Baseball is an absolutely advantageous sport for left-handed people.

First of all, the right-handed pitcher hits the ball better than the right-handed hitter.

In nature, right-handed people are about nine times as many as left-handed people, so right-handed pitchers are far more numerous than left-handed pitchers.

It is relatively easy for a right-handed to learn to play left-handed, but it is too difficult to learn to throw with the left hand.

Because there are so many right-handers, left-handed hitters who are natural right-handers have an advantage over right-handers.



Another reason for the left-handed hitter's advantage is the distance from bat-bat to first base.

It's about two feet closer than the right-hander.

So, it is advantageous to make an infield hit, and you can get more bass even with the same hit.

Of course, left-handed hitters have a higher probability of hitting in-play than right-handed hitters.

In the KBO League, left-handed hitters' BABIP (Batting Average on Ball In Play.

In 2014-2018, when the '2nd ride Touser' was on the rise, left-handed hitters' BABIP was nearly 2 pennies higher.



But this year, the BABIP of the left and right hitters became the same.




Today (20th), the 18th day of the league opening, the BABIP of the left and right hitters is exactly the same at 0.302.

It should be noted that right-handed hitter BABIP has not changed much from last year (0.304).

The left-handed batter's BABIP alone plunged 2 pennies from 0.322 last year.



Here's an example to use to find out why.

In the major leagues, of course, left-handed batters' BABIP was consistently higher than right-handed hitters.

However, the difference has disappeared since 2012.

The BABIP of left and right hitters for several years went up and down, and from last year, right-handed hitters started to lead by a fairly large margin.

This year's major league left-handed hitters' BABIP was 0.275.

That's 2 pennies less than 0.295 of right-handed hitters.

Compared to 10 years ago, the BABIP of right-handed hitters (0.291->0.295) remained unchanged, while left-handed hitters decreased significantly (0.297->0.275).




Why did BABIP drop sharply only for left-handed hitters in both Korea and the United States?



We asked for opinions from experts in power analysis from the two teams.

The answer was the same.

'It can't be explained except for a drastic increase in shift.'


Unconventional shifts have little effect on right-handed hitters and are rarely used.

This is because it is very difficult to get the ground ball out at first base by placing a defender in the depths of the 3-way or in front of the left fielder.

On the other hand, left-handed hitters are an easy prey for shift.

A hit that falls out of 1-2 bases or falls in front of the right field is turned out.

Last year, NC and KT, who actively used shifts, ranked 1-2 in the regular season, and this year, as Hanwha's'Subero Shift' became a huge topic, most teams increased the number of shifts.

The result seems to be a sharp drop in BABIP for left-handed hitters.



This is a very meaningful change.

The phenomenon that penetrates the KBO League's 40-year history is the increase in left-handed hitters.

The ratio of left-handed hitters started with 13% in 1982, followed by 20% in 1984, 30% in 1991, 40% in 2015, and 45% last year.

This is the result of young right-handed prospects (reasonably) learning to hit in the left-hand side.

The key aspect of the '2nd ride Touser' from 2014 to 2018 was different from the '1st ride Touser' in the early 21st century was the BABIP of left-handed hitters.

If the first ride touser was based on the'explosion of home runs', the biggest reason for the second ride touzer was mass production of (in-play) hits by left-handed hitters.

In other words, in order to become the strongest team in this era, we had to find a way to prevent hits from left-handed hitters.




Many teams in the KBO League seem to have finally found a way.



(Photo = Yonhap News)