Should a Top 20 Pick Only Be a Platoon Option?

Here are the 2011 triple slash lines for 4 outfielders and the career split for another player:

0.262/0.309/0.423
0.264/0.323/0.393
0.262/0.336/0.429
0.271/0.327/0.438
0.263/0.312/0.509

All the players are similar. The first player went 14th over all in a recent Fangraphs Dynasty league draft and the others were taken at the following picks: 112th, 234th, 163rd, 62nd.

Here are the players with their stats:

Carlos Gonzalez (career road split): 0.262/0.309/0.423
Cameron Maybin 0.264/0.323/0.393
Torii Hunter 0.262/0.336/0.429
Peter Bourjos 0.271/0.327/0.438
Nelson Cruz 0.263/0.312/0.509

While he is on the road, Carlos Gonzalez hits about as well as Torii Hunter. He gets most of his fantasy value from hitting at home as seen here:

Coors Field: 786 PA, 0.347/0.404/0.653
All other parks: 1025 PA, 0.262/0.309/0.423

A difference of 0.300 OPS is fairly substantial and can not be explained away by just park factors. Here are the home and away OPS splits for some other players for the Rockies:

Name, Home OPS, Away OPS, Difference

Troy Tulowitzki, 0.931, 0.808, 0.123
Todd Helton, 1.027, 0.868, 0.159
Chris Iannetta, 0.869, 0.707, 0.162
Dexter Fowler, 0.845, 0.691, 0.154

CarGo’s difference between his home and away OPS is twice that of the other 4 players.

This home-road split have existed all three season he has been with Colorado:

Year, Home OPS, Away OPS
2009, 0.943, 0.811
2010, 1.161, 0.775
2011, 0.999, 0.757

With the large split, he is probably due for a bit of regression. The problem is determining which direction does his stats regress. Does his ability in Colorado decline? Does his ability to hit on the road improve? Do both of the splits get closer to one another (my bet is here)? Right now, we don’t have enough plate appearances to make sure that he is unique to the park.

Dealing with this split is a difficult issue. In most larger leagues, players of the Hunter, Maybin and Bourjos caliber are starters, so subbing for CarGo makes no sense in these cases. If an owner has a decent OFer on the bench and Gonzalez is facing a tough pitcher on the road, I would look at subbing for him though. If in a shallower league, an owner may have good enough OFers that CarGo sits all the games on the road. One other solution is to ignore the headache all together and do not pick him up in an auction or draft.

Cargo has an extreme home and away split. His owners should be cognizant of it when they draft for and play him.