How a Pitcher’s League and Handedness Affect Their Strikeout Rate
I have always been fascinated by certain strategies in sports that continue to make a large impact in the way the game is played, regardless of the age. In basketball you could point to the “pick and roll” play, which is not only a staple in almost any game of basketball played by anyone across the country, but is still after all these years causing confusion among NBA coaches in terms of the best way to defend it. In football, the fade route’s ability to basically isolate your wide receiver with the other team’s corner to see who wins finds its roots in backyard “500” games or other similar jump ball scenarios. In baseball, the lefty/righty pitcher matchup.
If you’ve ever watched little league baseball around the age when kids are actually allowed to start pitching to each other without the assistance of coaches, you’ve likely seen several recurring themes. One: some kids hit puberty sooner than others, and their childhood athletic careers are in return awesome, as they spend their early years posting K/9 rates that would make José Fernández proud. Two: if you are a tall kid with any semblance of an arm, you will get a chance to pitch. Three: regardless of if you are good at baseball, if you are a lefty, you will get a chance to pitch.
This fascination with left-handed pitchers has continued from little league all the way to the majors. Not to say that right-handed pitchers aren’t good or important; lefties are just rarer. From 2010 to 2014, 73 percent of rookie starting pitchers were right handed. If you are in the camp that believes pitcher handedness doesn’t make a difference, then why isn’t that number closer to 50 percent? If you are in the camp that believes lefty pitchers hold an advantage over righty pitchers, why isn’t that number closer to 50 percent?
All signs point towards lefty pitchers having this type of aura surrounding them because there are less of them available. Are lefty pitchers thus more successful than righty pitchers? Or has this been a worldwide scam since kids learned how to throw a baseball?
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