![]() ![]() Left-handed batters (who aren’t necessarily left-handed people) enjoy a positive bias because they are more rare and because they typically have a positive platoon split against right-handed pitchers, a group that forms the majority of hurlers. ![]() “It has been true throughout baseball history that left-handed people have a spectacularly better chance than the rest of us of reaching the major leagues…. James Click, writing for Baseball Prospectus in 2004, noted: ![]() In response, the story goes, teams then stock up on left-handed pitchers to counter the advantage offenses gain from their excess of left-handed hitters. Since left-handed hitters have the platoon edge much more often than right-handed hitters, they have an edge in the competition for MLB jobs and end up substantially overrepresented on offense. The traditional explanation has pinned responsibility on baseball’s platoon advantage, in which hitters perform better in opposite-hand matchups while pitchers have the edge in same-handed contests. What accounts for this huge surplus of southpaws? Any way that you cut the data, lefty pitchers make it to the big leagues about three times as frequently as righties, given their share of the general population. And before you blame lefty relief specialists for this disparity, consider that southpaws also make 29% of starts. Although just 10% of American men throw with their left hand, fully 28% of innings thrown by major league pitchers come from the left side. ![]() Major league rosters reflect this preference for lefties today. ![]()
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