Reds August 2023 thread

[CJD]

(08-15-2023, 10:33 AM)bengalfan74 Wrote: I just want to give another shout out to Spencer Steer. He kinda flies under the radar on the Reds hype train. And he's been as awesome or even more awesome than the rest.

He's in 2nd place on the team for runs scored with 56, only behind India's 68. He leads the team in hits 116, doubles 27, HR's 18, and RBI's 66. He's got decent speed - 10 stolen bases. He's batting .272 and that's with the most at bats on the team - 427. He has the highest OPS among guys with enough at bats .823 and that's good enough for 4th place overall. Benson = .902 McClain = .866 Votto = .832 only McClain is close to his at bats - 317

In summary Steer has been a very big part of the surge this year but you don't hear his name near enough.

The most impressive thing about Steer to me is that he's a right handed hitter who can hit right handed pitching. He's obviously better against lefties, as nearly all right handers are, but he is still hitting .259/.348/.428/.776 against righties, which is why he's an every day player. 

It's a weird situation being a right handed position player in the MLB because you're typically really good at hitting left handed pitching, which is still fairly rare in starting pitchers. In 2019, only 29% of starts were played by left handed hitters.

So, if you want to be a regular player as a right handed hitter, you need to be able to hit righties, with the ball arcing away from you. And Steer, despite only being a second year player, is already good enough at it to justify keeping him in the lineup regardless of who is pitching.

The same can be said of McLain, who is batting .285/.355/.464/.819 against righties (his stat line against lefties is borderline absurd, .333/.381/.628/1.009).

"left handed pitching specialists" like Nick Senzel and Kevin Newman are only hitting .175/.251/.281/.533 and .234/.282/.289/.571, respectively, against right handed pitching. That's what makes them LHP specialists haha. If they were any good at hitting righties, they'd be playing every day like Steer and McLain do.


This is a side note, but I looked up every right handed hitter on our team when writing this up and I think I've identified what is so frustrating about Johnathan India.

Despite being a right handed hitter, he is only batting .216/.306/.361/.667 against left handed pitchers. His line against right handers is actually much better, .263/.345/.424/.769. 

It's a small sample size, with only 97 ABs against lefties this season, and in previous seasons his splits are more reflective of what a right handed hitter should be, but that may be what feels off about India this season.

Right handed hitters kind of rely on those left handed match ups to bolster their Batting Avg because they are so favored in the match up but, for whatever reason, India has not been able to capitalize on those ABs. So he's struggling against righties, which nearly every right handed hitter does to some degree, but then he's also struggling against lefties. That is a combination that results in a struggling season all around.