Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

Last night I was in a live (uncapped) ATG8 draft. I had the third pick and Druid the fourth. We are in the same division.

Druid is simply the best at live drafts, he's done hundreds of them and probably wins a ring over a third of the time. I'm going to go through our draft round by round and post my thoughts. I went in with the plan of drafting for a League 34/Dunn/PNC type park - suppress RH power and otherwise have a lot of action. But you have to be flexible (as you will see).

Round 1

Ruth and Bonds go 1 and 2. I take Gibson and he takes Hornsby. They are both great players, but there are other 2B out there and the C pool drops off drastically. (I think Josh is a clear top 3 pick in a live draft, and a lousy #1 choice in an AD league because if you don't get him, you are going to get Fisk or someone as a replacement.)

Round 2

Lots of pitchers get taken: Pedro, Maddux, Alexander, Kershaw
Hitters that go: Mantle, Foxx, Brett, Gehrig, Williams, Mays, Lajoie, Bagwell, Charleston, McGwire Vaughan, Speaker

Druid takes Frank Thomas, I take Larry Walker. Thomas typically goes about here, I don't see it. There are two other great RH DH types (Kiner and Hack Wilson) and you can usually get at least one of them in the 4th round, especially since two SP have gone already. There is a run coming on SP, most people don't like being shut out of the top tier of SP. But my pick of Walker is equally weird, he gets hurt a lot and needs to be platooned. I Would have loved to get Speaker, who fit my plan perfectly. But with Josh in the fold, I was OK with a lopsided lefty bat.

Round 3

The next 4 picks are Duffy, Cobb, Joe Morgan, and Babe Adams. This is a serious reach for the Babe, he's more like a late 4th round pick. Cobb was also a mild reach; Speaker is significantly better as a CF, although Cobb has a terrific card for RF as well as his top priced CF only card.

I take Ross Barnes and Druid takes Piazza. Both these guys typically go around here, and have obviously good cards. Barnes will just lead off for me and do his thing. Piazza will pretend to catch and hit in the middle of Druid's lineup.

Round 4

Lots of pitchers go. Ferdie Schupp, one of the seriously overpriced cards in the set, is the next pitcher to go. As a 5-day starter he should be at best about $8.95 million; he's nowhere near as good as Pedro or Kershaw. So 4 of the top 6 drafted pitchers are 5-day starters, although Pedro and Kershaw both have 4-day cards that are worthy of high picks. He's followed by Leonard, Walter Johnson, Walsh, Russ Ford, Hecker (another 5-day guy), and Three Finger. That's 11 pitchers in the first 3 2/3 rounds, more than I'm used to seeing although not by a lot.

Oh, yes. Some hitters were taken, too. Harper, Kiner (see my comment on Thomas), Al Simmons, Musial, Dimaggio, Mauer, Dihigo, Aaron (a steal here in the 4th round), and Honus Wagner. Honus is a reach here, he's only a stud in Forbes-type ballparks, but this draft is being run by the computer since the guy unaccountably didn't show up.

Now Druid and I are feeling like we need to draft a starter, so he takes Mathewson and I take Tiant. Mathewson is just plain good, Tiant is very good in the ballpark type I have in mind, but is not good in a number of the parks that will be selected for the league.

Round 5

Joss, Josh Hamilton, Dale Murray, and Turkey Stearnes go now. Murray is a serious reach here, he's a god in low salary caps, but here he's just another guy since everybody has piles of bullpen and quite a number of them have clearly better cards.

I take Koufax and Druid takes A-Rod's reverse SS card. I like having two top-level starters in LD leagues, Druid is happy with one as you will see. We both have the same general plan in mind for our pitching staffs, though, as you will also see.

Round 6

Pitchers that go are Sutton, Gagne (he should clearly be the first reliever selected in a live draft), Sutter, Eck, Greinke, and Kevin Brown. All worthy picks, Greinke is perhaps the least worthy of the bunch but he's fine in a RH park.

Hitters that go are Eddie Collins Beckwith, Hack Wilson (see!), Junior, Thome, Schmidt, Willie Wells, McCovey, Trout, and Pujols.

Druid and I are of one mind here, he takes Billy Wagner and I take B.J. Ryan. He's obviously planning to play in a RH leaning park, So he grabs the reverse LH card while I just take a good solid LH reliever.

