George Springer is someone a lot of DFS players probably have fond memories of using back in early summer of 2014 when he first burst onto the scene. Now that we have over a season’s worth of games from Springer, I thought it would be a good time to look at his stats through a couple of different angles and see what stands out.
Springer’s L/R splits are actually pretty moderate in comparison with a lot of other players around the league. He gains .18 points on his wOBA vs left-handed pitching and .08 points on ISO vs right-handed pitching. A more glaring split is his home/away split:
| wOBA | ISO | |
| Home | .305 | .152 |
| Away | .391 | .287 |
Similarly, here is his Plus/Minus split on Fantasy Labs:
Minute Maid Park ranked in the top 10 for ballparks where the most home runs were hit in 2014 and is there again so far in 2015, so what gives? I always like to start by pulling up a player’s spray chart on Fangraphs and here is what Springer’s looks like:
Okay, I’m not really seeing anything that jumps out. You would think the fact that he has power to all fields would actually result in him having a moderate home/away split. I think breaking down the results by handedness of opposing pitcher produces something more interesting:
Against left-handers, it’s pretty simple: all of his power is to left field except for one random ball he destroyed to right. Combining what we learned a minute ago about his home/road splits with his spray chart vs L, Springer presents as a great play vs left-handed pitching in away games, particularly at stadiums with shorter left fields (In the AL, that means O.co, Oriole Park, Tropicana, Progressive, Comerica).
Examining his spray chart vs right-handed pitching, the power to all fields is still apparent. Man, it looks like he could have a handful more home runs to dead center though. Center field at Minute Maid Park is most well-known for Tal’s Hill, but more important to this case study is the fact that it is the deepest center field in the MLB. Perhaps one reason for Springer’s home/away split is that his home ballpark saps some of his power to center.
Below is a list of George Springer’s best games in terms of most FanDuel points scored and, no surprise, the overwhelming majority come on the road. Somewhat of a surprise though is the parks the games have taken place in – Petco twice? Safeco? Kauffman? Yuck!
But here’s another thing I like about George Springer: he can score points in a lot of different ways. One of those games was a double-dong, one was a 4-5 game with 3 RBIs and 5 Runs, and he’s also starting to run a lot more this year (11 SBs this year in 46 games compared to five last year in 78 games). Put it all together and you have a player whose upside is right up there with the upper tier of outfielders.
