Do Right Handed Hitters have Less Severe Platoon Splits?

[Riverbrian]

23 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

There was a piece (maybe in Athletic? - Twins specific) maybe 5-6 weeks ago showing all “good” Twins that batted left handed. Maybe a dozen guys? Koskie - Kubel - Oliva - Carew - Morneau - Hrbek - Mauer and another 4-5 guys. Bottom line is it showed left handed hitters (article supported logic of platooning for lefties) had pretty big drops v. LH pitching. Oliva having a .690 OPS was telling! Carew was lower but still above average. ALL guys were lower v. LH pitching, some everyday guys were pretty significant drops.

The premise was that guys see waaay more RH pitching while kids & learning & as young men and then through their careers. RH hitters get used to seeing RH pitching and are in a sink or swim situation their whole lives v. RH pitching. LH hitters see predominantly RH pitching and then in the Show the lefties they see more of, are professionals. Poor results.

Wallner - Julien - name anyone batting left handed……..probably are never, regardless of fans just wanting “to give them a chance”, going to be effective or nearly as effective v. LH pitching. The platoon makes sense! ………similar stuff for RH hitters but more accepted maybe? 

No question... the platoon split shows a left handed hitter disadvantage. How many lefties they have faced over the years is an acceptable theory on why left against left is the widest swing of the 4 batter vs pitcher matchups possible.  

However... Let's bring Max Kepler into the discussion. Max has thus far produced a career .787 OPS against Right Handers and .645 against left handers. 

Those numbers support what you are saying and they support my recognition of the obvious left hander disadvantage.

Yet Kepler isn't platooned at least not typically... he may get the occasional off day against a left hander but Kepler will be starting in RF against Framber Valdez in the playoffs. Why does Kepler get the opportunity? Defense I'm sure is a factor but perhaps the biggest point is this. Someone has to. We have 4 natural left handed hitters on the roster and the roster only has room for 3 platoons. There is nowhere to run... nowhere to hide. If Tony Oliva's .690 is the best that can be done. Well help your young hitter get to .690 then. It's better than .550  

So unless you are going to stack your lineup with right handed hitters and absorb that lesser right on right disadvantage  75% of the time. Lefties will be called upon to step into that box against the southpaw. Nowhere to run... Nowhere to hide. 

 

[chpettit19]

4 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

I'd love to hear some thoughts on this. 

There are other splits, other data points for match up consideration. How batters do against fastballs, breaking pitches, change ups for example. There has to be a lot of data produced with all of the analysts being employed and with all that data... lineup construction seemingly hasn't advanced past the right hander/left hander thing. Like they are only data points that matter. 

I do know that the Twins, and many other teams, do matchup based groupings based on the types of splits you were talking about, plus pitch angle for swing angle analysis, and more. They have an incredible amount of insane data that tracks which pitch types an individual player's swing is best suited to hit. Julien, for example, has a very steep vertical bat angle. The Twins know that that's likely a large reason why he swings and misses at breaking balls so much. The good news for Julien is that his bat angle is pretty similar to Freddie Freeman's, and Freeman is very good against lefties so there's a chance for him to make some adjustments.

The data they have now is insane. Vertical bat angle is 1 data point, but they have so many others that they can piece together to breakdown swings and how likely they are to be successful against different individual pitcher's pitches. They have all that, but I'm not sure they've really figured out how to deploy it all best yet because the game dictates what moves they can make and when so while you can want to get a certain hitter against a certain pitcher the game situation may never allow for it.

[DJL44]

28 minutes ago, Riverbrian said:

There is nowhere to run... nowhere to hide. If Tony Oliva's .690 is the best that can be done. Well help your young hitter get to .690 then. It's better than .550  

I agree with this. It's also important to note that not all OPS is equal. It's better to lose power and maintain OBP against same-sided pitchers than the other way around. If you aren't making outs then you can get a more productive hitter to the plate.

[Riverbrian]

Big Picture:

The Twins are not going to be big players in the free agent market. I know many don't like that and many will argue that the Twins are cheap and that they should open up the checkbook.

