrd, by contrast, would cost Chicago at least twice that. Such an expenditure is only justifiable if Byrd can maintain the kind of production he has provided for the past three seasons: since 2007, Byrd has a line of .295/.352/.468. Prior to that campaign, however, he actually had considerably worse career numbers than the two-headed monster of Johnson and Fuld could provide.
If Hendry still believes the Cubs can make a serious run at a championship in 2010, he may elect to take a gamble on Byrd. If, however, he determines that the long-term interests of the franchise are better served by waiting to make a more aggressive play next season, Fuld and Johnson provide an interesting and potentially productive alternative.
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