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Efficiency Vs. Lefties Not Priority

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By MARC LANCASTER

mlancaster@tampatrib.com

Published: December 21, 2008

Updated: 12/21/2008 12:14 am

ST. PETERSBURG - Left-handed pitchers prompted no small amount of hand-wringing for the Rays during the course of the 2008 season.

The lineup that amounted to their regular starting nine featured Akinori Iwamura, Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena in three of the first four spots, with Cliff Floyd and/or Eric Hinske generally not far behind them. And as much as Manager Joe Maddon touted Iwamura's and Crawford's abilities to hit lefties, there's no question the Rays as a whole had a lot more trouble against southpaws than their opposite numbers.

The Rays wrapped up the season with a .726 OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage) against left-handed pitchers, leaving them 22nd among MLB teams and 28 points off the average established by their peers. Of course, the Rays' .778 OPS vs. righties ranked seventh in baseball and came in 31 points above the average, but that was little solace on those nights that Jon Lester or Andy Pettitte took the mound for the opposition.

It stands to reason, then, that the Rays' search for a run-producing designated hitter-type this winter would lead them to someone capable of doing damage vs. lefties. Someone to help fill the gap left by the departure of Delmon Young, Ty Wigginton and Brendan Harris, who helped the Rays to an .817 OPS against lefties in 2007.

Well, not so much, according to Rays executive vice president Andrew Friedman.

"We don't like to answer anything in absolutes," he said. "If we can improve against left-handed pitching without really affecting what we do against right-handed pitching, great. But one thing we don't want to do is have a knee-jerk reaction and find some equilibrium."

Of the available talent pool being eyed by the Rays, four players hit left-handed and are more effective against righties - significantly so, in some cases.

Adam Dunn, Jason Giambi, Garret Anderson and Ken Griffey Jr. produced a higher OPS against righties in 2008, with spreads ranging from 47 points (Giambi) to 192 (Griffey) between those numbers and their work vs. lefties. The other lefty swinger of the bunch, Bobby Abreu, boasted splits that were nearly even but were actually slightly better against lefties.

The lone righty hitter, Pat Burrell, had traditional splits - more than 100 points higher OPS against lefties - but produced either way. And of course the switch-hitting Milton Bradley mashed everything thrown in his general direction, his 1.127 OPS against lefties standing third among the 243 big-league hitters with at least 100 plate appearances in those situations.

The Rays hope they'll end up securing the services of one of the above group sometime in the next month or so, but it doesn't appear they're inclined to place too much weight on how that hitter will handle lefties.

Why not? Well, the pitchers the Rays will face will remain predominantly right-handed. Of the 72 games they played vs. division foes last season, they faced left-handed starters only 16 times. Lester and Pettitte were responsible for seven of them, with lesser lights such as the Orioles' Brian Burres and Garrett Olson representative of the rest of the group.

Sure, the most formidable southpaw of them all, CC Sabathia, has moved into the Rays' neighborhood. But three or four games against the new Yankee and his 7-1, 2.44 career mark against the Rays isn't sufficient to drive the Rays' philosophy in a different direction.

"We like the fact that we hit right-handed pitching as well as we do - you face them 70-75 percent of the games - so we're not looking to balance that out," Friedman said. "But we'd like to get better against left-handed pitching."

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