Joey Gallo?

[ettin]

2 hours ago, Dtwncbad said:

An all right handed lineup is "short on lefties"?  What does that mean? Seems pretty straightforward but I'll digress to the other questions.

Is an all right handed lineup bad? Not necessarily.

Isn't it a matter of if the hitters can hit? Yes but I think most teams struggle with having every single hitter in their lineup able to handle LHP and RHP. Finding a true two-way hitter like Trout or Machado is not easy.

The vast majority of right handed hitters do not struggle against righties or lefties. 

However, many, many left handed hitters do struggle against left handed pitching.

Here are the numbers from 2018:

RHH vs. LHP: 100 wRC+

RHH vs. RHP: 92 wRC+

LHH vs. RHP: 103 wRC+

LHH vs. LHP: 82 wRC+

Bottom line, generally speaking, is that hitters do not do as well against pitchers throwing from the same side. When you consider that 70% of the pitchers in the League throw right-handed, having more left-handed hitters, again generally speaking, is preferable. Certainly the Mike Trout's of the world don't give two shits which way the guy throws but there is only one Mike Trout.

So other than ballpark configuration considerations, pursuing a left handed bat to not be "short on lefties" doesn't actually make any sense. 1) The team doesn't always play in Anaheim and 2) It makes perfect sense in the reality that is Major League Baseball based on the numbers above. In particular you want left-handed bats that make hard contact and can spray it to other parts of the field so they don't get a defensive shift.

 

[Dtwncbad]

1 hour ago, ettin said:

 

Just using your RC numbers above:

RH=

100×.70 (70% against righties)=70

92x.30=27.6

=97.6 typical RHH

LH=

103x.70=72.1

82x.30=24.6

=96.7 typical LHH

 

This helps my point that it doesn't make any sense to view a lineup as too right handed.

 

[Jeff Fletcher]

3 hours ago, Stradling said:

I won’t really venture into a discussion with you because you sparse more than anyone else on this board.  In your mind saying they want a lefty because they are short on lefties means they will take a lefty even if they aren’t as good ,instead of a righty.  When the rest of us read it as all things being equal they’d rather have a lefty.

What he said. 

 

[ettin]

45 minutes ago, Dtwncbad said:

Just using your RC numbers above:

RH=

100×.70 (70% against righties)=70

92x.30=27.6

=97.6 typical RHH

LH=

103x.70=72.1

82x.30=24.6

=96.7 typical LHH

 

This helps my point that it doesn't make any sense to view a lineup as too right handed.

 

RHH vs. LHP (.30) = 100 x .3 = 30

RHH vs. RHP (.70) = 92 x .7 = 64.4

Total for RHH vs. both LHP and RHP = 94.4

LHH vs. LHP (.30) = 82 x .3 = 24.6

LHH vs. RHP (.70) = 103 x .7 = 72.1

Total for LHH vs. both LHP and RHP = 96.7

 

You got the top part reversed on the 70/30 split.

[Dtwncbad]

43 minutes ago, ettin said:

RHH vs. LHP (.30) = 100 x .3 = 30

RHH vs. RHP (.70) = 92 x .7 = 64.4

Total for RHH vs. both LHP and RHP = 94.4

LHH vs. LHP (.30) = 82 x .3 = 24.6

LHH vs. RHP (.70) = 103 x .7 = 72.1

Total for LHH vs. both LHP and RHP = 96.7

 

You got the top part reversed on the 70/30 split.

That's what I get for trying to do 5 things at once!

[ettin]

2 hours ago, Dtwncbad said:

That's what I get for trying to do 5 things at once!

Ha!

I would think based on those numbers (which are pretty consistent going back the last five years) that you would want to find more consistent left-handed hitters with less variance in their splits over a typical right-handed hitter. Just talking generally here all things being equal.