re jack morris michael chen mike cunixf cc columbia edu wrote in any case i think viola would have made a better signing why viola is younger and is left handed how many left handed starters does toronto have well i agree that viola is a better signing however why does everyone say that you want lefthanded starters i understand lefthanded spot relievers even though they usually face more righthanded batters than lefthanded batters i just don t understand why people insist on lefthanded starters unless there is a park effect e g yankee stadium most batters in mlb are righthanded so righthanded starters will have the platoon advantage more often than lefthanded starters i guess one argument for lefty starters is that certain teams may be more vulnerable to lhp s than rhp s however this is probably only a factor in the postseason because teams seldom juggle their starters for this reason during the regular season i think you just want the best starters you can get regardless of whether they are lefties or righties lefthanded starters tend to have higher era s than righthanded starters precisely because managers go out of their way to start inferior lefties or perhaps because of the platoon advantage am i missing something here craig
