Tom Brennan - Where Are All The Left Hand Pitchers in Metsville?

 

I LOVE LEFTIES...

LIKE THE KOOZ...

FIRST OF ALL...

BECAUSE I AM ONE!

Before getting into my article, last night’s delayed Mets debut game was eerily familiar...1) Jake overpoweringly brilliant; 2) Jake out-hitting rest of team; 3) Jake pulled an inning to early (after 6, with just 77 pitches); 4) Mets learning once again that deliberately intending to use at least 3 relievers after Jake leaves the team wide open to the possibility that one or more will fail; 

5) leaving FAR too many men on base early on, leaving me with an “OK, when is this manure going to catch up with them AGAIN?"; 6) Pete swinging thru high fastballs; 7) the obligatory game-ending fly to the wall with the tying runs on base to sicken anyone who stayed up (I didn't - off the TV went once Loup hit Harper).

I could go on, but I won’t. Shouldn’t be worried after one game, but I am. 94 win teams need to show they can win games like this almost every time. Or they can turn into 80 win teams.

This team has seen SO MANY games since 2018 where Jake was rolling, he got pulled with gas still in the tank, and they coughed up the game - they say stupidity is not learning from your mistakes.  The Mets never learn.  The Mets are stupid.

On to my article:

Mets' currently posted minors rosters are certainly incomplete at this stage, but only list 8 lefties: 

Jerry Blevins, Mike Montgomery (now a Yankee), Tom Windle, Tom Szapucki, Andrew Mitchell, Joshua Walker, Jefferson Escorcha, and a young guy from the Reds organization with barely any time above the DSL named Jose Zorilla.  Any lefties left out?

A few are major league veterans like the beloved Jerry, and only one (Tom Szapucki) is a top 30 Mets prospect, while the Mets top 30 has 15 righties.  Talk about imbalance! 

Lefty pitchers sure seem scarce.

Looking at Baseball Reference for splits of all teams' pitching stats, it turns out that lefties only faced 27% of the total batters in the major leagues in 2020 (17,851 of the 66,506 total plate appearances).  27% seems scarce, even if 27% is above the natural rate of lefties vs. righties worldwide. 

in fact, a quick glance at the internet shows this to be true:

Studies suggest that approximately 10% of people are left-handed. Cross-dominance or mixed-handedness is the change of hand preference between tasks. This is very uncommon, with about a 1% prevalence.

But there are far more left handed hitters than LHPs.  

Left handed hitters (including switch hitters, when they hit lefty) compiled 42% of the total plate appearances 28,421 of the 66,506 PAs).  Why might that be?

No doubt, if a guy has eye/hand coordination, it is far easier to hit lefty than throw lefty.  I know that from my personal, non-professional baseball playing experience.  

For this lefty writer, trying to throw a ball righty was completely foreign (I threw righty like a girl - can you still say that?), but as a natural lefty hitter, I had a flatter line drive swing when I tried to hit righty.

It felt to me that learning to be a hitter almost as competent from the right side as in hitting from my natural left-handed side was something that could be successfully accomplished.

A good lefty is highly valuable and the Mets have had 13 good-to-great lefties, right off the top of my head: 

Al Jackson, Jerry Koosman, Tug McGraw, Jon Matlack, Jesse Orosco, Bobby Ojeda, Al Leiter, Billy Wagner, Jon Niese, Johan Santana, Randy Myer, Frank Viola, John Franco.

We have, however, a dearth these days of that rare commodity called "southpaws".

Where have all the lefties gone?  

I think I need to ask Rod Serling.  Perhaps they've all entered the Twilight Zone.

Mack frequently posts draft prospect write ups, and one that sticks out as a very good one is Anthony Solimento.  

Do a search on the site for Mack's article on a lefty named Solimento if you'd like.

It seems that if there is a good lefty to be had in the draft, you've got to think long and hard as to why you shouldn't grab him.  There are seemingly so few to choose from.  And lefties are invaluable.  At least my family thinks so about this lefty, most of the time, anyway!

Most of you reading this are righties - what do you have to say about this left-handed baseball minority group?  Do you think you could have been ambidextrous, as a pitcher?  

What, in that perspective, do you think about trading away lefty Steve Matz (now pitching brilliantly, naturally, as almost all Mets alumni do), not signing lefty Brad Hand, acquiring Joey Lucchesi, etc.?