Yesterday’s painful loss...LOBs to the left of me, LOBs to the right of me, LOBs all around me.
Peterson needs to relax. I think he seemed nervous in inning one. Four runs later...
And Conforto failed in huge at bats. If I had to pick just one of the two, I’d pick Nimmo over Conforto. Conforto seems to fail a lot in those instances...Nimmo always a tough, tough at bat. Conforto often seems too low key...learn to smile. Barnes didn’t help, either.
It can get late early. Is it too much to ask for a sweep of Marlins?
Anyway, back to the topic du jour.
I kept bumping this article back in time - was ready to post it weeks ago. No more bumping - here goes.
So many times in the game of baseball, you see lefty hitters who are downright dangerous against righties, but have an Achilles heel against lefties.
Darryl Strawberry was one such fella.
The now-Pastor and Evangelist was just .238/.319/.444 vs. southpaws, but a far better .270/.376/.538 vs right handers.
Sweeping lefty curveballs were not his pitch of choice.
Lucas Duda was the subject of many a self-improvement article from me when I started writing missives for Macks' Mets,
Duda was a decent .249/.351/.481 against righties in his career, but just .211/.282/.351 against southpaws.
It was as if he waved the surrender flag when he had to face lefties, frankly.
A big reason for lefty failures was his very high 276 Ks in 870 lefty plate appearances. On those 276 strikeout at bats, his slash numbers broke down to, you guessed it, .000/.000/.000.
For Lucas, back then, I had 2 suggestions:
1) Swing earlier in counts to cut down on the excessive strikeouts - better to hit a bloop or weak grounder which might fall in than just striking out every third plate appearance.
And...
2) Hire a gaggle, a posse, a coalition of off-season lefty "tutors".
The money a player in baseball can earn in free agency is just so large for those who are able to both stick around and excel, your chances for major bucks go way up as a hitter if you can hit both lefties and righties.
So why not hire, if you're a Duda closing on on free agency, an ex-major league or former AAA lefty - or two - or three - in the off-season and do nothing (almost) other than hit lefties.
If you're a lefty hitter and you get better at hitting lefties, your return on that pitching investment goes up. And maybe those guys live near you (say a guy like former Met hurler P.J. Conlon, not saying he'd be interested) and would want to make some "consultant" money.
Or they are out of work, already spent their stimulus funds, and would jump at this sort of gig.
Did Duda do this? Hire a lefty "tutor" or two? Kind of doubt it.
I bring this up because Todd Helton (as per a Joel Sherman article) not too long ago spoke to a great admirer of his, Brandon Nimmo, and told Brandon that he put in LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of time learning to hit lefties better.
Todd, you see, hit .324 in his career against righties, but an almost-as-excellent .298 vs. lefties. No wonder he had a dandy career spanning 17 seasons.
Nimmo did not have near the adverse career disparity of Straw Man (or the Tin Man, either) or Duda in lefty v. lefty results, but the slash line difference in Nimmo's career is still significant:
Righties: .264/.400/.463
Lefties: .243/.358/.399
If Nimmo was a Gold Glover, those numbers would be good enough to lock him in as an everyday player. They are not, so he is not an everyday player. Excellent everyday players like Lindor make lots of money.
Brandon is great overall vs. righties, but provides only decent offense - and at times indecent defense - against lefties. Causing Sandy to sign righty hitters Kevin Pillar and Albert Almora, Jr.
Brandon is a true student of hitting, though, and Nimmo works hard to improve against lefties.
Again, though, given the piles of dough that accrue to truly top tier ball players, vs. those the next notch or two lower....
If I were Nimmo, I'd look to....I dunno - HIRE "TUTORS".
If Nimmo gets that slash line vs. lefties up 20 points from .243/.358/.399 to, let's say, .263/.378/.419, he makes a much more convincing case to Sandy etc. to play every single day, because he is, in point of fact, already an ON BASE MACHINE against righties.
Part of the challenge for guys like Brandon is the dearth of lefty pitching throughout baseball in the minors.
Righties like Pete Alonso see a constant diet of righty pitchers, so they not only have to learn to hit righties, they get oodles of opportunities to learn. They face them all the time.
Nimmo in his career in the minors did not see many lefties...in 2013, barely more than 20% of his ABs were against lefties.
In his best season, in AAA in 2016, though, he hit an amazing .358 against lefties, vs. .355 against righties, but only got to face lefties a little less than 30% of the time that year.
But that season showed he can really hit lefties, and a really steady diet of hitting vs. lefties in the off season could perhaps bump those numbers vs. lefties up to the no-doubt-about-it, everyday player status.
Joel Sherman, writing about that Helton-Nimmo phone encounter, noted: "Nimmo plans to take advantage of lefty batting practice from assistant pitching coach Ricky Meinhold in spring training and batting practice pitcher Raphael Fernandez during the season..."
That's great. To that, I would add:
Next off season, Brandon, why not spend $100 grand or so on a few real quality lefties to pitch to you throughout the off season?
I think that could be an investment with a manifold return.
I recommend, Brandon, hiring professional lefty "tutors" who can throw you decent sliders, curves, and fastballs.
Why? I for one would like (make that love) to see you playing at an All Star level 150 games a season.
I'm a big fan. I'll admit it.
Maybe you already have this worked out - maybe you already do this - but this is just my suggestion:
Be the best you that you can be.
Same goes for Michael Conforto - career against righties, a very solid .269/.375/.512, but against lefties a far drearier .232./.311/.408. The latter slash looks like Todd Frazier's 2019-20 stats. No reason against some lefties that the line up couldn't include just one of Dominic Smith, Nimmo, and Conforto, and inserting Pillar and Almora.
Dominic Smith, by the way, over the past two seasons, has had excellent results vs. both lefties and righties - you can look it up for yourself. No tutors required. Except maybe at shagging flies. Sit him very little until he gives you a reason to.
Having not spoken to either of Nimmo or Conforto, I don't know how they train in the off season - I just throw that out there.
Another reason why? I hate LOBs.
2 comments:
Conforto claims to take more at bats off lefties then righties in his preparation so he is very comfortable with them. IMO seems to hang in there a bit too. I can’t tell you that either is a full time player, but they are pretty close.
In other news, when you bring up Stawberry and lefties, I think of Ken Dayley, the clock in St. Louis, and I think it was the 12th inning?
As for Duda, his highlight includes Tony Sipp and a two run homerun right down the right field line in the bottom of the ninth. Nice moment. A full time player will probably only see about 25% of his at bats against lefties, there just aren’t many.
Gus that Strawberry shot was a lightning strike. It seemed like no one wiuld ever score - then the artillery shell got launched.
I do remember watching guys throw these big sweeping curves breaking on the outside corner to Strawberry with such regularity - I always thought it was remarkable he hit any of them.
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