COLUMN: Ozzie Albies needs to put switch hitting to bed
After Ozzie Albies smacked a pair of homers in two at bats from the right side and was retired in both appearances from the left side against the Marlins on Tuesday, it further warrants doubt that switch hitting is benefitting his game.
The two-time Silver Slugger is batting .406 with a 1.174 OPS this season versus left-handed pitching, while he is hitting .190 with a .648 OPS versus righties this season. Power numbers have often been suggested as his strength from the left side, as he has 67 career lefty dingers to 36 from the right side, but he has nearly three times the plate appearances from the left side.
With a two-homer night from the right hand side and three homers this season righty as opposed to four lefty in thirty-one more at bats, the argument of Ozzie's power numbers benefitting from his switch hitting is glaringly losing its persuasiveness.
You often hear about how Albies is one of the streakiest hitters in the league. He has the potential to carry a team or emphasize a team’s struggles. While his aggressive plate presence and his ability to hit so-called “bad pitches” into the seats makes him an exciting player, his approach can look straight-up wacky at times. If you consistently watch Albies, you are sure to see some swings too perfect for pictures and some that are flat-out disturbing.
This all starts with his righty versus lefty splits.
Thee 26-year-old second baseman has more hits, homers, walks and extra-base hits in his career as a lefty, but those numbers aren’t as impressive when you consider the sample size. He has 2,063 career plate appearances as a lefty versus a RHP as opposed to 737 as a righty versus a LHP.
In his 2,810-game career, Albies is homering just over every 28 at bats as a lefty in his career as opposed to every 19.3 at bats as a righty, and the lack of contact and decreased discipline from that side is concerning.
Not only is he batting .082 higher from the right side in his career, he is striking out every 5.34 plate appearances as opposed to every 7.44 times from the right side. He is also walking at a much higher rate from the right side, with 9.92 fewer plate appearances per walk in his career as a righty.
His aggressiveness is leading to much more effectiveness from the right side, while it is leading to wacky swings and weak plate discipline from the left. Pitchers can throw the count out of the window with Albies batting lefty because his aggressiveness paired with his lack of discipline leads to increased strikeouts and fewer walks.
Yes, he’ll golf some homers into the Chop House from the left side. Yes, I’ll miss that, but I also know Albies can get more out of his swings from the right side. In his career, he has hits in every 3.01 at bats from the right side as opposed to every 4.04 from the left.
His long ball total has been higher from the left side every year of his career, but at his best, it isn’t very lopsided. In 2019, when he led the MLB in hits in a Silver Slugger season, he hit 11 right-handed homers with just 13 lefty bombs. However, the splits in average stuck out, even then. He batted .389 with a 1.099 OPS versus LHP that year, while he hit .267 with a .778 OPS versus RHP.
Albies and hitting coach Kevin Seitzer know better than I do, but maybe it’s time to test the waters batting solely right-handed. He hasn’t tried it much, going just 2-for-6 with three walks in righty-on-righty action, but he’s 0-for-1 with a K in lefty-on-lefty action.
Obviously, that’s a much smaller sample size, but that paired with his switch-hitting splits trending downward hint that the switch-hitting might be more harmful than beneficial for the Braves star.
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