If you are a stat guy, a pure, bottom-line, end-results numbers person, then you are a fan of the Don Mattingly School of Platooning and Double-Switches – whether you chose to acknowledge it or not.

How so, you ask?

Because if you take a look at the final MLB hitting statistics, you will notice that of the 142 eligible major league hitters, there are exactly three Dodgers among them. That’s it, only three. Only Adrian Gonzalez (.275 – 63rd on the list), Jimmy Rollins (.214 – second to last at 141st) and Joc Pederson (.210 – dead last at 142nd) had enough at-bats to qualify for their league’s batting title – which was won on the last day of the regular season by former Dodger Dee Gordon and his .333 batting average.

AGon’s .275 batting average was the highest among all Dodgers on MLB’s final batting title list.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

But if you look at the Dodgers hitting statistics, you will immediately notice that there were seven guys who actually hit better than AGon – not counting pitchers Chin-hui Tsao and Mat Latos, who went 1 for 1 (1.000) and 2 for 6 (.333) respectively.

Leading the list of Dodger hitters is none other that 21-year-old Corey Seager, who finished the regular season with an outstanding slash-line of .337/.425/.561 for an OPS of .986. Granted, Seager’s numbers are based on only 97 major league at-bats after his September 1 call-up, but still, they are simply too good for Mattingly to ignore when he submits his starting line-up for Game-1 of the NLDS on Friday evening at 6:45 pm PT at Dodger Stadium.

Second on that list is Ronald Torreyes who, in spite of his .333 batting average (2 for 6), will not be on the postseason roster. But the guys who finished third through seventh on this list – again, excluding Tsao and Latos – had what can only be described as outstanding seasons at the plate, despite the fact that they did not have enough ABs to qualify for MLB’s hitting statistics.

It is impossible for Mattingly to overlook the .307 batting average posted by outfielder and fan-favorite Kiké Hernandez, the .295 batting average of second baseman Howie Kendrick, the .294 batting averages of both outfielder Andre Ethier and third baseman Justin Turner, and even the .291 batting average of utility outfielder Justin Ruggiano when compiling his NLDS playoff roster and his starting line-up for Game-1 of the best-of-five series. And while it is likely that Mattingly (and Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi) will include Pederson, Rollins and perhaps even Chase Utley and Yasiel Puig on the Dodgers playoff roster, if they truly want to put their best eight guys out there, none of these four guys should be in the starting line-up – this in spite of the 16 and 13 years of MLB experience of Rollins and Utley respectively. The playoffs are about playing the hot hand – period.

This past week ThinkBlueLA conducted a readers’ poll as to who they felt should be the Dodgers’ starting shortstop in the postseason. And while there was nothing scientific about this poll (aside from the indisputable raw numbers, that is), the winner was rookie phenom Corey Seager with an overwhelming 77 percent of the vote. Now granted, this poll will have no bearing whatsoever on who Mattingly, Friedman and Zaidi will pencil in as their starting shortstop on Friday evening, but it clearly shows who educated Dodger fans would choose.

Even though he had only 97 at-bats, 21-year-old Corey Seager ended the regular season with the highest batting average on the team. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

Where things really get dicey for Mattingly, Friedman and Zaidi is with the Dodgers’ bullpen for the playoffs. It’s a given that Kenley Jansen and J.P. Howell will make the cut, with Chris Hatcher, Luis Avilan and Alex Wood (as the long reliever) being likely candidates. But with Jansen and Hatcher the only right-handers in this group, there is a very good chance that Mattingly will also include Juan Nicasio, Pedro Baez and even 39-year-old Joel Peralta, who was 1-0 with a 2.00 ERA in his final nine innings of work in the regular season

As noted, Mattingly will probably include left-hander Luis Avilan, who was quite successful as a seventh-inning bridge to get to default set-up man Chris Hatcher and closer Kenley Jansen. Avilan finished the regular season with an 0-1 record and a 5.17 ERA since being acquired by the Dodgers at the July 31 trade deadline. But what makes the 26-year-old Caracas, Venezuela native a likely candidate to make the postseason roster are his 18 strikeouts in his 15.2 innings pitched as a Dodger. This leaves Carlos Frias, Yimi Garcia, Jim Johnson, Adam Liberatore and Ian Thomas on the bubble for a postseason roster spot, with the latter three being extreme long shots at best.

But even with all of the prognostication, speculation and rumors about who’s in and who’s not, Mattingly – in all likelihood – will not reveal his actual 25-man NLDS roster until he is required to do so at 7:00 am PT on Friday morning.

So until then, let the guessing games continue.