Wunnuy wrote:> I was marveling at Ted Williams stats over in the> baseball-reference.com site and wondered who was close to him in career> OBP (his season OBP totals are amazing, moreso than Bonds as he did it> every year). I noticed that NINE of the top ten in career OBP are> lefties. Is this because the lefty has that one step closer to first or> what?>
Could be that there are many more righty pitchers and that gives lefties a platoon advantage.. At the same time, lefties struggle more against lefties than righties do against righties.
I was marveling at Ted Williams stats over in the>baseball-reference.com site and wondered who was close to him in career>OBP (his season OBP totals are amazing, moreso than Bonds as he did it>every year). I noticed that NINE of the top ten in career OBP are>lefties. Is this because the lefty has that one step closer to first or>what?
More likely it's the traditional platoon advantage. Batters generally have an advantage against opposite handed pitching because it's easier to see the ball out of the pitcher's hand and because of the break on most breaking balls. Since many more pitchers are right handed than left handed, left handed batters have an inherent advantage. Nine of the top 10 in BA are lefties, as are 5 of the top 10 (plus one switch hitter) in BB%.
-- Roger Moore | Master of Meaningless Trivia | (raj@alumni.caltech.edu) I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. -- James Madison
Roger Moore wrote in news:d5bp29$rhj$1@naig.caltech.edu:>
"Wunnuy" <wunnuy@netzero.net> writes:>
I was marveling at Ted Williams stats over in the> > baseball-reference.com site and wondered who was close to him in> > career OBP (his season OBP totals are amazing, moreso than Bonds as> > he did it every year). I noticed that NINE of the top ten in career> > OBP are lefties. Is this because the lefty has that one step closer> > to first or what?>
More likely it's the traditional platoon advantage. Batters generally> have an advantage against opposite handed pitching because it's> easier to see the ball out of the pitcher's hand and because of the> break on most breaking balls. Since many more pitchers are right> handed than left handed, left handed batters have an inherent> advantage. Nine of the top 10 in BA are lefties, as are 5 of the top> 10 (plus one switch hitter) in BB%.
I've always just thought lefty hitters are more rare, so pitchers are slightly less familiar with how to pitch them, so the lefty hitters are slightly more likely to get on base more... hence why they top the OBP numbers so consistently.
David The Nationals Fan 5 May 2005 20:22:03 [ permanent link ]
"Roger Moore" <raj@alumnae.caltech.edu> wrote in message news:d5bp29$rhj$1@naig.caltech.edu...
More likely it's the traditional platoon advantage. Batters generally> have an advantage against opposite handed pitching because it's easier to> see the ball out of the pitcher's hand and because of the break on most> breaking balls.
Generally, but not always. Some pitchers have reverse splits. A good manager will note this and will not use the traditional platoon situation in such cases or will use the pitcher in what would appear to be a counter-intuititive fashion. A bad manager (i.e. Dusty Baker) will fail to note reverse splits and thus will stack a line-up against a pitcher like Santos from Milwaukee with LEFT handed bats even though Santos, a right hander, has an OPS against him which is more than 100 points higher for RIGHT handed batters and will pitch Remlinger against batters of the same side, even though he is MORE effective against batters of the other side... after all that's the "conventional" wisdom. And then the Cubs wonder why Santos does better against the Cubs than against any other team in the league... I suspect it is because the other managers have seen the reverse split and put up their line-up accodingly. (Remlinger, a lefty, has an OPS against righthanders of .562 and against lefties of .757, or nearly 200 points in reverse split...)
