Odd Split: Trout Hits Better Against Righties Than Lefties

Using data from Baseball Reference and its Play Index, here are Trout's career splits since and for all of MLB since 2012 (he only had 135 PAs in 2011 so I left that out of the MLB totals):

Trout	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
vs RHP	0.311	0.413	0.586	0.999
vs LHP	0.293	0.412	0.529	0.941
MLB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
vs RHP as RHB	0.250	0.308	0.399	0.707
vs LHP as RHB	0.260	0.327	0.422	0.749

 

His OPS is .058 lower against lefties while for all right handed batters in MLB it is .042 higher against lefites. That is a .100 swing.

Right handed batters in MLB faced lefties 33.78% of the time while Trout faced lefties only 24.98%. So maybe opposing teams don't want him facing lefties very much and they only leave in lefties in to face him if they are very good. Maybe Trout never gets to face low quality lefties.

He has batted .274 against all the lefties he has 15+ ABs against (a total of 419 ABs, about 47% of all ABs vs. lefties). His SLG is .480 against this group.

He has a .313 AVG against all the righties he has 15+ ABs against (a total of 1,114 ABs, about 41% of all ABs vs. righties). His SLG is .616 against this group.

So maybe the only lefties he faces are good lefties. But it is still not clear.

Click here to see his batter vs. pitcher stats at Baseball Reference.