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Monday, June 15, 2009
Switch-pitcher
Switch-pitcher:
He is dominating much younger hitters with well-located stuff that probably will not survive as he moves higher.
“If you can throw breaking balls that start in the zone and leave, or throw soft stuff in a fastball count, you can drive these kids nuts,” Newman said. As the Charleston pitching coach Jeff Ware put it, “There are a lot of mistakes here that can’t be made at higher levels.”
You get a 0.60 ERA disadvantage, more or less, with the platoon disadvantage. And, if you are a righty pitcher, that’ll happen say half of the time. But, if you are a switch pitcher, that disadvantage doesn’t apply. So, you can gain 0.30 in ERA if you always get to pitch with the platoon advantage just by learning to pitch lefthanded. It’s not necessarily a reason to bring someone up, but in a cloud of pitchers who don’t stand out, it is more than a tie-breaker reason to make him stand out. Give him a shot. What do they have to lose?
(Hat tip: Rob Neyer)
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