Lunch time chatter edition 6:

[Kingdom]

Conventional wisdom vs. straying from the norm

I was watching Texas vs. Boston last night on ESPN, and heard Rick Sutcliff talk about how terrible Jason Varitek has been from the left side of the plate for the last several years. Well, he's been pretty much in full decline mode period but he's either batting barely over .200 or under .200 in those seasons. Conventional wisdom says with a lefty on the moudn, you bat right. With a righty on the mound, you bat left. Here's my thought, despite the obvious situational hitting, if a switch hitter is so poor batting from one side of the plate, why not just stick to the other side you're more consistent.

Perhaps Varitek can't hit righties from the right side either, but if he's only hitting .200 from the left side, why not try something a little different and go against conventional wisdom. I mean, you already know he sucks from one side, so if he sucks from the other side too, you're not losing anything new that you were already accustomed to losing. Jason Varitek is probably a bad example for this, but it's the one that got me to thinking since it was brought up last night. I mean, .190? He's hitting worse than Carlos Zambrano is what you're telling me and you're OKAY with continuing to try this failed experiment. I realize that there are hitters and not necessarily switch hitters that, being a lefty they can hit off lefty pitching pretty well. And vice versa. All I'm saying is, just because a guy is a switch hitter, doesn't mean you have to abide by that every time. Especially if the batter is hitting like Cody Ransom.

Then again, it's the Captain of Boston, he catches no hitters, he's invincible! Unless some guy named Doug Mathis is pitching.

[realmofotalk]

You underestimate how stubborn major league ballplayers are. The only batter I can remember who gave up switch hitting was J.T. Snow, and I imagine he had to be dragged kicking and screaming.