Paul Articulates – Left Versus Right

 

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.

As you may have seen from comments I have posted, I would like to see the Mets front office go after some additional left-handed pitching.  Right now, you have to move all the way down to David Peterson, Thomas Szapucki, or Joey Lucchesi in the Mets’ starting pitcher depth chart to find a lefty.  In the bullpen, there are no pure lefty relievers since Aaron Loup left – though the aforementioned three may see long relief out of the bullpen.  So why do I think we need some more lefties?

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.