Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
November 15, 2007
Sinister Reasons

The Hardball Times looks at position bias as a major explanation for the advantage of left-handed batters over right-handed batters.


Posted by David Pinto at 11:25 AM | Offense | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Great article, but I have a question: why is Catcher considered a right handed only position? I know that catchers are always right handed, but why?

Posted by: robustyoungsoul at November 15, 2007 02:40 PM

Catchers need to block the third base coach from seeing signs with their glove. There have been left handed catchers, but very few. It may also have something to do with the pitcher's perception of the target.

Posted by: David Pinto at November 15, 2007 03:18 PM

I believe that J.C. Bradbury also made the argument that catchers have to have strong, accurate arms, and lefties of that type tend to end up as pitchers.

Posted by: Marty at November 15, 2007 03:25 PM

I think it's more to do with preventing stolen bases at third...if a catcher has to rotate himself even a bit more to throw to third, the milliseconds spent give the runner a serious advantage.

Posted by: B. Kekoa at November 15, 2007 03:29 PM

Wait a second. Why don't catchers need to block the first base coach from seeing signs, too?

I always vaguely thought the righty-only rule for catchers had to do with the prevalence of right-handed batters and the difficulty of throwing to second through an occupied batter's box. But I don't know if that makes any sense, really.

As for the linked article, a point that I think is kind of buried is that, all else being equal, teams prefer to keep a relatively-weak-hitting lefty over an equivalent righty. So that's kind of a reverse-positional bias holding down the lefties' averages.

Further, is there a difference between the performance of "natural" lefties - the ones who also throw and write left-handed - and the righties who have taught themselves to bat left-handed? My understanding is that natural righties hit left-handed not just for the platoon advantage, but also so they can track the ball with their dominant eye. Other than Rickey Henderson, has there ever been a natural lefty who hit right-handed? That in itself shows a very strong advantage, but one that gets hidden in the stats unless you divide the TR-BL from the TL-BL.

Posted by: JJ at November 15, 2007 03:31 PM

B. Kekoa must be right. Especially with a right-handed batter up, it would be hard for a lefty catcher to throw to third.

Posted by: JJ at November 15, 2007 03:33 PM

see
here
for everything you ever wanted to know about left-handed catchers.

Posted by: John Walsh at November 15, 2007 04:45 PM

The argument that guys who throw that well and are left handed are typically developed into pitchers makes some sense to me, but that other stuff seems marginal... I actually remember now a chapter in Baseball Economics I believe about left handed catchers, I'll have to go back and reread that...

Posted by: robustyoungsoul at November 15, 2007 04:47 PM

Apologies, Baseball Economist, and that was JC Bradbury.

Posted by: robustyoungsoul at November 15, 2007 04:48 PM
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