Tomahawks From the Top

As we all say thank goodness for the Twins (who are now 73-125 since they got swept out of the 2010 ALDS) to save us from ourselves after the close to the Red Sox series that had everyone running to the 480 bridge while echoing the chorus that “THIS TEAM CAN’T HIT LHP” narrative with the brilliant inclusion of Batting Average vs. LHP as the provided “proof”, it’s time to dispel some inaccuracies, use some comparisons, and look to the future for this Indians team. 

Starting with this whole vs. LHP “issue”, everyone realizes that the Indians have the 9th highest OPS vs. LHP in AL, the 8th highest wOBA vs. LHP in the AL (above the Tigers), and have the highest BB rate vs. LHP in all of baseball.  A juggernaut vs. LHP they are not (there are 14 AL teams)…but check out those links and see that while the Indians’ performance against LHP leaves much to be desired, it has been fairly middle-of-the-road compared to the league and placed in the proper context.  If you want to continue to use Batting Average (which is not a completely useless stat, just one that shouldn’t be used as a stand-alone stat), that’s fine, but the fact that we’ve evolved past back-of-the-baseball card analysis elsewhere (and OPS and wOBA are pretty easy stats to understand and pretty useful) means that we need to look past this Batting Average vs. LHP “issue”.

Saying “they’re not the worst” may feel like a flimsy argument, but we knew going into the season that this team was going to be LH-heavy.  Of course, a RH bat in there would look great, but Acta nailed the situation (probably after being badgered about this whole LH thing again) this past weekend, saying “no one is sitting here saying that Choo, Brantley, Kipnis are platoon players. They were going to play against righties and lefties, regardless of our situation. . . . Should we trade Choo and Kipnis for right-handed hitters?” 

Full disclosure that I was behind the idea of Brantley as a platoon player…but point made.

The Indians are hitting RH pitching fairly well (.754 OPS, 5th in MLB), but the fact that their OPS vs. LHP ranks 16^th in all of MLB starts to dispel this notion that they’re unquestionably the WORST team in MLB vs. LHP as there are actually two teams (the White Sox – with RH Paul Konerko – and the Nationals) below the .600 OPS line vs. LHP.

Yes, a RH 1B or RH LF (and don’t you say his name because I’m getting to him while not mentioning his name because of the moratorium) would work in the middle of the lineup, but as I hope against hope that Mike Brantley has actually figured out this “hitting” thing (and I could care less WHERE he hits as long as he IS hitting, although his May OPS of .697 isn’t that much different than his April OPS of .677) and gladly welcome my Big League Choo back with open arms (1.050 OPS in the last week), I’m going to ignore this vs, LHP “issue” until someone can provide some compelling evidence that this team CANNOT hit LHP…and evidence that doesn’t rely solely on Batting Average.

With that off my chest (for now), let’s get some Tomahawks in the air…