Round 7

The turnaround picks are Mathews, Boudreau, Boggs and Cash. Druid and I have had a long-running debate about Boudreau. I love him, Druid probably never uses him.

We both grab SS's, I take Larkin (reverse RH bats are sort of useless in the park type I'm heading for) and he makes the obvious choice of Jeter.

Round 8

Pitchers taken are Hoffman, Arrieta, Charlton, Gordon, Rivera, and Vance. Lots of relievers, and two of the best remaining SP.

Hitters who go are Luis Gonzalez (another seriously overpriced card, although a solid ballplayer at this cap), Frank Robinson, Joe Jax, Gehringer R Jax (usually these two Jacksons go in the other order), Snider, Jennings, Billy Hamilton, Hartnett, and Bret Boone. I don't like many of these hitters here, but at this point there are lots of more or less equals at most positions. If you want impact value from here on you have to plan to platoon.

Druid takes Putz and I, following my own advice, take Fred Lynn. There are a pile of good platoon CF's from both sides (Lynn, Reiser, Murcer, and vanSlyke against RHP and Cutch, Otis, Dawson, and Rogan against L). But Lynn is the best (as is Walker in RF).

Round 9

The turnaround picks are Dickey, Averill, Carlton, and Willie Hernandez. Sensible picks, all.

I take Carlos Delgado and Druid takes Vlad Guerrero as I continue on my platoon course and he continues to stock up on RH bats. I may have to use the really reverse Koufax card.

From here out I'm just going to focus on our two picks, at this point in the draft anybody in the remaining pool is a sensible pick if you have a plan for him.

Round 10 - he takes Papelbon and I take Dave Smith. I believe this was the first of two times he weaseled me and grabbed the guy off the top of my queue. Papelbon is tough against RH bats, and I wanted him badly.

Round 11 - Sixto Lezcano is still around so I grab him to platoon with Walker. (What a pair that is!) Druid grabs Albert Belle. Albert has a lot of cards that have different strengths. What a great hitter he was, buried in the roids era and (AFAIK) clean. I was in Cleveland then, and Manny, Thome, and Belle was a great reason to be a Tribe fan.

Round 12 - Druid grabs Hoss Radbourn as his #2 starter and I take Joe Horlen to start my planned collection of mix and match 5-day starters to fill the back half of my rotation.

Round 13 - Tip O'Neill is still around, so I grab him to start a LF platoon (although he's plenty good enough to play LF full time despite the bad defense and candy arm). Druid takes Tim Keefe, another SP for the ballpark type I expect him to use.

Round 14 - He takes Hank Greenberg and I add to my 5-day starter collection with Nolan Ryan. We are both well on the road to our teams.

Round 15 - I take Phil Regan and he takes Slim Jones. He's going for 5-day guys to fill out the last spot in his rotation, too. And Slim is a good choice for Minute Maid.

Round 16 - He takes Chris Sale (weasel #2) and I grab Ken Caminiti for 3B. Ken's a lousy choice for Minute Maid, though, so I will have to do something later. I could have taken Al Rosen here, but I like the idea of Caminiti's LH bat in LH parks, since I doubt that I will see many LHP with Josh, Lezcano, and Tip (and I have more "persuaders" on the way).

Round 17 - I grab Willie Stargell to platoon in LF and he finally begins to address CF with Torriente. I am of two minds with Willie here, is $7.80 MM card is a hell of a platoon card, but his new $7.06 MM card is almost as good, and a lot better in other respects.

Round 18 - He takes Troy Glaus to platoon with A-Rod, I take Rogan to platoon with Lynn.

Round 19 - I take Mike Jackson to pitch against Druid, he takes Home Run Johnson as a backup and possible platooner with Jeter.

Round 20 - He takes Cutch to platoon with Torriente, I take Marius Russo as a GP LH spot starter.

Round 21 - I take Pineiro to pitch against Druid, he takes Arthur Rhodes to add to his killer pen.

Round 22 - He takes Juan Gonzalez. I guess he's going to use the old Vlad card. I take John Donaldson's CF card, planning to switch him to my LH spot starter who is good against lefties role later.

Round 23 - I take Santo to play 3B in RH parks (yes, another anti-Druid pick). He takes Jose Fernandez, so he now has a tough lefty, a tough righty, and a reverse lefty to match up as his 4th starter.

