Why lefty vs righty in baseball

It allows your pitch recognition skills to work for you rather than against you. With that in mind, hitters need to be aware of what are the advantages and disadvantages as well various approaches pitchers will have when facing hitters throughout the line-up. The main advantage of left-handed hitters is that the majority of the pitchers they face will be right-handed pitchers. Statistically, there are more right-handed pitchers than there are left-handed. In other words, more than half of a left-handed hitters plate-appearance will consist of seeing pitches from the opposite side of the mound.

This means, majority of breaking balls, will break towards the left-handed hitter. A huge advantage for hitters who are having trouble staying back on deceptive pitches.

Left-handed hitters are more valuable than their right-handed counterparts at the plate. Lefty pitchers also tend to be more sought after. Left-handers stand on the opposite side of the plate as right-handers, and they swing the opposite direction too. Left-handers lead their swing with their right arm. Conventional wisdom in baseball is that yes, a left-handed batter does better against a right-handed pitcher. The same can be said for a right-handed batter against a left-handed pitcher.

But what exactly about the opposite-handed matchup makes it relevant in baseball? A right-handed batter has to lunge after an outside pitch and has a weaker swing as a result. But those same breaking pitches will curve toward a lefty, thus making them easier to hit. The same principle applies to left-handed pitchers against right-handed batters.

It starts behind his back. It breaks all the way over the plate. He has no chance. If you "split" a hitter's stats into how he does against righties vs. Some teams will "platoon" two players at one position -- one right-handed hitter, the other a lefty -- to deploy depending on which kind of pitcher they're facing. Now here's the thing that really makes lefty pitchers so valuable: The lefty platoon advantage is bigger than the righty platoon advantage. Lefty hitters do worse against lefty pitchers than righty hitters do against righty pitchers.

It makes sense. Over the course of a lefty hitter's baseball life -- from Little League to high school to college to the Minor Leagues to MLB -- he'll face many more righty pitchers than he will lefties.

Less experience seeing lefty pitching likely makes it more difficult to hit when he does face it. Meanwhile, a righty hitter will see tons of righty pitching. He has the advantage of familiarity that comes from all those repetitions. There are also relatively more left-handed hitters than there are left-handed pitchers.

Righty hitters are still the majority, but it's not as big as it is for pitchers. So a lefty pitcher gets an outsized opportunity to take advantage of his platoon … uh, advantage. In the Major Leagues in recent seasons, the proportion of righty hitters to lefty hitters is more like two-thirds to one-third, rather than three-fourths to one-fourth like for pitchers.

And lefty hitters have taken over 40 percent of all at-bats, compared to the little over 25 percent pitched by lefties. A lefty pitcher will find more lefty hitters to overmatch than a righty hitter will find lefty pitchers to attack. The first one goes back to the scarcity of lefty pitchers. The understanding that most batters fared better against pitchers of the opposite hand changed the game of baseball.

Teams began to look for and give more consideration to lefthanded batters, and began to use a platoon system at some positions, where a lefthanded batter would get most of the playing time against righthanded pitchers and a righthanded batter would get most of the playing time against lefthanded pitchers.

Switch-hitters players who could bat lefthanded or righthanded also became more prominent. There had always been a few switch-hitters in the game, but now teams looked for switch-hitters in the hope of finding a strategic advantage.

Having switch-hitters on the roster gave a team more roster flexibility During this same time that lefthanded batters were becoming more common, the era of starting pitchers finishing most of their games was also coming to an end, and relief pitchers were also becoming more common. Few pitchers throw screwballs, however, because the pitch is hard to master and puts a strain on the arm. At higher levels of play, many right-handed pitchers can put some tailing action on their fastballs, causing them to bend slightly away from lefty hitters.

Righties may also try to hit the outside corner with curve balls, hoping the left-handed hitter will give up on the pitch because he believes it will be outside the strike zone. A left-handed batter vs. The infielders will shade about one step toward the hole between first and second base, and outfielders move several steps toward the right field foul line. It may need some changes depending on the batter's characteristics.