I think most of us who frequent this site are aware of Gabe Gross' unusual righty/lefty split this year (i.e. he's hitting righties like usual, murdering lefties), and after watching him nearly collect his second HR off lefty Renyel Pinto, I began to question the perception of Gross as a righty-only kind of guy. So, I took a gander at some of his statistics and produced a number of the following inquiries...

via cache.daylife.com

Obviously, Gross' recent prolific hitting hasn't affected his considerably dismal career numbers against left handed hitting. However, with only 136 AB in 120 games, Gabe No. 1 sees these left handers only one time around -- when he actually does see them. Delving further, we find that Gross has accumilated 68 of his 136 ABs (49%) during 2008 (mostly with the Rays). Before that year, he was seeing lefties 11-21 times a year.

This year, as noted earlier, he's doing much better vs. LHP:

Now, here's where my informations end and my questions begin:

• Is that sample size (136 ABs / 158 PAs) too small to determine whether or not he's suited for platoon work? I definately know that his 14 ABs (18 PAs) this year is too small to predict anything. But anectdotally he seems sharper against LHPs.
  
• Is there some place I can get BABIP or any other advanced metrics vs. LHP? I just can't seem to find anything. Mayhaps Gross was unlucky in '08 against LHPs?
• Seeing as how I can't seem to find minor league splits, I'm assuming he must have had a track record of struggling against LHPs, otherwise we wouldn't be where we are. Does anyone else know if this is actually the case?
• Is it possible that his increased PAs against LHPs in 2008 resulted in a significant improvement in his ability to see their pitches? Is there any prescedant for this?

Could Gross, with his "averageness" against righties and a possible potential "averageness" against lefties and plus defense, actually be above average!?! [pause for effect]

With an everyday Gross, we could deal Kaplar -- who's too good to just sit, IMO -- and let Joyce incubate for as long as necessary. Who knows?

Let me know what you think.