Round 24 - He takes Biz Mackey as his backup C, a good choice to pair with Piazza. I take Joe Adcock to platoon with Delgado. I am still a hitter short, that will be addressed in waivers since I need a catcher.

Round 25 - I take Tom Haller and he takes George Foster.

In waivers, I add Dan Brouthers to platoon at 1B with Adcock and move Delgado to a full-time DH. I also flip Donaldson and Pick up Tulo as a backup SS and Harvey Haddix as another bullpen arm.

He adds Quisenberry, Ken Williams, and Gentile.

He and I have also had a long-running debate about with Greenberg card to use, I like the lesser card and he likes the top one. Maybe he will use my favorite Greenberg card against me. We should have a hell of a battle. But we may be playing for 2nd, since Dodgers 42 also had a hell of a draft. Foxx, Vaughan, Kiner, Aaron, Beckwith, Kevin Brown, Hoffman, Rivera, Randy J, Joe Wood, Campy, Bender, McDowell, Cy Young, Rickey H, Sandberg, Elston Howard, Derrek Lee, Willard Brown, Biggio, Pudge, Jack Taylor, Mesa, Kent, and Murphy. Hmm. Another Minute Maid guy. I may have to do some tinkering.

I'll make this interesting and play along with Craig. I was actually happy to see him in my division. He is very creative and does not follow the herd with his evaluations and player usage.

As far as I'm concerned Gibson and Hornsby as third and 4th picks in a LD, assuming Bonds and Ruth are taken 1 & 2, are pretty much a no brainer. I really like Hornsby because you can use one of two cards depending on your park and who cares if his .424 season isn't bulletproof. I had no preconceived notions going into the draft regarding park, but generally the 1st two round picks give some direction on where to head with park selection.

I took Thomas in the 2nd round, in part because I got burned taking Bagwell in the 2nd round on an active Barnstormer LD team that just plain sucks, but I wasn't tempted this time because someone took Bagwell earlier in the round. My buddy outtaleftfield took Thomas in nearly the same circumstance in his Barnstormer's LD league and his team is doing quite well. I chose Thomas as the guy is always productive and righthanded first basemen who can start both ways in Minute Maid in LD's don't exactly grow on trees. I wasn't looking to take him as a DH as Craig presumed-those guys DO grow on trees. Craig's pick of Walker is just a mistake. The opportunity cost of passing up better players - of which there are many -cannot be justified as Walker would surely have been there in round 3 and very likely in round 4 as well. I love the card but he under almost always under performs even as a platoon player in a lefty-friendly homerun park. I would have considered Harper instead, given Craig's park plans, although it can be argued that it would be a bit early for him too. RF is the weakest position in LD's IMHO so Craig was on the right track thinking of grabbing one but...

Craig's pick of Barnes in Round 3 was a bit of steal. He usually goes a bit earlier but I was happy to see the pick since I was definitely not in the market for another 2bman. I usually don't take Piazza quite this early because, like Walker, I feel his card often underperforms. But for Minute Maid, the drop off after Gibson and Pizza is significant, so I grabbed him with some alacrity.

I was hoping for Dihigo in the 4th but he wasn't there so I thought I'd grab a starting pitcher and Matty was the best left. Craig then drafted Tiant, his second mistake IMHO, although obviously he will disagree. Tiant is not a top pick in LD's because of the 3 ballpark #'s on his card. Given the Craig chose Dunn as his park, this negates Tiant's 2 #'s against righty's
at home, but Tiant will get hurt on the road against righties. Particularly when he has to pitch in my park! Craig doesn't do that many LD's, if he did he would realize that Tiant would probably be there even in Round 6. Just want to note that I don't think that Aaron is a steal in the 4th. He used to be a 2nd round LD pick but people have realized that he just isn't that great since he will probably see 80% righties. Where he went is about right for recent live drafts.

Our 5th round picks are both logical. I took A-Rod over Schmidt, who is better 3B man, because of the 2R for Minute Maid coupled with the surfeit of lefty killing 3B available in ATG 8. Koufax was a very reasonable pick by Craig.

Agree with Craig about Dale Murray, disagree about Gagne. I always take Wagner ahead of Gagne. Just not enough quality lefty relievers.

