Does American League face lineup deficit in All-Star Game?

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 5:07 p.m. ET

share

facebookxredditlink

foxsports

When Alex Gordon got injured on Wednesday night, it was a big blow to the Royals, who have lost their best player for the next two months of the season. But with Detroit struggling -- and having lost Miguel Cabrera themselves just a week earlier -- and the Twins probably unable to keep playing as well as they have in the first half, the Royals will probably still be able to hold on to their division lead, even with Gordon on the shelf for the next few months. 

However, Gordon's injury does create a pretty significant hole on the American League All-Star roster. No, it's not that Gordon is really that much better than Adam Jones, who will replace Gordon in the starting line-up, but that Gordon brought one unique skill to the American League's offense: he bats left-handed. 

With Jones replacing Gordon, all nine American League starters will bat from the right side of the plate. Let's take a guess at what Ned Yost's starting line-up might look like.

1. Lorenzo Cain, LF
2. Jose Altuve, 2B
3. Mike Trout, CF
4. Albert Pujols, 1B
5. Josh Donaldson, 3B
6. Nelson Cruz, DH
7. Adam Jones, RF
8. Salvador Perez, C
9. Alcides Escobar, SS

There are some pretty great hitters in the middle of that line-up, and guys like Trout have historically hit right-handed pitching just fine. But at both the top and bottom of the order, you have some guys on the team primarily due to their defensive abilities, and hitting right-handed pitching isn't really their strong suit. 

And the National League has loaded up on right-handed pitching. Of the 13 pitchers already on the NL roster, 11 of them are right-handed; only Madison Bumgarner and Aroldis Chapman are lefty hurlers on the NL squad. Johnny Cueto is likely to join that group via the Final Vote, which would push the NL up to 12 RHPs, many of whom are death to right-handed hitting.

The American League really doesn't have any way to counter this problem. Even on the bench, the roster is mostly right-handed. After a few innings, they'll swap in Prince Fielder and Mark Teixeira for Cruz and Pujols, Jason Kipnis will eventually sub in for Jose Altuve, and Gardner will likely sub in for whichever starter ends up in left field, but the other two lefties on the AL roster -- Stephen Vogt and Brock Holt -- are probably the two guys least likely to get to hit during the game. Vogt will likely lose out to Russell Martin for secondary catcher duties, meaning he'll be kept in reserve in case an injury, and Holt is on the team for his versatility, so he'll probably be a defensive replacement or even a pinch-runner, and may very well be pinch-hit for if he comes up in a significant situation late in the game. 

On average, a Major League team sends 38 players to the plate in 2015. Even if we assume that Fielder, Teixeira, Kipnis, and Gardner will each hit twice, that's only eight at-bats from left-handed hitters in the entire game, leaving the other 30 for all the right-handed hitters on the roster. If Bruce Bochy saves Bumgarner (or Kershaw, if he makes the team) until after the left-handed reserves are inserted -- I think it's a safe assumption that Chapman will pitch the ninth inning, given that the game is in Cincinnati -- it's possible that only two or three of those left-handed at-bats come against right-handed pitching. 

Bochy's game plan the first few innings should be to deploy an endless string of his dominant right-handed pitchers. Even with Max Scherzer likely unavailable to pitch -- he's slotted in to start Sunday's game for the Nationals, which means he'll be replaced on the roster, probably by Kershaw if Cueto wins the Final Vote -- the N.L. will still be overflowing with shutdown righties, so let's sketch out what Bochy might do with his army of dominant righties before the AL counters with a few left-handed hitters in the middle innings. Below, we've included the BA, OBP, and SLG allowed by each pitcher against right-handed batters this year. 

Even assuming they won't have Scherzer, this is a ridiculous group of pitchers for a heavily right-handed line-up to face. And if Bumgarner comes in at the same time that Fielder, Teixeira, and Kipnis enter the game, LHBs are only hitting .227/.292/.333 against him this year, so you know, good luck to those three. And this plan doesn't even account for potentially having Clayton Kershaw around to just go after Fielder and Teixeira if need be later in the game. And even with having two righties split the sixth inning, it leaves A.J. Burnett, Mark Melancon, and Francisco Rodriguez -- all good RHPs -- around to mix and match in case Bochy wants to play the match-ups one hitter at a time.

For guys like Trout and Pujols, this shouldn't be a huge deal; they've generally been great hitters because they haven't had big platoon splits, and aren't easily matched up against. But a lot of the guys in the starting line-up have mostly made their living off crushing LHPs. 

Josh Donaldson has a career 117 wRC+ against righties, which balloons to 167 against lefties; it would be silly for Bochy to let him face a left-hander next week. Nelson Cruz (114/139), Jose Altuve (94/139), Salvador Perez (97/119), and Lorenzo Cain (98/116) have also made their names by doing most of their damage against left-handers while being just okay against righties, and they're not likely to create a lot of offense against the kind of RHPs the NL will be throwing out next week. 

For all the "this time it counts" stuff, the American League's construction of their All-Star roster has put them a real disadvantage when it comes to matching up against the pitchers the National League will be rolling out next week. Don't be too surprised if the game is dominated by NL hurlers pounding the AL's all right-handed line-up with hard power sliders; the American League just isn't bringing enough good left-handed hitters to the party to counter that simple strategy.

share