We try to stay far away from espousing political ideologies on this site, and for good reason. So I will not get into the conservatives versus the liberals. Rather, let’s talk about “handedness” in pitching the baseball.
The “book” of traditional baseball wisdom says that the best
match-up is to send your left-handed pitcher in to face a left-handed batter;
conversely you want a right-handed pitcher facing a right-handed batter in the
critical at-bat of a close, late-inning ballgame. There are some pretty formidable left-handed
batters in the NL east, even with the expected departure of Freddie
Freeman. Think of Juan Soto of the
Nationals, Bryce Harper of the Phillies, or newly-acquired Matt Olsen of the
Braves stepping to the plate in the top of the ninth with runners in scoring
position.
Here are two reasons why one would want a same-handed
pitcher to be on the mound during a critical at-bat:
- Line of sight: A left-handed batter looks over his right shoulder at the pitcher, and during the delivery the throwing arm of a left-handed pitcher is partially hidden behind his body until the ball is ready to release. This adds a few fractions of a second to the time that the batter has to recognize the pitch as a ball/strike and fastball/breaking ball. In addition, depending on arm slot, a left-handed pitcher’s ball needs to travel a bit before the batter can determine if the ball is on a line towards his body or towards the plate. That’s a few more ticks wasted deciding whether to bail or stride before initiating the swing.
- Ball movement: There are many pitches that move in many ways, but for simplicity, consider this. A lefty curve ball or slider will tend to move away from a lefty batter while a righty curve ball or slider will tend to move towards the lefty batter. Many swinging strikes occur when a crafty left-handed pitcher throws a breaking ball that a batter decides to swing at, but the ball moves beyond the reach of the bat by the time it reaches the plate.
To summarize the advantage of “same-handedness”, studies
show that a batter has roughly 0.42 seconds to react to a ball thrown at
90mph. If that reaction time is reduced
by even a tenth of a second by the masking of the ball and decision time to “bail
or stride” then it reduces the ability of the batter to hit the ball squarely
with the power to do damage.
One could argue that there are many pitchers that have
deliveries that effectively mask the ball for all batters (remember Luis Tiant
or Fernando Valenzuela?), and there are pitch movements in many planes that can
fool a batter. However as a rule of
thumb, if you want to get lefties out, you need to have some lefties in the
pen. Guys like Pedro Feliciano, Jerry
Blevins, and most recently Aaron Loup have been money coming in to shut down
opponents’ big left-handed boppers.
If we are not successful in getting a quality left-handed
late reliever for those key situations against left-handed opponents, then the
most effective pitchers currently in the bullpen are:
Seth
Lugo (2021): 0.91 WHIP; 0.171 BAA; 10.7 k/9 vs left-handed batters
Edwin
Diaz (2019): 0.97 WHIP; 0.165 BAA; 12.0 k/9 vs left-handed batters
Drew
Smith (2021): 1.04 WHIP; 0.145 BAA; 9.3 k/9 vs left-handed batters
With Lugo and Diaz occupying the set-up and closer innings, that provides small margin for a key out in a critical situation. I’m looking forward to see what the front office does. They have not disappointed yet in their 2022 build-out of the Mets roster.
2 comments:
I am hoping that Chasen Shreve shows something in spring training. And it might be worth a couple million to bring in Tony Watson now.
It sure would be nice to have another lefty out there, although I'm not on the Hader bandwagon - he will be too expensive in prospects.
Maybe Josh Walker sneaks in there?
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