Pitchers and catchers are getting ready to report to Spring Training and there’s one catcher I don’t want to see…or at least half of one.
Think of right-handed hitting Matt Wieters as the Rob Lowe with DirecTV and the left-handed hitting Matt Wieters as the one with cable. The guy needs to give up on switch hitting.
Why do I bring this up now? Shane Victorino recently gave up switch hitting and other players have talked about doing the same. MLB Network did a piece on it last week and one of the graphics they put up was eye opening. Over a three season span, with a minimum of 1000 at bats, Matt Wieters had the highest differential in OPS among active switch hitters who hit best from the right side of the plate.
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DirectTV Matt Wieters
OPS is a good stat, but I like to see the traditional slash lines as well. In his last three full seasons, the Orioles catcher has been a darn good hitter against left-handed pitching. In 2011 it was .339/.430/.694, in 2012 .323./.404/504 and in 2013 .282/.326/.546. As much as he’s already loved in Baltimore, he might already have a statue at Camden Yards if right-handed hitting Matt Wieters was the only one who showed up to the ballpark.
Left-Handed Matt Wieters Has Cable
The only guy who would be envious of Wieters’ left-handed numbers would be last year’s edition of Chris Davis. In the three full seasons cited above, he’s never had an OBP left handed that was even close to his batting average right handed. Against right-handed pitchers those seasons, he hit .237, .224 and .214. Come to think of it, left-handed hitting Matt Wieters may not have cable – he may only have rabbit ears.
[RELATED: Stop Saying Matt Wieters Should Give Up Switch Hitting]
The Hitting is Important
Wieters has to up his hitting game. Fans have given him a pass because of his supposed irreplaceable defense. Notice that huge drop off with Caleb Joseph behind the plate last season? Didn’t think so.
It should also be noted how much better the pitching staff (except Ubaldo) did with Caleb Joseph behind the plate. Sorry to the folks who operate this blog, but there’s a reason Matt was not on the MLB Network Top 10 Now over the weekend.
Wieters played 26 games last year, so he def shouldn't be high on the list. We've seen 10-8 already, so yeah, he's not showing up either.
— Eutaw St. Report (@EutawStReport) February 15, 2015
Not top 10 though? But Yan Gomes, Wilson Ramos, and Russell Martin are? OK.
— Eutaw St. Report (@EutawStReport) February 15, 2015
Honestly, if he didn’t have the ability to hit 20 homers, what would you really have? Not an $8M a year player or the more than that he’s probably going to demand at the end of the season.
Full Disclosure
The statistics I cited are accurate, but not the complete picture. You might remember last year when Matt started the season like a house on fire before his injury became too much to play through. I didn’t include those stats because honestly they were completely opposite from his numbers the previous three years. The year before my three-year snapshot (2010), Wieters also hit better from the left side…and significantly so. I’m okay tossing them out because 2014 is a small sample size and 2010 appears to simply be an anomaly.
Is This A Quick Fix?
Even a dope like me doesn’t believe that simply hitting from the right side every time will equal a .300+ hitting Matt Wieters, certainly not right away. There would be an adjustment period for a guy who hasn’t taken a swing off a right handed pitcher from the right side in I don’t know how many years. My theory (based on nothing) is that he can’t be worse. All I’m really asking is that he tries it out in Spring Training, but it’s doubtful. In an old ESPN interview he said he’s switch hit since he was five and has no interest seeing a slider come at him differently.
