Left-handed specialist

In baseball, a left-handed specialist is a left-handed relief pitcher who specializes in getting left-handed or poor right-handed switch batters out. These pitchers will commonly only pitch to a very small number of batters in each outing (often just one), and rarely to straight right-handed batters. Most Major League Baseball teams have a couple of left-handed pitchers in their bullpens, one of whom is probably a left-handed specialist. Lefty specialists may also be called, somewhat derisively, a LOOGY (or Lefty One Out GuY).

Effectiveness

The effectiveness of left-handed specialists against left-handed batters is the result of a number of fairly well-defined factors. Since most pitchers are right-handed, left-handed batters naturally have fewer at-bats against, and therefore less experience with, left-handed pitchers. The pitch trajectory from a left-handed pitcher is also reversed and their pitches therefore tend to have a more sweeping effect across the plate, which is harder to hit than the traditional outside-in trajectory from right-handed pitchers. This inexperience and seeming difference in pitch trajectory poses a large problem for many left-handed hitters.

Examples

Because left-handed specialists face few batters, they accumulate a relatively small number of innings pitched during the course of a season. An effective left-handed specialist may consequently enjoy a long career because his pitching arm has suffered less stress than that of other pitchers. For example, Jesse Orosco increasingly became a left-handed specialist late in his career and pitched in Major League Baseball for 25 seasons, retiring when he was 46 years old.

Right-handed Specialists

While there are right-handed specialists, the practice is uncommon for a number of reasons. Although their pitches have the same "sweeping" effect against right-handed batters as pitches from lefties have against left-handed batters, the average batter will face a right-handed pitcher in 70-80% of their at-bats, and thus there is more opportunity for right-handed batters to adjust to right-handed pitching than the converse. Also, given this natural inexperience, many left-handed pitchers have altered their pitching delivery to accentuate the "sweeping" nature of their pitches against lefties. While this potential exploitation exists for right-handed pitchers as well, it is usually of relatively little gain, given right-handed batters' ample experience with right-handed pitching. Submarine-style pitcher Chad Bradford of the Tampa Bay Rays is a right-handed specialist.

Notable left-handed specialists

The following are Major League Baseball pitchers that spent one or more seasons as a left-handed specialist.

(Bold names indicate players active going into 2009).

• Will Ohman
• Pedro Feliciano
• Juan Agosto
• Rheal Cormier
• Tony Fossas
• Scott Sauerbeck
• Rick Honeycutt
• Ray King
• Craig Lefferts
• Mike Myers
• Jesse Orosco
• Scott Radinsky
• Dennys Reyes
• Arthur Rhodes
• Dan Schatzeder
• Brian Shouse
• Ed Vande Berg
• Jamie Walker
• Kelly Wunsch
• Steve Kline
• Bobby Seay
• Trever Miller
• George Sherrill
• Scott Schoeneweis
• B.J. Ryan
• Lee Guetterman
• Graeme Lloyd

See also

• List of left-handed athletes