So I take Wagner and then Craig surprises me with B.J. Ryan. He was gonna be my next pick!!!!!!! Totally weasled by Craig.

Re: Boudreau. I do use him if necessary. But I hate that he catches and can screw up the catcher injury thing, which is why I try to never carry more than two catchers. In any event though, Larkin and Jeter are just both better than Boudreau. Period.

Craig took Larkin but I think this is a slight mistake. Jeter is better at LD's. He is great at the top of the lineup against righties and Larkin usually hits about .240 or less in LD leagues with not a great OBP either. Jeter and Homerun Johnson should have better years as a platoon than Larkin will as an everyday starter. Plus, there are a lot of SS's who kill lefties so a Jeter platoon, particularly in Minute Maid is ideal.

Round 8 Craig took Lynn. A very reasonable pick but he normally goes later than this. Putz seemed a no brainer for me. I need a good pen given my only having one starter so far.

My next pick of Guerrero may have shocked people. The higher priced Vlad will sometimes not even get picked in LD's until the post draft frenzy. But the cards are mispriced IMHO, and rightfield is weak so I was happy to grab him so "early" Really like the new 9.13 Guerrero. Craig takes Delgado, a reasonable pick but somewhat reflective of his "relative" lack of LD experience, it was a bit early for Delgado.

Papelbon Smith were the two guys I wanted and would have taken Smith next round if he was still there.

I take Belle in the 11th. Really like his 8M+ new card, and LF, normally well-stocked with players is getting a tad thin. Practically a panic pick by me.

I was thrilled to get Greenberg as a platoon guy at 1B against righties. Looks like Thomas will be a dh against righties and 1B vs lefties.

Craig getting Piniero when he did was a steal. He shouldn't have been there and I had planned to take him next. I got burned when Giles was taken in lf which is why I had to grab Foster and Williams given Belle's 15 game injury risk.

I believe that I outdrafted Craig a bit, largely due to his taking certain players earlier than he needed to, but I haven't yet done a comparative analysis of the complete teams yet. Not sure how I will do, but on paper, I'm pretty solid and have reasonable chances to make the playoffs.

Thanks for the feedback. I didn't prepare for the draft as well as I could have, but "unprepared" for me is probably "locked and loaded" for most people.

After I took Delgado, four 1B went off the board in short order. In order, they were Helton, SIsler, Giambi, and Hafner. Giambi has a slightly better card, but Delgado is bulletproof, so I took him. After that, several rounds went by before Olerud was drafted, so maybe I should have waited.

Similarly, after I took Tiant, over the next few rounds Joss, Koufax (by me 5 picks later), Greinke, Kevin Brown, and Arrieta went. Koufax has a far better card than Tiant in a vacuum, but when there are guys like Cecil Fielder, Juan Gon, Lezcano, Gibson, and Bagwell running around LH SP just don't do well. Oh, I'll run Sandy out there 41 times, as I will with Tiant, but I'll bet Tiant ends up with a better W-L record than Koufax does. And Tiant is easily better than any of those other guys. When the average hitter you are facing probably has 6.5 raw HR and 6 BPHR on his card, 0.9 HR and 2 BPHR aren't very significant. Even in Minute Maid, that means 80% of the HR he allows will be off the batter's card.

I can't argue with your perceptions of Walker, but he always puts up decent OPS number for me when I platoon him. And I don't really like too many of the guys who went in the next couple of rounds. I thought of taking Morgan, but platooning in the middle IF is not so easy; the guy who drafted Joe has Hodapp as his platoon partner. I would probably have grabbed Sandberg and used his #2 card.

I'm OK with the team I drafted. I don't think I'm as confident of my playoff chances as you are, but I have a real shot. And it helps me to plan when both of the other teams I think are better than mine are going to be playing in Minute Maid. I may go pick up David Cone.

Good luck to both of you in our league, but better luck hopefully to me

I do enjoy that craig doesn't pick cards because of someone else's value on them.
Do also think what Druid said is right regarding where those cards can usually be taken; however there is always the danger of missing a card you think should be there because decides to grab em.

Lets hope for a fun ride.