However... those who have been paying attention over the years surely have come to the conclusion that the Twins are not going to be big players in the free agent market. Carlos Correa was a shock... are we really expecting another Carlos Correa type signing on the horizon? I'm not expecting that. Even if the Twins were to sign another player with a big price tag to join the club... in order to afford that big price tag... they will need a lot of young players making the minimum to afford it.    

If the Twins are not going to sign the top end free agents and they are not going to. Sustained success for the Twins is going to depend upon development of the young players.    

If you consider the left handed disadvantage against southpaws. How will they deploy Walter Jenkins and Emmanuel Rodriquez when they reach the 26 man roster? We can say Walter is special... will he be treated special with an organization this committed to the lefty/lefty thing. Can we have a functional roster with Julien, Kirilloff, Wallner, Jenkins and Rodriquez on the same roster. Those 6 on the same roster at young player prices could give the organization some financial wiggle room to afford a top line player with a price tag.

6 Million for Farmer and 4 million for Margot does not give the organization financial wiggle room to think bigger... you have to always think smaller to roster a short side guy. On the subject of development on the right side of the plate. In order to provide a handcuff for the young left handed hitter... you need the right handed handcuff. Is that what we want to turn Martin or Miranda into? Now you are compromising the development of a young right handed hitter so you can compromise the development of a young left handed hitter. Short term gain... long term loss.

Compromising development across the board is not survivable. We will be plugging holes with Margot, Garlick types forever more.      

[USAFChief]

1 hour ago, chpettit19 said:

For Julien's sake, I hope you're wrong on this. He spent the offseason using the Trajekt machine to learn to hit lefties. The machines these days are pretty fancy. That machine has a video screen that shows a pitcher winding up and throwing the ball from any release point, and the ability to mimic the spin of actual MLB pitches. It's pretty impressive stuff, and I'd think it could be quite effective in allowing lefties to get as many reps as they want/need against "lefties" to improve their abilities.

Well i hope so too, but as I said...IMO pitching machines are only so useful. 

 

[chpettit19]

2 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

Well i hope so too, but as I said...IMO pitching machines are only so useful. 

I'd say the Trajekt machine is lightyears more useful than generic batting practice. Live batting practice with a major league, or upper minors, pitcher legitimately trying to get you out would probably be better. But live batting practice with some indy ball pitcher you pick up because you're not going to use your legit arms for that is probably not as useful, and certainly not significantly more useful than a Trajekt machine.

Being able to go put in Chris Sale's slider and release point is more useful than a 55 year old lefty on the mound spinning you balls that don't really break significantly or anything before a game against Chris Sale, no? These aren't your typical pitching machines anymore. Julien was legitimately facing balls that moved exactly like Sale, Kershaw, Valdez, Snell, Luzardo thrown balls. I find it hard to believe that's not more effective than any batting practice he was going to get outside of having Thielbar and Funderburk up there throwing him 100 pitches.

Obviously nothing matches game action, but when it comes to work done outside of a game it's pretty hard to beat facing pitches thrown with the exact release point and spin characteristics of the best pitches in the game. These aren't your same old pitching machines.

[chpettit19]

I also read Gleeman's article and it softened my stance on the obsessive platooning, but it also got me wondering if there's been any improvements over time. What tools did Tony Oliva have at his disposal to improve against lefties? For that matter, what did Mauer and Morneau have available to them?

Is it swing style/type differences between righties and lefties that cause the struggle? Is it exposure to lefties? Likely some combination of both of those, plus other, factors. But we're smarter now. We have better tools at our disposal (Trajekt machine type technology for example). There's only so much you can do about swing differences, but if it's exposure we can do that pretty easily. Video boards aren't the same, and practice isn't the same, but there should be some room for growth and improvement by attacking the exposure problems if that's the driving force here.

There were 54 lefthanded batters who faced lefthanded pitchers in at least 90 PAs last year. I chose 90 because that's how low I had to go to get a Twins hitter in the list. But of those 54 batters, 29 of them had at least a 100 wRC+. Are lefties worse against lefties than righties? Absolutely. Almost universally. But worse doesn't always equal bad. Jazz Chisolm was legitimately bad with a 29 wRC+ against them in 94 PAs. Freddie Freeman was legitimately great with a 174 wRC+ against them in 218 PAs. 

