The point of this ‘Outliar Report’ is to highlight a player whose inconsistency is masked by his solid season-to-date stats.

Freddie Freeman, the Braves’ 1B, has played 132 games and has accumulated this stat line: .269 / .352 / .464. That line might rank him as the #10 1B in baseball (#84 hitter overall), leaving out guys like Billy Butler and Edwin Encarnacion who are not their team’s primary 1B. Freeman is owned in 99.9% of ESPN leagues.

Outliar’s (downloadable-to-excel) Leaderboards have him ranked as the #262 hitter, which makes him un-ownable in a standard 12-team league. Hit Outliar triple slash reads: .126 / .157 / .189. That means that in the majority of his weekly fantasy matchups, he has only performed at that level or better.

That is quite a fall; so much, that it mandates further investigation. Looking at B-R’s Splits, we can hope to find a few clues.

His platoon splits are significant:

• v RHP: .294 / .379 / .527
• v LHP: .236 / .314 / .382

He seems to be uncomfortable hitting 3rd or 4th:

• Hitting 3rd, 175 PAs: .232 / .297 / .419
• Hitting 4th, 80 PAs: .159 / .250 / .319
• Hitting 5th, 267 PAs: .318 / .408 / .522

He has trouble with pitchers defined as ‘Power’ pitchers:

• v Power Pitchers, 126 PAs: .136 / .246 / .194
• v Others, 440 PAs: .304 / .382 / .536

I look at these splits and I see a young guy who may not be able to handle pressure (as evidenced by his Batting Order splits). I see a guy who cannot hit hard-throwing LHPs. If I am an opposing manager, I know the Braves have a guy in their lineup that I can control, especially in late-inning situations. (Freeman is hitting .255 / .335 / .366 after the 6th Inning – a real drop in SLG).

Looking forward to 2013 and beyond, you should worry about the platoon split. That may not go away, and could cost him a full-time job. He may get better as a middle-of-the-order hitter as he matures. He may get better in high leverage situations.

I would suggest paying close attention to Freddy Gonzalez’s interviews leading up to next year’s draft.