Ozzie and the switch hitting thing

[GovClintonTyree]

I have always loved the idea of switch hitting. In my youth I was one (a bad one) and then my graduating son has been one (a good one). I think historically it was a way for a scrappy middle infielder "play the game the right way" type to add versatility to his game. But with the advent of advanced or even not-so-advanced stats, its utility becomes a pretty simple analysis if you can estimate the value gained or lost from the weaker side.

Which brings us to our splendid second baseman, switch-hitting Ozzie Albies. I got to thinking about this as he roped an opposite field double off the wall yesterday from the right side, so I did my rudimentary lookup on OPS, and no surprise, he's at .222/.313/.431 - .744 from the left and .327/.351/.673 - 1.024 from the right. With the exception of his 30 game 2020, this pronounced pattern has persisted for his five years in the big leagues: .252/.315/.437 - .752 from the left, .343/.373/.585 - .958 from the right.

Basically, from the left he's Orlando Cabrera, and from the right he's Miguel Cabrera.

I gotta think that in the lower minors, somebody looked at Ozzie and said, old school-style, "hey, here's a sparky little guy, middle infielder, I'll bet he could really help himself if he switch hit." Only that's not who he is. Right handed, at least against left handers, he's effing Babe Ruth. Pound for pound, he might be the strongest guy in the league. And left handed, he's been very ordinary. Not useless, but not exciting, either. Just a guy.

Let's say he didn't switch hit and his OPS against RH was 100 points worse than it is against LH. That's .850 against RH. Now he's an .880 hitter with generally excellent defense and base running skills.

It's been five years and those splits are as pronounced as ever. I'd like the Braves to end this noble experiment and see Oz hit right handed full time.

 

[Enscheff]

Albies has a .380 career xwOBA as a RHH, and a .315 career xwOBA as LHH, so it's clear he's far more effective as a RHH.

In the Statcast era, RHHs have a .319 xwOBA vs LHP, and a .306 xwOBA vs RHP. There are some biases in play here (RHH with platoon splits are probably facing fewer RHP than the general population), but we can conclude that for the average RHH the platoon advantage is worth roughly 13 points of xwOBA.

To be safe, let's say Albies loses 20 points xwOBA as a RHH facing RHP.

That makes him a .360 xwOBA hitter vs RHP, and .380 vs LHP...or something like .365 overall vs his career .331 mark. And that's assigning a pretty harsh platoon penalty to his offense.

I agree this is something that needs to be seriously discussed.

 

[CyYoung31]

Yep. There’s something cool about switch hitting, and it just seems inherently more valuable for a player to do that, even if in practice that’s not actually the case. If going RH full time will turn Ozzie into a borderline elite hitter, it needs to happen now.

 

[Nerfherders]

Ive always wondered about this too. He looks like a completely different hitter hitting right handed - I mean LOOKS like. Different stance, different approach. Like, some other dude completely.

But... IIRC when he had that injury last year, he could only hit right handed, and they put him on the IL instead of letting him do that. I wonder how much experience he actually has hitting RH as a RHB.

Also, even tho I understand the 3-hitter rule, I dont understand why any LH reliever ever faces him, like yesterday. I'd rather a RH facing Freeman, than LH facing Ozzie.