Max Kepler was the only Twin on the list and he had a 108 wRC+ against lefties. If Julien can get to a 108 wRC+ against lefties while maintaining something in the 130+ wRC+ range (he was at 151 last year) against righties does it really make sense to ever pinch hit Kyle Farmer and his 117 wRC+ against lefties and 93 against righties before what's likely to be that spots last time up in the game? If you have a legitimately good to great lefty hitter who can OPS+ or wRC+ 100 or better against lefties I find it hard to see any situation where you'd be pinch hitting for them before the 8th or 9th.

[DJL44]

16 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

I also read Gleeman's article and it softened my stance on the obsessive platooning, but it also got me wondering if there's been any improvements over time. What tools did Tony Oliva have at his disposal to improve against lefties? For that matter, what did Mauer and Morneau have available to them? 

The 80s teams had TK throwing batting practice (lefty).

[Riverbrian]

20 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

If Julien can get to a 108 wRC+ against lefties while maintaining something in the 130+ wRC+ range (he was at 151 last year) against righties does it really make sense to ever pinch hit Kyle Farmer and his 117 wRC+ against lefties and 93 against righties before what's likely to be that spots last time up in the game? If you have a legitimately good to great lefty hitter who can OPS+ or wRC+ 100 or better against lefties I find it hard to see any situation where you'd be pinch hitting for them before the 8th or 9th.

Exactly.  

Having a dog is great but you can't teach a dog to use the toilet and flush... dogs still need to relieve themselves and there isn't much that can be done. It's a disadvantage of dog ownership that you have to absorb in order to have a dog. 

What you can do is teach the dog to least go outside in the yard instead of on the living room carpet.  

The left vs left split disadvantage is real. We can't change it... but we can accept it and maybe soften it. 

Getting Julien to a 108 wRC+ is the equivalent of getting him to stop peeing at the plate. 

Those left handed dogs are necessary because 75% of the cats are right handed.   

 

[stringer bell]

29 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Max Kepler was the only Twin on the list and he had a 108 wRC+ against lefties. If Julien can get to a 108 wRC+ against lefties while maintaining something in the 130+ wRC+ range (he was at 151 last year) against righties does it really make sense to ever pinch hit Kyle Farmer and his 117 wRC+ against lefties and 93 against righties before what's likely to be that spots last time up in the game? If you have a legitimately good to great lefty hitter who can OPS+ or wRC+ 100 or better against lefties I find it hard to see any situation where you'd be pinch hitting for them before the 8th or 9th.

Kepler is an interesting case. In his two best years (2019 and 2023), he did very well against same handed pitching (.880 OPS in 2019 and .751 OPS in 2023), despite otherwise struggling against lefties (.645 career OPS vs.LHP). For all the information, stats and data points available, I don't think there is an answer why a guy would spike in his platoon stats as Kepler has in his two best years.

@Riverbrian also brings up a great point--subtracting Kepler, but adding Jenkins and Rodriguez (and switch hitter Brooks Lee) would give the late 2020s Twins a real left-handed lean and probable vulnerability against left handed pitching. 

[Riverbrian]

14 minutes ago, stringer bell said:

 

@Riverbrian also brings up a great point--subtracting Kepler, but adding Jenkins and Rodriguez (and switch hitter Brooks Lee) would give the late 2020s Twins a real left-handed lean and probable vulnerability against left handed pitching. 

While on paper better against right handed pitching that will throw at you 3 times more. 

With that proportion. Loading up on lefties has to be a bigger statistical advantage than the disadvantage of left on left 25% of the time. 

 

[stringer bell]

8 minutes ago, Riverbrian said:

While on paper better against right handed pitching that will throw at you 3 times more. 

With that proportion. Loading up on lefties has to be a bigger statistical advantage than the disadvantage of left on left 25% of the time. 

 

I think of the Cleveland teams in the last ten years, where teams would save their lefties or bring up somebody from AAA (Devin Smeltzer) specifically to face their LH hitters (and turn Ramírez around). If the Twins had as many as six lefties or switch hitters in the preferred daily lineup, they might be facing closer to 40% left handed starters. 

[chpettit19]

23 minutes ago, stringer bell said:

Kepler is an interesting case. In his two best years (2019 and 2023), he did very well against same handed pitching (.880 OPS in 2019 and .751 OPS in 2023), despite otherwise struggling against lefties (.645 career OPS vs.LHP). For all the information, stats and data points available, I don't think there is an answer why a guy would spike in his platoon stats as Kepler has in his two best years.

