OPINION

PHILIP MARTIN: The advantages of being left

I don't have many regrets. I wish I'd taken piano lessons as a kid. And that I'd taken dad's advice and learned to switch-hit.

Or hit left-handed.

It couldn't have hurt. In baseball, lefties have such an advantage over their right-handed brethren it's surprising right-handed batting has survived. You'd think getting a step-and-a-half head start toward first base would be incentive enough to get hitters to move to the other side of the plate. Plus it's a lot easier for left-handed hitters to "see"--by which I mean pick up on the rotation and velocity of--a ball thrown by a right-handed pitcher than it is for a right-handed hitter.

This is partly because it's harder to judge these things when a ball is coming directly at you than when you're standing off to the side. A right-handed pitcher's release point is roughly in line with a right-handed batter's head, while a lefty stands a couple of feet to the side. It makes a difference.

Lefties also have a split-second longer before the right-handed pitcher's ball reaches their hitting zone. (Get out your paper, pencil and a protractor if you doubt this.) So right-handed hitters need to be that much quicker. If you've ever wondered (like I have) why left-handers seem to have prettier swings than right-handers, it's because they can afford to. They've got longer to wait on a pitch, their weight shift can be smoother, their swings longer. A right-handed Ted Williams or Ken Griffey Jr. would have to be a little more violent.

And it's obvious that there are more right-handed pitchers than left-handed pitchers because there are more natural right-handers than lefties. Blame natural selection for this, or don't. There is some evidence that there's a genetic component, but culture probably has a bigger influence. (Why are there so many more left-handed golf clubs available in Canadian golf shops than in U.S.? Hockey! About 60 percent of pro hockey players shoot "lefty," with the dominant right hand at the top of the stick. So when a hockey player picks up a golf club, he's likely to hold it like a hockey stick. For some reason Americans resist this; only about 35 percent of U.S.-born players play with left-handed sticks.)

So handedness is a pretty loose concept, with estimates on what percentage of the human population is "naturally" left-handed ranging from five to 30 percent.

But if you ask every adult male in the U.S. for a little help retrieving a foul ball, roughly 12 percent of them would throw it back to you using their left hand. This gives them a fair shot at making $6 million a year for facing one hitter a week, because southpaws are highly sought-after commodities. Because they enjoy special advantages over lefty hitters, who, for reasons we've just discussed (and others) are generally the best hitters in the game.

Yes, right now there are some great right-handed hitters, including Mike Trout, Miguel Cabrera, Andrew McCutchen and Albert Pujols, still dangerous at 37 and a reasonable guess at the best right-handed hitter of all time. (I'd put Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Rogers Hornsby and maybe Honus Wagner ahead of him, but you could make a case.)

But historically, the list of the greatest hitters of all time is lefty-heavy: Williams, Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Stan Musial, Rod Carew, Tony Gwynn, George Brett, Shoeless Joe Jackson, etc. And switch-hitters Mickey Mantle and Pete Rose obviously took most of their at-bats lefty; Rose got more than 3,000 hits as a lefty.

(Mantle is a bit of an aberration; after he injured his right shoulder in the 1957 World Series he hit much better right-handed, to such an extent that he considered giving up hitting lefty. While it rankled him that he finished with a career batting average of .298, as a right-hander Mantle's career average was .330. We can only speculate how he might have fared batting righty against right-handers. )

Lefty pitchers are said to have an even greater advantage over lefty hitters than righty pitchers have over righty hitters because while right-handed hitters see right-handed pitchers all the time, left-handed hitters see left-handed pitchers rather less often. (This seems to be borne out by the numbers; lefties cumulatively bat almost 30 average points lower against lefties while righties hit about 10 points lower against righties.)

My opinion is that this advantage is partially negated because the average left-hander hurler isn't quite as good as the average right-hander because there are way more right handers competing for relatively fewer spots on the roster; baseball custom (with which we could and often should argue) has decreed that each team should have at least one left-handed starter and a couple of left-handed relievers in a typical 10-man pitching staff. At any given time, about 30 percent of the pitchers in baseball will be left-handed.

That doesn't mean that these left-handers will throw 30 percent of the innings; there are typically two to three right-handed starters for every left-handed starter and some left-handed relievers are highly specialized, facing only a few (generally left-handed) hitters per week. If you are looking for the easiest path to the major leagues, be a left-handed relief pitcher, my son. If you can throw strikes and touch 90 miles an hour with your fastball, they will come.

The problem is, you can't just choose your throwing arm. It's dang near impossible to learn to pitch well enough to unbalance major league hitters with one's off hand. That's why we don't see many ambidextrous pitchers. (There have been a couple.)

On the other hand, almost any good athlete can learn to hit a baseball swinging from the opposite side of the plate they're "naturally" inclined to choose--it's like learning a tennis backhand, which while it might feel awkward, is something even most recreational players can learn to do. About half the left-handed at-bats taken in the major leagues are by players who throw with their right hands, so you know that at least some of these guys are lefty swingers by choice. Anecdotally I have heard of guys who naturally throw right and bat left (and even some cursed souls who throw left and bat right) but would you trust them?

Hot take for the day: Youth league coaches who tolerate right-handed hitting are guilty of malpractice.

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Philip Martin is a columnist and critic for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at pmartin@arkansasonline.com and read his blog at blooddirtandangels.com.

Editorial on 05/23/2017

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