Major League Baseball puts a lot of stock in match-ups between left and right-handed pitcher/hitter combinations. The numbers over a long period of time show that left-handed hitters have an advantage over right-handed pitchers, and vice versa. In fact, if you look historically most of the best hitters in baseball were all lefties and include names like Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Rod Carew, Tony Gwynn, and Ken Griffey Jr. Then again, probably the best hitter of all time Hank Aaron was right handed, and Mickey Mantle was technically a switch hitter. It is also said that the left-handed hitter has the advantage when running to first because they are already on that side of the plate closest to first, so they are at least one long stride closer to the bag. Another thing about left-handed hitters is that they do tend to pull the ball to right, and that is why you see the crazy over shift in games where the second baseman almost lines up like a rover in right field and the third baseman plays like a short stop shading second base. When facing a right-handed pitcher a lefty gets a longer view of the a breaking pitch and has that advantage too, because the ball breaks toward them instead of away as it does with the same handed combinations. In fact, if a righty pitcher throws a fast ball down and in to a left-handed batter, a tape measure is most likely needed to measure where the ball lands.
The fact is that there is only 15-20% of the entire world that is left-handed, so this is a predominately right-handed world.
This year’s Texas Rangers ball club has six left-handed batters and six righties, with one switch hitter. That is extremely rare to have that many left-handed hitters on a club. The problem with this is when the team either faces a left-handed starting pitcher, which forces the manager to start all his right-handed bats early, leaving nothing for later innings, or not play the percentages in hopes that his hitters can defy the odds. The Rangers are bent the other way with the pitching staff, as they have a single left-handed starter, but nobody else to throw left-handed.
Odds wise and match-up wise over the course of 162 games there are going to be unfavorable match-ups, and this team as it is right now, is set up to either succeed or fail by defying baseball odds. As noted historically the best hitters are lefties because of so many right-handed pitchers, so this could mean good news for the team in the long run for hitters. However, the pitching staff may suffer the other way as they run into power hitting lefties. Whatever the case it is sure an interesting team so far, and so far we have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly with this group manager Jeff Bannister has chosen. Time will tell how this strategy works out, and if it does, look for the other teams to either follow it, or avoid it like the plague.
