Disproportionately High Number of Left-Handed Batters

[robert2]

Whenever I get a few years into a game, I notice that the best hitters in the league tend to overwhelmingly be left-handed. To a lesser extent, I also noticed that there are usually more righty starting pitchers in the majors than in real life. I assume one of these things causes the other to be relatively extreme, due to L/R splits and all, but has anyone else noticed the same thing as me?

[Lukas Berger]

I believe I've seen this mentioned elsewhere but it's not really something I've seen myself.

Could you post league files of a league where this is happening for us to check out?

[Markus Heinsohn]

In my long term sim test leagues this always looks pretty much normal, with small fluctuations which are to be expected.

[NoOne]

might it be ineherent with RL amatuers and MiL players not in the league yet? maybe, the speculation is a bit bullish on lefties? if it's the first few years of a 'real' league c. 2018, it wouldn't be related to fictionally created players.

usually 2-3 drafts or so before you run out? then for next ~5 years its still almost exclusively real players rising to the majors.. .so, maybe ~10 years before you start to see fictionally created palyers trickle into the league at escalating rates. add more or subtract relative to # of years worth of amatuers included.

[The Game]

I also thought I had too many lefties. After looking at my ABF with 120 yrs of history i have 192 left handed hitters to 302 right handed hitters. i use sabremetric lineups. Most teams start their LHB vs RHP. 2 teams are predominately left handed even vs LHP.

[Juggernt]

From what I understand, there is a far greater percentage left-handed people who are elite athletes than in the general population. I assume there is some physiological explanation for it.

[sc_superstar]

With at least 10% of all people being lefthanded + the addition of those that learn to hit from the opposite side for the sheer sake of athletic advantage (there are those in game with Throws R Hits L) + the fact that those who could hit left handed would be more likely to be coaxed and groomed into baseball, similar to why the best college and high school players are mostly middle infielders or pitchers because its easier to move someone into something else "easier" as they get older as opposed to "harder". It would make sense that those who could hit left handed would be close to or even surpass those who hit right handed. (if you added right handed switch hitters into the mix it would probably swing more than 50% of hitters would be able to hit LH vs RHP)

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by sc_superstar

With at least 10% of all people being lefthanded + the addition of those that learn to hit from the opposite side for the sheer sake of athletic advantage (there are those in game with Throws R Hits L) + the fact that those who could hit left handed would be more likely to be coaxed and groomed into baseball, similar to why the best college and high school players are mostly middle infielders or pitchers because its easier to move someone into something else "easier" as they get older as opposed to "harder". It would make sense that those who could hit left handed would be close to or even surpass those who hit right handed. (if you added right handed switch hitters into the mix it would probably swing more than 50% of hitters would be able to hit LH vs RHP)

There's still more righties overall, but yeah, because the majority of pitchers are right-handed, hitting left-handed is a decided advantage, so definitely more people learn to hit left than the natural population would have. Also, the different between swinging right and left-handed is not nearly as pronounced as trying to throw with both hands. Lefties also have the edge as they start a couple steps closer to first, and the natural follow-through takes them up the line. I remember reading some study that said that this alone was worth like a couple hundred hits in Ichiro's career.

The reason why you have more lefty throwers than the population is likely because the specialist lefty doesn't need to be nearly as good as the specialist righty in order to succeed. Hence a guy like Venditte was actually semi-playable as a lefty reliever, whereas if he could only throw right-handed, he probably wouldn't have made it past AA.

Interestingly, Canadian baseball players have actually had a larger tendency to be left-handed than other countries, I've heard, because as kids we grow up with hockey sticks in our hands. And due to something about pivot hands or something, most players actually shoot left-handed. And so when a player picks up a bat, their natural instinct is to then hit left-handed as well.

[Juggernt]

https://www.newsweek.com/science-why...-players-92783

[Brad K]

I play historical and feel over loaded with LH batters almost all the time.