...At a non-powerhouse D1, and you have one spot in your recruiting class left. You've narrowed it down to two players: a LHP and a RHP. For the sake of comparison, let's say that each pitcher is virtually identical to the other in most ways: they each have good command, decent off-speed offerings, both are mid-sized with a little projection left, have clean mechanics but not much deception, etc. The one difference beside the arm they throw with is their velocity: the LHP sits 82-84 and touches 85, while the RHP sits 85-87 and touches 88. Also consider the current class of recruits: so far you only have two other pitchers, and both are right-handed and were signed to become future starters (the future starting rotation is pretty set in stone). There is already a left-handed situational guy on the squad as well (the point here being that you really don't have a pressing need for either of these pitchers but you like them). What do you do? Which one do you take?
You can boil down the gist of this scenario to: How much more desirable to coaches are LHPs simply because they look different when they pitch? I remember reading a while back about crafty left-handers, and someone brought up the point that sometimes LHPs are desirable simply because they give batters a different look. Thoughts?
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