Hey, before the article, the Mets beat the vaunted LA Dodgers, pushing them under .500, and the Mets gained a game on the Bravos after San Diego downed Atlanta in an old-fashioned 1-0 nailbiter. Juan Soto had 2 hits and an RBI, climbing to .194 and making me wonder why Escobar and Nido can't hit .194 too. But it is something that Super-Soto is hitting .194, huh?
Meanwhile, our superstar Brandon Nimmo goes 5 for 5, hiking his season OBP to .481. Anyone still think he is overpaid? Underpaid, maybe. And (phew!) Francisco Alvarez was 2 for 4!! He's on his way, baby.
And Mad Max gets in a sticky situation with a couple of Italian tough guy umps and gets tossed, which mad him mighty mad, and hopefully Max won't get a 10 game suspension, although if he does, it will be good for resting his scalpula. Meanwhile, somewhere, Justin is resting and rehabbing (possibly with rehabbing Edwin) while Carlos is resting, too.
Italian nice guy Joey has his cell phone ringer "ON" in case he gets the call, because Joey had his extended rest and rehab last year and doesn't need any more rest.
That about covers it - on to the article.
Gritty....Tough.
That's how I saw Wally Backman. He may have lacked over-the-fence power - but he was fiery, gritty and tough.
Well, as a lefty hitter, anyway.
Wally got up as a lefty vs righty pitchers about 3100 times, and he was real tough:
.294/.364/.362.
Vs. lefty pitchers while hitting righty, though? You had to ask, didn't ya?
A minuscule .165/.259/.201. Jeepers!
Tom Seaver in his career had a similar .154/.219/.210 slash.
Compare also that slash line to that of pitcher (and briefly Met) Mike Hampton against all pitchers, left and right: .246/.294/.356.
Against lefties, Wally simply could hardly even hit like a pitcher.
Am I the only one who ever wondered why Wally never went exclusively lefty at the plate?
How about other current and future Mets?
Francisco Lindor? Remarkable consistency between his fine lefty and right hitting production…well, he is remarkable, so why should that surprise you?
The always smiling Eduardo Escobar? He hit 28 points higher, and slugged 132 points higher, from the right side in 2022…almost sounds like he needs to switch to just hitting righty, huh? (If he can still hit at all, which it seems he can't, as he is 5 for 49 against actual pitchers this year, although Mark Vientos, who can, is upstate watching the foliage start to bloom. This year for the record, he is .138 as a lefty and .095 as a righty.
Escobar is, of course, 1 for 1 when catchers pitch, which I think is pretty impressive, and maybe he should be used exclusively to hit when catchers pitch). Happy Jose couldn't hit in his final season in 2018, either, just as a point of note. Happy does not necessarily translate into hitting.
Buddy Harrelson? 20 points higher in his career as a lefty, and 30 points higher OBP, but 20 points lower in slug % as a slap hitting, bunting lefty. Pretty even…it worked. His power side was as a righty. Switch hitting made sense for Buddy.
HoJo? 28 points in career average and 63 points higher slugging as a righty. Maybe he should have canned the lefty ABs and gone Full Righty.
Mazz? 50 points better OBP as a righty. Maybe canning lefty ABs might have helped, maybe not.
Ken Singleton, briefly a Met, was a demonstrably better righty than lefty hitter. Maybe he should have gone all righty.
How about a non-switch hitter who might want to attempt the alternate side of the plate approach.
Danny Boy Vogelbach comes to mind. When hitting vs. lefties, this left hand hitter coming into 2023 has hit like jumpin’ Jerry Koosman….136/.257/.227.
As a lefty bat vs. righties, though, he is a vastly higher .238/.364/.458.
Are you seriously telling me the Vogue magazine dude couldn’t try switch hitting? How would he hit lefties if he learned to hit righty? (I do of course realize that hitting a grounder as a righty, he might never make it to first base with his dizzying speed).
Carlos Beltran had remarkably similar stats hitting lefty and righty, because he was a remarkable player. Switch hitting made complete sense.
Lastly, all-time great Mickey Mantle was sheer murder as a righty hitter, .330/.424/.576 career, in an unforgiving park for righty hitters.
I wonder if he would have dropped the lefty hitting if the Stadium lacked its short porch, and 296 foot depth at the RF foul pole? He did hit well as a lefty, with prodigious power, but hit a far lower .281 as a lefty. And Eddie Murray was similarly better as a righty hitter, but stayed a switch hitter.
Before the Mets existed, I was a Mickey Mantle fan. I did go to one Yankee game where the Mick (up as a lefty hitter) hit a rocket HR to right field. Immense power.
Thank you, and have a great day. And…
If you’re not a Mets fan, it is definitely time to switch.
Time you left your old team for the right one.
I'm going to the batting range to take some righty ABs, then it is off to tryout camp for me as a switch hitter. Too old? Never too old to be a Mets hitter.
ReplyDeleteI tried for years to find out what Backman did to piss off the Mets but never could get anyone in the organic to tell me either on or off the books.
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DeleteLooking forward to seeing how our own switch hitter Mauricio fares.
ReplyDeleteRay, I sure agree on Mauricio - when the heck are they gonna give him another glove so he can play somewhere else? Dude can rake. Let's promote him by June. To do that, you need somewhere for him to play.
ReplyDeleteSince Lindor plays every inning, shortstop is not a Mauricio option.
Even if the idea is to get Mauricio as ready as possible to play SS if Lindor (heven forbid) gets hurt, let him get some games in the OF, 2B, and 3B.
Mack Man, Backman, you sound-alike guys can sure ruffle feathers LOL
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of hitting against catchers, if Locastro and Nido hadn't both popped up against that soft-tossing catcher, they might be more than a combined 4 for 41. But they couldn't hit pitches from the catcher that I would have drilled when I was their age.
ReplyDeleteThey both belong in AA.
Buck has that Terry Collins disease but to be fare TC worked for the Wilponies so there's an excuse but Buck come on man tell Eppy we need help here. Look as far as defense we get a A+ on offense a B which will "B" higher when Baty and Alvy get going and the BP is also A+ but the Starters or should I say non starters because don't you have to actually pitch to be graded are D- at best with only Senga pitching well. The BP will collapse under the weight and still don't understand why they don't use one pitcher every 3 or 4 days to pitch the final 3 inning's to save the BP or is it just me? Mauricio is the real mystery to me and everyone else as in why hasn't he played any other position? The only thing that makes sense is they were leaving him at SS for trade value but please don't.
ReplyDeleteGary, we have burned thru a lot of bullpen in a very short period of time. Reminds me of the Fram oil filter commercial - we may pay later.
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