A couple of days ago, a friend sent a message in a chat group. He mentioned a player’s performance at Yankee stadium. That player is a left-handed hitter and my friend guesses that might be a possible reason to tell us why this hitter hits well at this ballpark.
It’s commonly known that left-handed hitters might have a home run advantage at Yankee stadium because of the short porch in right field. However, do left-handed hitters truly perform better at this ballpark? To solve my doubts, I decided to check on the statcast website.
To make things easier, let’s look back at the stats from 2021 to 2025. Back in 2021, right-handed hitters had a batting average of .240 at Yankee stadium and their OBP was .317. At the same time, left-handed hitters batted .205 at this ballpark and had a .299 on-base percentage. In the next season, left-handed hitters’ performances were even worse. They hit .196 at Yankee stadium and had a .290 on-base percentage. Well, we all know that the Mendoza line is a batting average of .200. So, it's clear that left-handed hitters didn’t hit well at Yankee stadium in 2022. In the meantime, right-handed hitters had a .240 batting average here and their OBP is over .300.
In addition, in the 2023 season, right-handed hitters batted .229 at Yankee stadium and their OBP was .304. In the meantime, left-handed hitters had a .230 batting average at this ballpark and owned a .302 on-base percentage.
Moreover, in 2024, right-handed hitters owned a batting average over .240 at this ballpark. And their OPS was .318. Meanwhile, left-handed batters had a .234 batting average at Yankee stadium and their OBP was .323.
Finally, last season, right-handed hitters posted a .225 batting average at Yankee stadium and owned a .303 OBP. At the same time, left-handed hitters batted .235 and had a .324 OBP.
So, when we look back at the last 5 seasons, overall, right-handed hitters had a higher batting average at Yankee stadium than left-handed hitters did. From 2021 to 2025, there were 3 times that right-handed batters owned a higher batting average in a single season than left-handed hitters.
Well, looking at the on-base percentage, interestingly, left-handed hitters and right-handed hitters each had a .310 OBP from 2021 to 2025. Nonetheless, over the last 5 seasons, there were 3 times that right-handed hitters had a higher on-base percentage than left-handed hitters. Nevertheless, over the last 2 seasons, left-handed batters’ on-base percentage was over .320 each season.
If we only look at batting average, we might say that right-handed hitters did perform better than left-handed hitters at Yankee stadium over the last 5 years. In particular, left-handed batters’ batting average was below .200 at this ballpark in 2022. Nonetheless, if we take a deeper look, left-handed hitters’ batting average was over .230 from 2023 to 2025. Perhaps, there are more good left-handed hitters in the Yankees lineups over these years? Well, the 2026 season is still ongoing. We can keep watching players’ performances at this ballpark. Will left-handed hitters do a better job this year?
No comments:
Post a Comment