Salty

Fascinating analyses by both of you, particularly for someone like me who does not do live drafts because I'm seldom available at the normal draft times and never at the frenzy times. Once, some years back at B.O.B.B.Y.'s prodding, I wrote a few profiles of Strat managers, including one on theRivs, a fascinating guy in all regards who walked me through one of his LDs (though at a far lower cap) while on the phone with me. It was one of the most enjoyable interviews I've ever done. and I still regret not being able to participate in LDs. But after getting a glimpse at the thinking of two managers I think a lot of, I suspect I would be greatly overmatched.

Sure hope you guys will update us periodically on how your teams are doing, not to mention letting us know how the season turns out. This was great reading!

As Tom said, extremely interesting read. My experience with live draft is very limited (2 tries - 1 at 100m cap and 1 uncapped). Both went faster than I could plan/think, and I suspect I could not put in 10% of the time/thought either of you guys do.

Thanks for sharing ...but after reading I am even more hesitant to give it another go as I am sure my teams would get toasted

The pool of managers who regularly participate in live drafts is fairly small. There is a core of die hards who rarely miss a live draft and another group that kind of rotates in and out depending on the week. Most of these guys are not highly successful managers in general, yet almost all of them have become quite sophisticated in knowing who to pick and when and thus have some claim to an advantage over guys like Craig, a brilliant and highly successful manager, but who is a fairly rare guest at live drafts. Frankly I entered this draft because I saw that Craig had entered and because my wife and kid were out of town. He's a good guy and I like to match wits with him. I was thrilled when I saw we were in the same division and were drafting back to back. The biggest problem with live drafts is that the better managers' drafting strategies are, by the nature of the live draft, completely transparent, and thus readily imitated. Nev rarely does live drafts for that reason, and it drives Salty (the most competent of the regular live draft crew) crazy and has led me to cut back on the frequency with which I participate - that plus my one man protest against SOM for the increasingly problematic "glitches" because no one from SOM bothers to check in on the weekend to see if there are any problems with the game engine. $%^)*^$$


I should add that I never prepare for live drafts. Usually I just show up at 8:59... For this draft my "preparation" was to draft Thomas 2nd as I was pretty sure I would get Hornsby in the first and thus would head to Minute Maid. Still haven't decided which Hornsby to use. I don't make lists and basically just wing it and have just assumed that others do the same.

Interesting reads!! Here is some comments on my own.

Round 1
Gibson and Hornsby are clearly the two better cards after the Babe and Bonds

Round2
Morgan was clearly the best card available when your picks came up. I have him 0.4 WAR better than any other cards in MinuteMaid type of park and over 1 WAR better of any other card (and 1.4M better than Barnes) even if Morgan is not platooned and set to hit #9 vs lhp. But if I exclude Morgan, then I have Walker with the next best available card in League 34 parks, and I have Schmidt and Thomas nearly equal as the two best available cards in right-handed stadiums. So Walker and Thomas are certainly not bad choices. But while I can see the logic of passing over Morgan, thinking that Barnes is a good option, I still think that picking up Morgan was still the better option. First, I think there was a greater chance that Walker gets available in 3rd round than Morgan. Second, if Walker is picked up, there are still several outfielders who are within 1.4 WAR of Walker----Harper, Reggie, Cobb, and even Lynn and Hamilton with the right platoons.

As for Thomas, while Wilson and Kiner are great values for their pricetag, in the context of 200M, Thomas is much better, 0.7 WAR over Kiner and 1.3 WAR over Wilson. I have Wilson as the 56th best offensive card, so assuming that 3 pitchers are taken on average at each round, I have Wilson as a roughly 6th-7th rounder, which is where he was picked up.

Round 3
I agree about Babe Adams. Hard to figure out how someone can see this card better than Big Train Walter Johnson, regardless of the *SP (or non *SP) status. I think sometimes people are caught up with getting a (non *SP).

For MinuteMaid, my ratings had Schmidt with the best card. This said, there are several options at 3b within reach of Schmidt, Beckwith is 0.7 WAR behind, ARod 3b card is 1 WAR behind, whereas Hartnett, the best option after Piazza, is 1.3 WAR worse than Piazza---and my ratings assume that the blocking rule for catcher is applied, something I have no confirmation for by SOM. If the blocking rule is not applied, then the gap between Piazza (c-4) and Hartnett (c-1) is even wilder. To come back to Schmidt, I understand lastdruid's comment that there are plenty of lefty-killing machines in ATG, but Schmidt's card vs rhp is pretty solid too!! If I compare Schmidt to 2R's ARod, Schmidt has only 0.7 fewer on-base vs rhp than ARod---what Schmidts lacks in hits, he compensates with walks. Schmidt has more extra bases and more total bases, and he's much better in clutch, -1 vs -13 for ARod. Overall, vs rhp, I have Schmidt as a better card vs rhp than ARod's 2R card if injuries are not considered. If you have a good backup for him, he'll give your team more WAR than ARod.