@Riverbrian also brings up a great point--subtracting Kepler, but adding Jenkins and Rodriguez (and switch hitter Brooks Lee) would give the late 2020s Twins a real left-handed lean and probable vulnerability against left handed pitching. 

Kepler is an interesting case in any discussion. He was just the lefty they gave ABs to last year and he did well so I just wanted to use him and their main RH platoon bat (Farmer) as the examples. It's all small sample size stuff (97 PAs for Kep) so there's certainly going to be some noise in there. My main point is that being worse against lefties than righties doesn't automatically make you unplayable against lefties. That's what Gleeman's article was mostly pointing at. Lefties are almost universally worse against lefties than righties so it makes sense to platoon, but worse doesn't have to equal bad. Freeman, Soto, Harper, Alvarez, etc. are truly very good hitters against lefties still. Not as good as against righties, but still very dangerous. If you think you have a truly great lefty hitter there's real reasons to believe he can be pretty good against lefties. At least they can be good enough to not be blindly platooned.

Agree, the future lineup potentially requires multiple of these guys to turn into better than 100 OPS+/wRC+ bats against lefties or they'll get sliced up by lefties. Will be interesting to see how they approach that. The Orioles are awfully lefty/switch heavy right now, with more on the way. They let Henderson leadoff verse lefties so they clearly have a different philosophy than the Twins. Hopefully the Twins are keeping an eye on them.

[Riverbrian]

22 minutes ago, stringer bell said:

I think of the Cleveland teams in the last ten years, where teams would save their lefties or bring up somebody from AAA (Devin Smeltzer) specifically to face their LH hitters (and turn Ramírez around). If the Twins had as many as six lefties or switch hitters in the preferred daily lineup, they might be facing closer to 40% left handed starters. 

Possible... If they can find enough. If they can find enough lefties to 40% us as you suggest... What kind of quality are we talking to reach past the 25% currently on rosters.  

Always remember... no matter what the collective numbers say... it's still case by case individual against individual. 

In other words... If a team is that committed to attacking via the split that they are willing to throw sub-par lefties.

Bring it on. If I was left handed... I'd choose to face Smeltzer over Joe Ryan.   

[stringer bell]

I couldn't find starting pitcher information, but last year Cleveland faced left handed pitching for over 31% of their plate appearances. The Yankees, OTOH (literally I guess) faced left handed pitching at a 19.6% clip. There are limits to the gamesmanship, of course. I'd definitely rather face Tommy Milone or Dallas Keuchel than any of the starters that the Twins used in 2023, but clubs will do what they can to maximize an advantage.

After some further research, it appears Cleveland faced 59 left handed starters (36.4%) last year. Maybe 40% is out of range, but 35% might be about what a heavily left handed hitting roster might face.

[Riverbrian]

30 minutes ago, stringer bell said:

I couldn't find starting pitcher information, but last year Cleveland faced left handed pitching for over 31% of their plate appearances. The Yankees, OTOH (literally I guess) faced left handed pitching at a 19.6% clip. There are limits to the gamesmanship, of course. I'd definitely rather face Tommy Milone or Dallas Keuchel than any of the starters that the Twins used in 2023, but clubs will do what they can to maximize an advantage.

That 6% swing on either side of the 25% across the league is probably explained by bullpen usage to attack the left handed heavy Cleveland compared to the Right handed heavy to right handed.

The bulk innings by starters is probably closer to static. That's 6% is typically deployed one inning at a time. 

[Riverbrian]

On 4/11/2024 at 4:59 PM, Riverbrian said:

4. Speaking of Luplow and Garlick. Perhaps an even more important point. In order to set up 3 platoons for Julien, Kirilloff and Wallner. You have to sign 3 lesser players to hold down the short side. Luplow, Garlick types... Margot for example. You are not going to sign JD Martinez for a short side platoon. 3 lesser players on your roster makes it impossible to have the decent depth necessary to cover for injuries that are going to happen or unforeseen bad performance that happens ever year. Last year Solano worked out decently but he wasn't brought on to play as much as he did. He had to play because of injuries. You actually sacrifice talent to maintain the platoon. Just go get talent instead is my opinion.   

