The latest topic has been that we can't hit LHP. Everyone knows this fact, and it's been a fact throughout the 2022 season and it was a fact that continued into the postseason.
Yet some here seem content with doing absolutely nothing to improve the situation.
Some wRC+ stats for the team:
RHB vs LHP: 81 (29th out of 30)
RHB vs RHP: 80 (25th out of 30)
LHB vs RHP: 131 (2nd out of 30)
LHB vs LHP: 93 (11th out of 30)
This shouldn't be totally surprising. Everyone who follows the team knows that our best hitters have been lefties (or switch hitters vs righties). They have generally clobbered righties.
But the place where we have truly been putrid is in righties' ability to take advantage of the platoon shift, with our righties hitting lefties the 2nd worst in all of baseball, despite making it to, and almost winning, the ALDS.
There is no better exemplar of this than Owen Miller. You can "muh sample size" all you want about the guy but he was our supposed "RH bat" against LHP. On the surface that's good and all, you take someone who was hitting pretty well and you pair him with someone who has a history of sucking against LHP and not getting any better either. There's one problem though - Owen was just plain bad at hitting lefties this year. Why would that be?
I don't know but this did NOT just come out of nowhere. It was a trend that continued.
The favored in-house solution is to replace him with Arias, a guy that faces the direction of the first-base dugout when he hits, but has shown reverse splits, including striking out 29% of the time compared to only 22% of the time against lefties. How can we see that as a solution in the near future? A solution to hitting lefties that has trouble hitting lefties. Owen Miller 2.0?
Noel is kind of interesting because he hits a lot of HRs against lefties but he also has trouble hitting the ball. He is also quite a distance away...
Player | Year | K% vs LHP | BB% vs LHP | K% vs RHP | BB% vs RHP | OPS vs LHP | OPS vs RHP |
Owen Miller | 2022 | 23% | 8% | 18% | 5% | 0.619 | 0.668 |
Owen Miller | 2021 | 30% | 6% | 24% | 8% | 0.580 | 0.765 |
Owen Miller | Combined | 26% | 7% | 21% | 7% | 0.601 | 0.713 |
Gabriel Arias | 2022 | 31% | 8% | 23% | 9% | 0.707 | 0.706 |
Gabriel Arias | 2021 | 28% | 7% | 21% | 8% | 0.757 | 0.814 |
Gabriel Arias | Combined | 29% | 8% | 22% | 9% | 0.731 | 0.767 |
Jhonkensy Noel | 2022 | 31% | 13% | 26% | 8% | 0.862 | 0.781 |
Jhonkensy Noel | 2021 | 25% | 2% | 20% | 7% | 1.038 | 0.993 |
Jhonkensy Noel | Combined | 29% | 9% | 24% | 8% | 0.923 | 0.854 |