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Four lefty starters?

I was curious as to what you guys would think of a starting rotation with four left-handed pitchers in it. It's not something you normally see outside of the disaster the Royals started last season with, especially since it's hard for a single team to have four lefty starters worth trying in the rotation. Would that be too unbalanced?

The reason I'm wondering is because with Casey Fossum getting the start tonight and Scott Kazmir and Mark Hendrickson already starting the Devil Rays now have three left-handers in their rotation. Hideo Nomo has been very shaky and could need to be replaced soon. With Rob Bell out indefinitely, Dewon Brazelton demoted (and not reporting to Durham), John Webb already failing to succeed in his start, Seth McClung failing in his first stint in the big league bullpen this season and not pitching much better in his brief time in the minors after he was sent down, the best option the Rays have to enter the rotation at this point could be Jon Switzer, a lefty that was a well-thought of prospect before missing last year with labrum surgery. It's very possible that the Rays will end up in a situation where four of their five viable rotation options are left-handed.

DRays Bay

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Lefties
Personally, I don't think it's a problem; I think that I read once that lefty starters have had lower ERAs overall (although that's not a really good study). It might actually be a help because righties see more righties than lefties see lefties, so, from what I've seen, lefties tend to get more rest against lefties than righties do against righties.

More simply, if the pitchers are the best the team has, sure, I'd so that they should go for it.

by Dan Scotto on May 17, 2005 7:25 PM EDT reply reply actions actions   0 recs

hrm
If the best pitchers a team has to offer includes Mark Hendrickson, Jon Switzer and Casey Fossum, that team's probably in trouble...

by Brickhaus on May 17, 2005 11:41 PM EDT to parent up reply reply actions actions   0 recs

Agreed
I love the Kazmir part, and even the Fossum part if he doesn't go all 2004 on us again, but I don't know about having all 4 of them together. In the AL East it is a good idea to have that many lefties though for the most part: You take Trot Nixon and (some of) David Ortiz out of the lineup when you face the Sox. Of course, if Manny gets his average against lefties back up, he'll hit .600 over every weekend series with TB.
"I don't set the rosters, I just make fun of the guy who does" - Rob Neyer

by Marc Normandin on May 18, 2005 8:31 AM EDT to parent up reply reply actions actions   0 recs

Nothing wrong with it
If you had five Pedro Martinez's on your staff, would you complain that you had five righties?  Of course not.

The DRays may be in trouble because of the quality of their pitchers, however.

by salb918 on May 19, 2005 2:26 PM EDT reply reply actions actions   0 recs

2004 Royals
Had the all-lefty thing going for awhile... It wasn't pretty/didn't seem to matter.
www.royalsreview.com

by royalsreview on Jun 1, 2005 5:34 PM EDT reply reply actions actions   0 recs

The 2003 Indians
had a lot of lefties, but it seemed like they tried not to have a pure lefty rotation.

Starters were:
Sabathia
Cliff Lee
Billy Traber
Brian Tallet
Brian Anderson
Jason Stanford

by ultxmxpx on Jun 5, 2005 12:58 PM EDT reply reply actions actions   0 recs

2003 A's
The Athletics began the 2003 season with a four-lefty rotation, Hudson being the only righty:

Tim Hudson
Mark Mulder
Barry Zito
Ted Lilly
John Halama

by Nathan on Jul 18, 2005 12:18 AM EDT reply reply actions actions   0 recs

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