The Posey Mauer experiment - ever try this one?

My catcher is Buster Posey with Ivan Rodriguez (5 inj, 750k) as his backup.Obviously, I lose a lot of hitting when Posey goes down, but (since they both don't play at the same time) the risk of having a non-catcher enter the game is minimized and, of course, it costs less. For Rodriguez, I have him set for don't pinch hit or pinch run for in order to further lessen the chance of having a non-catcher have to catch.

Early on in the card year, Riggo tried a Snyder-Posey-Ike Davis catcher-1B injury platoon thing in Coors. Not quite sure how to gauge it, with Jerry Sands as a possible additional backup and/or 1B platoon with Davis, the four players only had 186 runs between the four of them; however, each of them individually had pretty decent stats and overall his team scored 800 runs. Final record was 84-78 (lost in semis), although only one team had 90+ wins, so it was a pretty competetive league overall.

Worked for me a few times:

Napoli/Posey 80M at GABP: 97 wins and the title:

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/379083

Mauer/Posey 60M at Busch: 93 wins and the title:

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/805890

These were both no-DH leagues, so I never had any strange catcher substitutions. I think those are because of using one of them as a primary DH, but your mileage may vary.

coyote,

Your situation was different. You played Posey and used I-Rod as a sub. In the other situations described, Posey and the other injury-prone catcher were both starters (typically with Posey at 1B). In some situations, like mine and the Riggo one J-Pav described, it was a 3-way of Posey, a pure catcher, and a pure firstbaseman platooning two positions (1B & C).

coyote,

Your situation was different. You played Posey and used I-Rod as a sub. In the other situations described, Posey and the other injury-prone catcher were both starters (typically with Posey at 1B). In some situations, like mine and the Riggo one J-Pav described, it was a 3-way of Posey, a pure catcher, and a pure firstbaseman platooning two positions (1B & C).

Gotcha. You are braver than I am. As much as Posey (not unexpectedly) keeps getting injured for me, I fear I'd have a non-catcher catching a fair amount if I tried to play both my guys at once.

Rodgriguez doing simple backup, though, is working out pretty well.

coyote,
The experiment that the others and I use is not so scary. By starting Posey at 1B and another injury-prone catcher behind the plate, the premise is that the total amount of injury time will be less than what the two players would have on separate teams. When either Posey or the other guy is injured, the remaining healthy one catches. The plan only requires a good backup firstbaseman to play when either Posey or the other guy is hurt, as the backup firstbaseman will start about 60 games. The saving grace is that when Posey or the other catcher are hurt, the remaining one cannot get injured (assuming you avoided having a 3rd-string catcher).

Tried them twice (I luvs me two high injury catchers).


Team One (596 AB for full season)
Posey .281 .361 .403
Mayer .250 .305 .373

Team Two (406 AB thru 105 Games)
Posey .243 .322 .339
Mauer .319 .365 .457


Verdict? Schmeh.

I went through a phase in ATG where I would use Josh Gibson at first with similar logic that injury to him or my primary catcher made the other superman.