No, we don't need left-handed pitchers as long as we have the best RHP's.

At this point with all the bitching and complaining and needless new threads about the same shite over and over again I hope we never recruit another fricking left handed pitcher.

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I don't care if it did come from the greatest LSU baseball coach of all time

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This is why nobody cares that you care

Not having left handed pitchers hurts you both ways. We had a lineup with a ton of left handed hitters who did not see left handed pitching all fall.

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At this point with all the bitching and complaining and needless new threads about the same shite over and over again I hope we never recruit another fricking left handed pitcher.

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You can get away with it if you have a couple of right handers who can accurately throw arm side change ups. That is not the case with LSU.

I know the lefty/right thing is conventional wisdom - but I’d love instead to see hard data showing opponent batting average against righties vs lefties.

No feelings, just hard data.

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This past season LSU batted .282 against right-handed pitchers and only .255 versus left-handed pitchers.

Overall, SEC batters hit .280 against right-handed pitchers and .266 against left-handed pitchers.

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there's a difference there, but is that really meaningful? That's only a 5.3% difference in opponents' average against our pitchers (less than 2 more hits per 100 at-bats).

Yes, any advantage is important, but this seems marginal to me. Sure, all things being equal, use the pitcher that batters have less success against, but all things aren't equal.

This LHP vs. RHP gets too much importance placed on it, and I've believed this for many, many years.

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I admit I only made a B in my calculus class at LSU but wouldn't a 5% difference mean a difference of 5 hits per 100 at bats??

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no, it's a 5% difference between those two numbers. I simply divided .280 by .266 to get a 5.3% difference.

It also works out to 28 hits per 100 ABs, vs. 26.6 hits per 100 ABs. The difference between 28 and 26.6 is 5.3%.

And man do I have nightmares about calculus at LSU. My entire freshman year, I had calculus at 7:30 am Mon-Fri. Then another calculus the next year. Engineering major - brutal.

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What is the SEC batting average of leftie hitters v leftie pitchers and rightie hitters v rightie pitchers.

The answer to that question will help define the value of situational pitching.

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yes, agreed. These are types of numbers I'm looking for.

In fact, I'm very surprised that TV networks don't put these stats on the screen for each individual batter, particularly late in games when relief pitchers are brought in, sometimes based on specific leftie/rightie matchup.

Again, the leftie/rightie thing is conventional wisdom, but I wonder if it's that way just because it's always been that way --- regardless of hard data.