For Leaguepark, I had at that point Barnes with the best card, a notch over Mauer, so the pick makes a lot of sense.

Round 4
I had Matthewson as the best starting pitchers available for MinuteMaid, and I have Tiant as the best (non-lefty) SP for League34, even assuming high homerun on the road. I think lastdruid oversees that Tiant has no single ballpark on his card, which is certainly a plus in League relatively high hit environment.

Besides Schmidt, the players I'm most surprised to see still available are the foursome right-handed ss...Larkin, Wells, Jeter and ARod, whom I considered pretty much equal, more or less, depending on the lineup needs and stadiums. Wagner is a step back, except for pitchers ballpark, as you mention. I guess this is a case where everybody was waiting for a ss to be picked up. But for the record, I agree that Boudreau is behind all four of them by an average of 0.7 WAR.

Considering that both of you picked up Larkin and Jeter at round 7 is indicative these shortstops are incredibly underestimated by the SOM crowds, and you were right to wait and see before making a move there.

This said, I do agree that Jeter is the better option over Larkin in Leaguepark. I understand the logic that, if you were to compete in a very competitve league where managers would make daily changes about which relievers they use in their bullpen logic, then yes, Jeter, as a reverse right-handed hitter, would be at a small disadvantaged against owners who would put their reverse lefties against your lineup. But I rarely see this kind of monitoring by managers. This said, in the Finals, it might be another story.

I don't have time for comments about later rounds, but I do want to stress that both of you picked up great values (in my opinion) in the later rounds (Delgado, O'Neil, Belle, Slim Jones, etc) I also agree with lastdruid that Guerrero's new card should be used in all leagues with the ATG 200M!!

Druid never, ever forgets that Tiant has no ballpark singles on his card. He is mindful though that #'s are not a good thing at 999 caps, and thus is happy to stay away from Tiant at those caps. My main point is Craig would probably have gotten him a round or two later.

Morgan was a better pick than Barnes, agreed. I would have taken him if I were Craig, but I happily passed on him considering that I already had Hornsby. Worse case is he platoons with Randolph who has an adequate OBP vs lefties. Schmidt is interesting. For the first couple of years after his '81 card came into ATG I had Schmidt on nearly every non League '34 live draft team, often got him in the 8th or 9th. Then the copycats began liking him and I had to grab him earlier. However for Minute Maid I have the choice of the two A-Rod cards at 3B and the one I chose -so far- doesn't get injured and can stay in the game against lefties, while Schmidt is a 15 game injury risk. I don't mind that so much at live drafts, thus Belle is my starting leftfielder. But the probable replacement for Schmidt vs righties would be a big drop off. The better D and baserunning also favor A-Rod. It is really a toss up at that point in the draft for Minute Maid, but I needed a righthanded pitching deterrent and would take A-Rod again. I'm also not completely sold on WAR as the be all and end all of sabermetric tools; it is certainly useful, perhaps less so as an absolute determinant of player value -even when restricted to comparative value at a position.

Here is the complete live draft:

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/league/draftresults/434451

I thought it important to include the whole context as the draft is just not about me and Craig sparring with each other.

Tonight the season starts and I am facing JackofAllParades.

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1465109

He had an interesting draft, eschewing pitching to hoard some of the top OF's. Musial, Mays, Reggie Jackson, Dimaggio and Snider. That helps explain why I have a skeletally thin OF. His position players are solid everywhere except catcher where he lacks a good hitter against righties. His excellent position players came at the expense of his pitching which is pretty weak for a capless draft. Interestingly, in the previous live draft he took pitchers the first four rounds. He also drafted Schmidt in the 5th round and later drafted Rolen as his caddy, illustrating my point about the drop off with Schmidt's replacement 3b vs righties. He also took Schmidt in the previous week's live draft, this time with Matt Williams as his backup a much steeper drop off vs righties.