Stop it! The Indians Don’t Need a Right Handed Power Bat

It has been a mantra on Indians social networks for years now that the team would only be complete when they added a right handed power bat. It has lead to many jokes and memes, including one where Brandon Moss was flipped to the opposite side of the plate:

@JoeyAShwartz @BrutalStephanie The Indians may have asked me to photoshop Moss right handed so everyone is happy. pic.twitter.com/nzFZ4NpotS

— ClevelandSportsMemes (@BrownsMemes) December 5, 2014

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While it has toned down in recent weeks, the right handed power bat remains a popular theme on both legitimate and sarcastic sides. The problem is, the narrative doesn’t fit reality.

The Indians have had largely the same offense together since 2011, including Michael Brantley, Jason Kipnis, Carlos Santana and Lonnie Chisenhall with the only huge changes since then being the additions of Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn in 2013. Below are the Indians team Right-Left split stats since the 2011 season.

Outside of a particularly poor season against left handers in 2012 and a particularly impressive one in 2013, the Indians have had nearly identical split stats since 2011. Excluding those two outliars, the Indians have sat between a .247 and .260 average from both sides of the plate every single season. Considering the more important on base percent and slugging, things have been even closer on the right side with essentially identical numbers for the past three years.

While slugging against left handers hasn’t been as consistent, this year certainly can’t be considered an off-season as the .394 mark is their second best in the past five seasons and right inline with their numbers from the right side. All the while, their 2015 average and OBP are both better against left handers than right handers.

Still, there must be some, possibly subconscious, reason that Tribe fans still continue the lack of right handed hitting narrative (even if it is just to make jokes, there must be an original cause). Some of this could involve the team’s win loss record against starting pitchers of each hand. Even before showing that record, know that it is essentially irrelevant. The only thing the starting pitcher can affect is the other team’s offense and we have already seen above that the Indians are hitting left handers as well as they are hitting pitchers from the right. Beyond that even, many starters only throw into the fifth or sixth inning, meaning the rest of the game’s match-ups are irrelevant to the original starter.

This year, the Indians are 11-13 against LH starters and 17-18 against RH, but there is so much more to this. When they were struggling in April with a bad BABIP, a rough bullpen and poor lineup construction, the Indians went 1-8 against LHP. Since then, they have went 10-5, with the truth of the Indians ability lying somewhere between. In addition, while there are many average right handers throughout the league, the left handers the Indians have had to face (outside of a few like John Danks) are electric. Already, the Indians have lost games against Dallas Keuchel, David Price, Chris Sale, Jeff Samardzija, Lance Lynn and Michael Wacha. That is a who’s who of left handed stars in the Major Leagues in 2015 and any team would have trouble with that.

There are two more possible reasons for both the Indians initial failure and the continued notion that the struggle continues. The first is Michael Bourn and the second is a more complicated situation involving Ryan Raburn.

Bourn was the Indians lead-off hitter at the beginning of the season as he was for all of 2013 and 2014. In his career, Bourn has hit near 30 points lower against left handers than right and has got on base 4% less often. Despite this, Terry Francona used him in the top spot every day for most of three years before finally dropping him to the bottom of the lineup. Since taking him out of the top spot and benching him from time to time against tough lefties, Bourn has been batting .276/.346/.345 after starting out the year .180/.254/.213. In his stead at the top of the lineup, everyone already knows of Jason Kipnis’ success. The change to proper lineup construction has created dramatic results and it shouldn’t be surprising that the Indians have been more successful against left handers of late.

The other part of the improvement has come from both lineup construction and proper match-ups. While Kipnis is still a left hander leading off, he isn’t terrible against left handers and by batting switch hitters throughout the lineup and alternating hands of regulars, Francona has been able to keep teams from matching up for long stretches.

Part of this solution is that the Indians with the biggest split differences, David Murphy and Raburn, never get to bat against pitchers of the same hand. By consistently pinch hitting when the platoon benefit goes away, Francona has been able to get the most of both of those hitters as well as Lonnie Chisenhall and Mike Aviles more often of late.

In the end, it’s time for a new meme. Even as a joke, the Indians not hitting left handers has jumped the shark. If anything, the Indians have too many Major League quality right handed and switch hitters in the system to the point that they can’t take advantage of them all. Whether it means going back to making hack jokes about how old Scott Atchison is, acting like a player should be cut for making a single mistake or even something new and creative, the right handed power bat thread is completely played out.