Correa has made the timing perfect to repeat myself here. 

In order to keep the sanctity of our extreme platoon system. You must roster an equal amount of below average players who are just bad enough to fill a short side platoon role.

If we are going to strictly platoon young lefties like Julien, Kirilloff and Wallner. You have to sign right handed hitters who struggle against right handers but can hit left handers. After all... if they could hit both right handers and left handers... they wouldn't be short side platoon guys. They'd be like Polanco for example... who hits both hands and plays every day so no need to short side him.

You have to find these specific players to make your lineup pretty. 3 spots on your 26 man roster who can't hit right handers to support the guys who can't hit left handers. 

This off-season our front office faced with a budget reduction spent considerable effort to find below average players to make the jigsaw puzzle pieces of the 26 man roster fit and spent money we don't have to do it just to keep the sanctity of the extreme platoon system intact. Farmer was already here... Margot was acquired. The extreme platoon system requires that players like Farmer and Margot are necessary. Roster set: Roster all pretty. Left and Right handcuffs have uniforms... Now let's go play 162 games.  

It's like making your bed to military standard. That bed is looking good all tucked perfect until the season starts and soon the sheets and pillows are all over the place. 

Farmer: Career .658 OPS vs RH 

Margot: Career .662 OPS vs RH

That's the price you pay to keep your young lefthanded hitters away from lefthanders. You got to roster these guys to protect them. That's a steep price. When Lewis and Correa go down... Margot and Farmer have to face those right handers because they are the extra players on your roster.

So what have you accomplished with that pretty roster? You've fortified against the left handed pitcher that you face 25% of the time at the expense of compromising your abilities against right handed pitchers that you face 75%. 

Let's repeat those numbers:

Farmer: Career .658 OPS vs RH 

Margot: Career .662 OPS vs RH

There are people in this world who will excuse the front office because injuries derailed the club. I'm not one of those people. Injuries should be expected.  

They built this roster. They went out and got Margot, they kept Farmer (I like Farmer BTW... Unfortunately I have to talk about him this way to make my point) and they traded Polanco. 

Sub-Par players against right handers taking up roster space is the price you pay. It's a heavy price to pay just to bottle neck their development.  

 

 

:     

[Riverbrian]

Case in Point. 

Game one of the double header today. 

Santana batting 2nd against a RH. 

Margot batting 4th against a RH. 

No Farmer but... I'm sure he will be in the lineup to face the RH scheduled in game two. 

This is the price. 

[chpettit19]

56 minutes ago, Riverbrian said:

Case in Point. 

Game one of the double header today. 

Santana batting 2nd against a RH. 

Margot batting 4th against a RH. 

No Farmer but... I'm sure he will be in the lineup to face the RH scheduled in game two. 

This is the price. 

Santana hitting 2 hole against righties and 8 hole against lefties summarizes your stance pretty well. Literally the opposite of how you'd want it. Actually, worse than that because you don't even want him hitting 8 against righties. Just brutal.

[Riverbrian]

12 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Santana hitting 2 hole against righties and 8 hole against lefties summarizes your stance pretty well. Literally the opposite of how you'd want it. Actually, worse than that because you don't even want him hitting 8 against righties. Just brutal.

13 Position player spots

2 Catchers

6 platoon dudes

5 players who play most every day. 

Santana was never brought in to be a short side guy. He took Polanco's every day spot so they could keep Julien, Kirilloff and Wallner lefty free. 

How can people not see this? How can anyone not remember how many injuries occur every year? How can anyone not see what we are asking of sub-par players just to starve our young talent of growth. 

Polanco by himself isn't going to solve the loss of Correa and Lewis by himself but still... How can anyone in the name of the 2024 baseball season justify the trading of Polanco is something I fail to understand.

But... We both saw it. Julien and Polanco on the same roster. What do we do? OMG it's a log jam!!! 

It'll be the same log jam talk next year. 

For what it's worth. Fans are auto mechanics, HR Directors and Estate Planners. The front office does this for living and it doesn't appear they could predict this totally predictable injury thing.  

If the front office is reading this. If you place someone on the 26 man roster... There will come a time when you will need them.