Do you guys give these any thought in high school baseball?

It matters not at the HS level or for that matter at any level in my mind

It certainly does. Especially for lefties who rarely see a lefty. The righties, not so much, because they see RHP 90% of the time...

I have found that lefties really do have a hard time hitting lefties especially if they throw low 3/4 or have a good breaking pitch. We have quite a few left handed hitters on our team (7) and are not deep enough to switch to a right-handed hitter against a good lefty pitcher, but I will shuffle my batting order and I will make sure my DH is right handed (possibly DHing for one of our weaker left handed hitters).

So to answer your question, I think the lefty vs. lefty match-up is generally a bad on for high school hitters, but I think most high school teams are still better with their starting lefty than their back-up righty.

If anyone wants to take the time to research the statistics, they will find that RHHs hit better against LHPs than RHPs. But LHHs hit RHPs better than RHHs hit LHPs.

LHHs hit RHPs much better than LHPs. Often LHPs absolutely dominate LHHs. Like wise, low arm angle RHPs dominate RHHs, but have trouble with LHHs.

The biggest advantage is to the LHP facing the LHH. The next biggest advantage is the RHH facing the LHP.

The fact that there are more RHPs than LHPs is the reason for the discrepancy.

You can check the pitching or hitting stats left vs right, left vs left, right vs left and right vs right at a few of the more complete statistical sites.

Every once in awhile, you will see a pitcher that for some reason has better stats against the opposite side hitter, but that is very rare. It’s usually a case where the pitcher has an amazing changeup. For example it’s difficult for a RHP to dominate a LHH unless he has a good change.

Of course, this is all due to frequency of seeing RHPs and the main difference is the opposite side hitter has most breaking balls coming towards him rather than away from him. He also has a better angle to see the delivery/release a bit better.

Hope I didn't mess up some of those LHHs with RHHs and LHPs with RHPs.

I'd like to go ahead and explain that a bit better than PG did, but I can't. Well stated.

For a "real" hitter does it really matter?

Do you think Manny cares when he is on a tear like he is now?

Might just be my pinstripes showing but does someone have a "man crush" on Manny ???

"Not that there's anything wrong with that!"

TR,
So only Manny is a real hitter, and only when he's hot? Even so, I'll bet that Manny hits better off lefties than righties. I think you still owe me a cup of coffee if we ever run into each other over the "good hitters hit better against good pitchers" one.

I'll be the first to admit that a good hitter who is seeing the ball well can hit against almost anyone but even Manny is vulnerable to a top righty with a low arm slot.

CADAD


You are on---I still think I win

http://snap.stats.com/premium/sfa/stats/playerstats.asp?id=5132

check it out

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/bsplit.cgi?year=2008&team=TOT&lg=AL

see platoon splits

Here is a link for the entire 2007 season... Splits

2007 Splits

Using those stats, I actually did some cyphering on my own. I know, that's dangerous!

Here are some things I found interesting...

LHH vs RHP hit .15 points higher than RHH vs RHPs.
LHH vs RHP also walked nearly 4 more times out of 100 ABs. RHH struck out one more time out of each 100 ABs.

Much bigger discrepancies showed up with LHPs.

RHH vs LHPs hit .20 points higher than LHH vs LHPs.
RHH hit a HR against LHPs one in every 31 Abs, while LHH vs LHPs hit a homerun once in every 40 ABs. LHPs also walked RHHs at a higher percentage and struckout LHHs at a higher percentage.

Probably the most telling stat is the Batting Averages
RHP vs RHH .262
RHP vs LHH .277
LHP vs LHH .261
LHP vs RHH .281

This is using the stats for the entire 2007 MLB season.

Note, There are many RHPs and LHPs who absolutely dominate the same side hitters. The left hand specialists are on most teams. These guys are most often lower arm angle guys with exceptional breaking balls and or sinkers.

This is also true for some starters, ie Randy Johnson in his career has given up 369 HRs. 345 of them were to RHHs. RHHs hit only .221 against him, but LHHs hit a much worse .195 with an unbelievably low .286 slugging %.

TR,
You win this one. We now owe each other a cup of coffee. Manny actually tends to struggle against lefties more than righties more often than not at least over the last few years.

Here is the link...
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/bsplit.cgi?n1=ramirma02

Actually Manny has hit .304 lifetime against RHPs
Against LHPs his lifetime B. ave. is .341…
37 points higher.

His OBP against RHPs is .395
Against LHPs his OBP is .449

His SLG% against RHPs is .579
His SLG% against LHPs is .637

Against RHP he strikes out every 4.2 abs.
Against LHP he strikes out every 5.7 abs.

Against RHP he hits a HR every 14.5 abs.
Against LHPs he hits a HR every 14.0 abs.

Against RHP he has been intentionally walked every 61.59 abs
Against LHP he has been intentionally walked every 22.1 abs.

He is good both ways, but he is clearly much better against LHPs in every way.

PG,
TR was talking about when Manny was hot so I just looked at this year and some recent seasons. So far this season, while he's hot, he's hitting much better against righties than against lefties.

He's tended to hit better against lefties, but not by that much and in 2005 he hit much worse against lefties than he did against righties and in 2004 he hit slightly better against righties.

To me the difference wasn't significant so I gave the "win" to TR relative to what we were talking about. If I wanted to get technical I could say that the post where I bet only said that Manny hit better against lefties than against righties, but the intent was to talk about when Manny was on a hot streak.

TR and I were talking about one particular individual in one particular situation and that in no way affects the the fact that what you've posted is right on target.

BTW, I sent you a PM on another subject.

quote:

Originally posted by LOW337:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/bsplit.cgi?year=2008&team=TOT&lg=AL

see platoon splits

Wow! That Yankee average is amazing! Wonder if he has bonus provisions for what he does against them, lol.

I'm going to take a bit different tack on this subject. While many high school coaches are coaching to win first, are they doing their player a dis-service by playing these matchups at this level? To be able to handle a lefty/lefty matchup, a hitter needs experience in those situations, especially since he isn't going to see that many lefties as a younger player. If a coach wants to play those matchups, how is he going to develop players who can handle them when he doesn't make changes?

I think that coaches should let the players at this level learn to deal with these situations, it will help them later on. If they're in the playoffs or something like that, then maybe you manage differently, but I think that players have to be put in difficult situations so that they can learn to deal with them. Lefty/righty matchups are one of those situations.

PGStaff, with all of your statistical analysis, you now have me wondering if I should bring fewer left handers to East Cobb this summer. I was going to be bringing at least 4 lefties, but now you have me wondering if I should leave three of them at home. j/k