Switch Hitter Update
Posted by Charles Sun, 20 May 2012 18:35:54 -0400
Filed Under: players science
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In post 250 on switch hitters, here known as switchies, I threatened to return to the subject. This won't be the last time.
The chart below shows the five year running average of two types of switchies: good and bad. The bad are those with single-season RVLs that are at most 0. The good have RVLs 1 and up. All hitters selected compiled at least 300 events in a single season. I dropped the minimum event threshold to 300 to grab more players. The previous post which did not segregate good from bad used a 400-event-per-season bar for the minimum.
The five year running average means that each point refers to the two years prior and following, hence the 1991 point is the average number of switchies per-season for the span 1989 – 1993.
Click image for larger version.
The horizontal axis denotes years, the vertical axis denotes the number of switchies in the league. The numbers are not all whole numbers because they are averages.
Bad switch hitting's five-year average peaked in the late 1980s. After that peak the numbers decline steadily. Good switch hitters also peak around that time, drop, then re-emerge. The good switchy peak is just a local peak. The overall peak occurred about five years ago. I am not sure what the good switchy line means. The drop around the turn of the century might be noise, just random fluctuation in a population. The steady decline in bad seems more meaningful because it is a longer lasting. I have a hard time seeing coincidence when I look at a 20-year decline. Maybe mediocre righties are not encouraged to switch hit as often as they once were. Maybe my earlier speculation on the Mark Lemkes of the world is true.
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