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Lefty, righty, dudn't matter

iramets May 06 2007 08:05 AM

Just at a guess, I'd say that one of the most important stats for a solid rotation starter wolud be a relative imperviousness to batters' handedness. A lefthanded pitcher, for example, who's unusually vulnerable to RH hitters is going to be jerked from a game in the middle innings any time he's trouble with a lot of good RH hitters due up, even if he has pretty good stats overall. His manager will reason, "These next few hitters are likely to hit him like a gong, this is a good time to get him out of the game," and he wont be able to become a reliable starter until he overcomes that severe split. From flipping around on retrosheet, I noticed that Koufax, supposedly very tough for a LH batter, was just plain tough: .585 lifetime OPS vs RHs, .586 vs. LHs. So he'd literally never leave the game because of the handedness of the batters up next. Our own Jerry Koosman was .693 vs RHs, .613 vs LHs, I don't know what the average split would be, but I imagine it's probably greater than .080. Anyway with this split in mind, which Mets' starters do suppose are higher or lower in effectiveness against opposite-handed batters? I won't show Maine or Pelfrey (small sample size) but will show figures for Glavne, El Duque, Pedro and Perez

iramets May 06 2007 09:01 AM

Glavine is highly effective ,virtually identical (.686/.691 split--vs. RH listed first),. Pedro is also highly effective, only a .024 split (.590/.614). Duque, however, has a HUGE split of .189 (.629/.818), while Perez, in a much smaller sample, of course, is actually the most effective with a .004 difference (.774/.778). He's faced so few LH batters that his .774 vs RHs is also his overall OPS vs. all batters. Of course, there are many factors figuring in to whether you want to take a starter out of the game, other than the handedness of the next few batters, and you need to take into account the probable effectiveness of the relievers with whom you intend to replace them. Hernandez is only a disastrous choice IF if you have a lefthander warmed up who is signifianctly better than .818 vs. LH batters. If not, he may be the best of some bad choices. SInce Schoenweis has a huge split of .217 OPS points (.821/.604 lifetime), I would think that ANY time el Duque has batters on in a close game in the middle innings with a good lefty or two coming up, he's got to be toast, while with any of the other starters it's much more of a judgment call.

OlerudOwned May 06 2007 09:12 AM

As I pointed out in yesterday's IGT, Jorge Sosa has a Duque-esque .183 (.692/.875) split.

Edgy DC May 06 2007 12:01 PM

Koos threw what would probably be called a cutter today, sawing off righthanders' bats the same way Leiter did.

iramets May 06 2007 04:50 PM

Edgy DC wrote: Koos threw what would probably be called a cutter today, sawing off righthanders' bats the same way Leiter did. This sounds right, but is it your personal memory, or something you read, or guessed, or what?

Edgy DC May 06 2007 05:50 PM

Read, I think. Something about him deserving stock in H&B for all the bats he wrecked. The same sorts of things were written about Leiter at his best. What kind of OPS split did Leiter have? Here we go, from The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers: JERRY KOOSMAN 6' 2" 205-pound lefty 222-209, 3.36, 17 Saves 1967--1985 Pitch Selection: Fastball. Curve. Change. Slider (developed in 1974). Note: Koosman didn't have a good fastball from 1970 through 1973. Sources: The Sporting News (8/21/76, Jack Lang; and 6/1/74, Lang) Note: Joseph Durso in The New York Times says that the Mets at that time had prohibited Koosman from throwing a slider, for fear that the slider would detract from his excellent curve. Description: "Jerry had good stuff, and he knew he had good stuff. He should have signed a contract with Louiseville Sluggers. They should have paid him for all the bats he broke. This guy sawed them off. "Jerry had a fastball, and he came off the side of the mound, and he could get that fastball in on righthanders, and I mean he ate them up. And he kind of cut it a little, too. It ran in on right-handers. Boy, you talk about eat them up! Jerry made a science out of it." Source: Ron Swoboda in Amazin': The Miraculaous History of New York's Most Beloved Baseball Team, (Peter Golenbock, 2002). Him pluralizing "Louisville Slugger" and leaving the gerund out of "you talk about eat them up" is pretty much par for the course in Amazin'. But if James uses it as a source, it's good enough for me.

iramets May 06 2007 05:59 PM

Leiter :.715/ .656, an .059 advantage vs. LHB. This is far from a science--I was surprised to see that Bob Gibson had a sizable split, about .150 points, so it's not clear that a big split = weakness as a starting pitcher, though it makes a world of sense. Marichal had a small edge (.030, or 640/.610) but at his peak he was regularly more effective against LHB than RHB (he threw a good screwball), which may explain Gibson, come to think of it. If Gibby had a small difference at his peak, he may have been able to persuade his managers to cut him slack when he couldn't get lefties out anymore. I'll see. OE: Gibson lifetime was .555/.703 or a .148 advantage to LHB. In his peak years, that narrowed (though 1968 it was somewhere around .148) and he was able to have some good years when it was ridiculously high--in 1971, he won 16 games but had a ..257 advantage to LHB (.508/.765)

Rockin' Doc May 06 2007 06:39 PM

Tom Seaver had a career .601 OPS vs. righties and .653 OPS vs. lefties

iramets May 06 2007 07:01 PM

Seaver had a small lifetime difference (.052) but I'll track it year by year:for his first Met decade: '67: .230 (.561/.791) '68: .099 (.543/.642) '69: -.020 (.612/.592) '70: 007 (.597/.604) '71: .038 (.529/.567) '72: .139 (.560/.699) '73: .096 (.518/.614) '74: .119 (.578/.697) '75: .154 (.489/.643) '76: .083 (.534/.617) No clear pattern emerging, is there? His three Cy Yongs were won in vastly different ways. In 1969, and 1971, he killed LHBs, holding them to under a .600 OPS but in 1975, he turned RHBs into sissy-marys. The whole NL of RHBs posted a .489 OPS against Seaver. That's a .244 OBP and a .245 SLG--Rey Ordonez was a much better hitter than that.

Frayed Knot May 06 2007 07:25 PM

I remember Matlack as a bigger bat-breaker than Kooz.

iramets May 06 2007 07:30 PM

This dudn't have nuthin to do with r/l splits, but while I was looking up Seaver, I was amazed by the stuff the bb-ref people come up with. They've come up with pitchers' record in Wins and in Losses (he had a 1.61 in games he rang up a W, and 4.92 in a loss). The most amazing stat they've come up with, to my mind, shows how Seaver did on various days' rest. According to them, he came into a game in relief once in the 2nd game of DH after having started the first game and faced 9 batters, and started once on 0 days rest, going 8.1 innings. I suppose both times he could have been pulled from the game after not pitching very much, but that's pretty amazing, seems to me. Moreover, he started 3 times in his career on two days' rest, and got an ERA of 1.71 in those games. .