Left-handers are a baseball rarity. NIC-10 champ Hononegah is loaded with them

ROCKTON — Left or right? Donnie Chappell always wants to know.

“That’s the first thing we look for when someone is warming up,” the longtime Rock Falls baseball coach said. “We’re always happy when it’s a righty. Different things pop up when it’s a lefty.”

There is no choice for Hononegah opponents. It's lefty all day. Every day. Five of Hononegah's top six pitchers, including all three regular starters, are left-handers. And most of the lineup bats lefty also, with five left-handed hitters and switch hitting Bryce Goodwine.

All the scores: Updated IHSA baseball state tournament schedule, scores, pairings for the Rockford area

“Growing up, I have been one of only one or two lefties on the team, so being one of five lefties is a little weird,” first baseman/pitcher Maddux Hibbard said. “It’s a switch-up that not a lot of teams see.”

Hononegah coach Matt Simpson always remembers playing a lefty-stacked Rock Falls team that finished second in the state in Class 3A in 2009. But that team had five lefties in the lineup, not six, and two lefties on the mound, not three, with Baylor recruit Taylor Eikenberry and Iowa recruit Jarred Hippen backed up on the mound by freshman right-hander Jake Junis, now pitching for the Giants in his sixth Major League season.

“That’s crazy,” Chappell said of Hononegah’s lefty stockpile. “I have never heard of that before. That is crazy.”

The lefty logjam has helped Hononegah, which finished fourth in the state in Class 4A last year, reload after graduating four-year starters at shortstop, center field and catcher. Hononegah (20-3, 17-1) won the NIC-10 title in dominant fashion, outscoring its conference foes 205-17. That broke the record for fewest runs allowed in the conference set by last year’s Hononegah team with 19.

More: Is this the hardest baseball team to score on in NIC-10 history?

Lefties are hard to hit. Especially these lefties. Anderson was 9-0 with a 0.48 ERA as a junior and is 6-3 with a 1.86 ERA this year. Goodwine is 5-0 with a 1.03 ERA. HIbbard is 4-0 with a 1.15 ERA. Together they have struck out 152 batters in 105 innings.

“It’s easier to hit a right-handed pitcher because the ball comes across differently,” Anderson said. “Left-handed, it’s more difficult. It’s a very significant edge. I know when lefties come up to the mound from other teams there is definitely a different approach. You don’t see it as often. It’s hard to train against because you don’t always have lefties on your team to throw to.”

Major League stats show how significant an edge being left-handed is. Only 10 percent of the population is left-handed, but 28 percent of Major League innings are thrown by lefties.

Right-handed batters tend to hit lefty pitchers better and vice versa for left-handed batters against right-handed pitchers. It’s easier to identify a pitch thrown away from you than one where the pitcher’s arm is in line with the batter’s body.

That is why Goodwine became a switch hitter.

“I never have to have a curveball coming at my head and then it drops back in the zone,” Goodwine said.

More: These are the top 10 Rockford-area baseball teams headed into the IHSA playoffs

And while lefty pitchers get fewer lefty-lefty matchups than righties get against right-handed batters, it doesn’t seem to matter. FanGraphs looked at all pitchers who threw at least 100 innings between 2007 and 2019 and found lefties and righties had virtually identical stats in every category, from walks to strikeouts to ERA to batting average on balls in play — even though righties threw an average of 1.5 mph faster and their pitches had more spin and more movement. Just being different, FanGraphs theorized, gives lefty pitchers a big edge.

Lefty hitters, on the other hand, stand a step closer to first base. And they face mostly right-handed pitchers. As a result, 40 percent of Major League batters hit left-handed. And almost half of all Hall of Fames either bat lefty or switch hit.

“You see mainly righties, so you are never getting a curveball that is curving away from you,” said Dylan Sayles, who joins Anderson, Landen Seymour, Austin Dresser and Aiden Roessler as lefties in Hononegah’s lineup to go along with the switch-hitting Goodwine.

"You see it better. That’s a big advantage. I like it so much better," Sayles said. "There is no chance of it hitting you. You see it all the way. You know where it’s going to be.”

“For whatever reason,” Hononegah coach Simpson said, “it just always seems it’s a little more difficult to get lefties out when they are competent with the bat.”

On the other hand, the biggest disadvantage in baseball is for left-handed hitters facing lefty pitchers. Remember John Kruk flailing at Randy Johnson’s offerings in the All-Star Game? Some lefty relievers used to make a career out of only facing lefties before baseball changed its rules in 2020 to require pitchers to face at least three batters or end an inning. Before that, so many lefty relievers would face just one batter that the acronym loogy for lefty one-out guy was coined.

Only not even that works against Hononegah. Since most of Hononegah’s pitchers are lefties, that’s what the team knows best.

“In practice, we are seeing lefties all the time,” Sayles said. “When we throw live at-bats, all we see is lefties. Teams think they can throw a lefty at us and it’s an advantage, but it’s not because we are seeing lefties in practice all the time.”

Closer Bowen Smith is the only righty among Hononegah's top six pitchers.

“It’s kind of weird,” said Smith, who has been accepted to the Air Force Academy. “My whole life as a righty, usually we’re in the majority. But I am excited we have a lot of lefties. Hopefully, we’ll have some more at the Air Force, too.”

Matt Trowbridge is a Rockford Register Star sports reporter. Email him at mtrowbridge@rrstar.com and follow him on Twitter at @MattTrowbridge. Sign up for the Rockford High School newsletter at rrstar.com.

NIC-10 standings

School, Conf, Overall

Hononegah, 17-1, 20-3

Belv. North, 16-2, 17-4

Boylan, 15-3, 20-10

Harlem, 10-7, 11-13

Freeport, 10-8, 19-9

Guilford, 7-11, 8-15

Auburn, 7-11, 9-12

Belvidere, 5-12, 5-17

East, 1-17, 1-20

Jefferson, 1-17, 1-18

Hononegah's NIC-10 baseball titles

2022, 2021, 2019, 2013, 2010, 2009, 1995, 1992, 1986

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Hononegah might be the most left-handed local baseball team in history