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Are the Brewers starting to trend towards more of a platoon situation in left field? Khris Davis is sitting for the second consecutive game as the Brewers face the right-handed Lance Lynn. In place of Davis, lefty Logan Schafer will start once again.
Lynn has fairly extreme platoon splits over a four-year career with right-handers hitting for just a .628 OPS against him and southpaws notching an 811 OPS. Those numbers started to even out a bit last year, though, to .652 and .765, respectively.
Still, it's a little strange to see the Brewers favor pulling Davis for multiple days just because of platoon splits. In his brief major league career Davis does hit lefties better, but it's not like his 848 OPS warrants him sitting. He actually hits for a much higher batting average and gets on base at a higher rate against same-handed pitchers, he just has not posted as prodigious of power numbers.
Logan Schafer, meanwhile, has a career 641 OPS against right-handers. Yup. That's over 200 points less in OPS than Davis has against righties. But I guess you have to get that handedness right. I sure hope this isn't a trend. And, no, platoon splits don't tell the whole story and neither guy has a very big sample size to pull from. But unless the Brewers are doing this for purely defensive reasons it's pretty silly, I guess. In basically no situation is Logan Schafer a more valuable hitter than Khris Davis.
I agree with J.P. Breen that Schafer is better than most give him credit for, but still.
Anyway, I'm not complaining as much as the 300 words above may make you think I am. Both Schafer and Davis will get plenty of time this year, and one game won't make a big difference. I hope it's not heading towards a strict platoon, but I'm also not going to criticize the Brewers much when they've won 9 straight games.
9 straight games, guys!
