The Curious Absence of Left-Handed Starting Pitchers in the GBC

[Bob Breum]

In our unusual two-headed GM arrangement here in London, I’m the guy that handles the position players, so it’s my job to construct that part of the roster. Over the years, I have embraced platooning – Casey Stengel would be proud. In our current Monarchs roster, I’m running out a traditional platoon at four different positions, not including catcher, where I have two RH players. I don’t have strong feelings concerning which positions should be platooned; it depends completely on the available talent.

My lineup versus RHP features five LH batters and a switch hitter who can’t hit left-handed pitching, so essentially six LH hitters out of nine. Against LH starters, we have only three left-handed batters, and only then because of the 27-man roster limitations. Trust me, I’d platoon every position if I could, unless I have Mickey Mantle in the lineup.

After the season had commenced, I looked at the batting stats. Of course, RH batters in a platoon will receive fewer plate appearances than their LH platoon mates. But what I saw was extreme. My short-side platoon hitters were rarely getting into the games, and then only to spell the lefties who were tired. I was confused.

In MLB in real life, and coincidentally in the BBA, LH starting pitchers make up 29% of the rotations. But in the GBC, less than 10% of starts are made by LH starters. No GBC team has more than one LH SP, and half have an entirely right-handed rotation. All my carefully curated efforts to ensure success against LH pitching have gone for naught, and my RH platoon hitters are an unhappy bunch.

The bullpen situation is somewhat less lacking in LH pitchers, with roughly 16% of relievers throwing from the south side, just over half of the normal 29%.

It’s pretty clear that clubs are not making a conscious decision to avoid left-handed pitchers. We are employing the talent that is available to us in the GBC. But it does raise some interesting questions.

Should we load up our rosters with even more left-handed hitters, and just write off the few games that we play against southpaws?

Should we welcome otherwise marginal LH starting pitchers into our rotations, or perhaps employ a couple of LH swing men who can make spot starts against teams like ours that feature batting orders laden with lefties?

[aaronweiner]

I dunno. My BBA record says that I've faced about 62% RHP and 38% LHP, which is basically JT suited against aces down if you're scoring at home. That's not crazy odds.

It's clearly different in the GBC, but it shouldn't surprise you that BBA teams are loading up on any lefty who can throw a little, and that's probably the cause. The disparity probably shouldn't be quite so vast though.

[Bob Breum]

I dunno. My BBA record says that I've faced about 62% RHP and 38% LHP, which is basically JT suited against aces down if you're scoring at home. That's not crazy odds.

Maybe it's different in the GBC, but it shouldn't surprise you that BBA teams are loading up on any lefty who can throw a little.

From my article:

In MLB in real life, and coincidentally in the BBA, LH starting pitchers make up 29% of the rotations.

This is in the GBC section of the forum for a reason. It's a GBC-unique phenomenon.

[aaronweiner]

Well, I'm saying that resource scarcity is probably to blame here. BBA teams load up on lefties and there are shockingly none at all left for BBA teams.

It is weird that there are really near zero though.

[jiminyhopkins]

That's OK. The new GBC draft class should fix that!

Oh BTW my first round pick (25 POT) wants 1.4 million. Cool, huh? But he's a lefty!!

[Bob Breum]

Oh BTW my first round pick (25 POT) wants 1.4 million. Cool, huh? But he's a lefty!!

Our top pick, 2nd overall, wanted 1.5 million, I think. I offered 50% over his asking bonus, just to make sure that we signed him. Sadly, he's not a lefty -- just another RH SP. We drafted nine pitchers, and only one of them is LH. At least he's a starter.

[Dington]

MLB? Real life?

[RonCo]

Wow. As of this June 30 Sim:

GBC:
Batters Faced by LHP: 2,568
Batters Faced by RHP: 22,652

That's 10.2% of plate appearances were against LHP

BBA:
Batters Faced by LHP: 18,788
Batters Faced by RHP: 70451

That's 29.0% of plate appearances were against LHP

[RonCo]

In case someone saw that last post a few minutes ago, I had a few bad numbers in there. Corrected now.

[RonCo]

No such discrepancy on the hitter's side.

Bats	BBA PA	BBA%	GBC PA	GBC%
L	32285	32.5%	8073	32.0%
R	54927	55.3%	13546	53.7%
S	12028	12.1%	3617	14.3%
	99240		25236

[Bob Breum]

No such discrepancy on the hitter's side.

That was my point! Given the rarity of LH pitchers, shouldn't we be adjusting our lineups to leverage this to our advantage? If I had the personnel, I'd love to make up a lineup card that had 9 LH hitters.

[Trebro]

I'll be really curious to see how this goes in the off-season. Will a team try to offset the balance for an advantage? Will a team go with 9 LHB?
Tune in to find out!