After watching my beloved Mets completely destroy the Cubs, I began to think. Does whether a player is left handed or right handed affect how successful they are?

According to Newsweek, this debate has brought up great controversy, and after spending seven weeks in SC200, I have learned that nothing sparks science quite like controversy does. Of course, this question contains much bias, with right handed players believing they have the upper hand (no pun intended) versus left handers. “Although only one in 10 civilians are left-handed, one quarter of Major League Baseball players are southpaws,” stated Newsweek. Simple math allowed me to figure out that 75% of MLB stars are right handed, granting them the vast majority. So, why, does this 2008 Newsweek study conclude that the underdogs, or those who play baseball with their left hand (dominant), are often more successful during the game?

Natural science has already determined in this experiment that the right hand is the more preferred hand of MLB players (repetitive, I know, but there’s a point.) This fact applies to both pitching and catching, thus, when most players are at bat, it is a 75% chance that they receive a pitch from a right handed player. Thus, lefty batters become accustomed to the diagonal movement of the ball when it is released from the right side of the pitcher to the dominant left side of the batter himself. Right handed players, however, must become comfortable with the ball coming to the plate from the same side that it began at when facing a right handed pitcher. A right handed batter will again face issues when against a left handed pitcher because the ball presents an illusion that it is coming right towards him. It is documented, however, that left handed batters face great difficulty when competing against left handed pitchers, because they, again, are not used to the ball coming from behind their shoulders instead of towards them. Newsweek also mentions that angle of which the ball approaches a right handed player puts them lower on the totem pole. “A right-handed batter has to look over his left shoulder and the ball is coming at quite an angle. The offset of your eyes gives you depth perception. So when you’re looking over your shoulder, you have lost the distance between your two eyes quite a bit, so you have lost that 10th of a second to see the ball,” explains the article. Overall, it is likely that a left handed batter will have a 3:4 ratio of battling against a right handed pitcher. Thus, their rare dominant hand choice and their experience prove to be a great teachers, and gives them an advantage.

The dynamics of baseball have proved to supply some evidence towards why a left handed player overpowers a right handed player. I believe this issue is still able to be experimented on, but the percentage of left handed baseball players is something that should be taken into great consideration.

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Sources: Newsweek

http://www.insidepitching.com/?p=1996