Is it important to have a strong balance of L/R hitters in an Ottoneu lineup? I’m finding my roster to be exceedingly left-handed. Going into the auction - I have 5 OFs, 4 of which are LH. It’s also a bottom-heavy OF (meaning, I need a solid #2/#3 guy), so it’s a positon of focus. Many of the best OF options are left-handed hitting.
I understand that lefties platoon more often, so of course looking at projections to identify platoon-heavy players will weigh in my evaluation. But, assuming I am shopping at the higher end of the market and will be targeting everyday players….it really shouldn’t matter, right? My team doesn’t face a single starter on any given day.
But please correct me if I’m thinking about this wrong!
Generally you’re thinking about it the right way and I assume you’re in daily roster change format, not weekly. If you have a high number of platoon-specific bats at a given position, I recommend building more depth into the position, not necessarily thinking about handedness.
So if you have Muncy for example (can be platooned), maybe select 2-3 additional options that you can rotate into 3B for the days Muncy has off (think Josh Smith, McKinstry, Triolo types with multi-position eligibility, that are likely to play somewhere most days). That way you don’t miss out on points in the 40-50 games he sits.
OF is a great position to platoon, because of the additional starting spots. If you have 8-9 LH platoon OFs, you should be able to have 5 starting OF against RH SPs on any given day.
With OF, I only want LH bats unless it’s Judge really in FGPTS/SABR. I have had to keep a cheap Stanton I couldn’t trade on a team, but not happy about it. It always gives you the best matchups each day, in theory. Outside the OF, I don’t care about handedness unless I specifically say that I am platooning a position in the infield.