Atlanta Braves: Changes need to be made with Nick Markakis and Ozzie Albies

Platoon, or drop switch-hitting

This is going to be a very unpopular take, but Ozzie may be my least favorite Atlanta Braves hitter to watch.

His at-bats frustrate me to no end, so forgive me if I’m a little harder on him then maybe I should be.

But we all know about the struggles Ozzie has as a left-handed hitter against right-handed pitchers.

For his career, he’s hitting .242 against right-handed pitchers as a left-handed batter, and he’s hitting that same exact number against right-handed pitchers in 2019.

That number is a lot better than I would have guessed. Again, maybe I’m being too critical of Ozzie because I hate his approach at the plate.

But ideally, as a switch-hitter, you’d like your numbers to be a bit more even from both sides of the plate.

Let’s compare him to Jed Lowrie, who I think is a pretty good comparison for Ozzie.

Overall, Lowrie has a career batting average of .262, which is similar to Ozzie’s career average of .267.

Lowrie hits .256 against right-handed pitchers as a left-handed hitter and .276 against left-handed pitchers as a right-handed pitcher.

Those numbers aren’t great, but when you’re going to face right-handed pitchers almost twice as much as lefties, that 14 extra points in batting average makes a huge difference.

I don’t think you can straight platoon Ozzie for a couple of reasons.

One, like I just said, you face twice as many righties as lefties, so that would pretty much make Ozzie a bench player.

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Ozzie is good enough to play every day, and his defense has the chance to be elite.

But it bugs me to no end that Charlie Culberson doesn’t get more starts at second base with a righty on the mound.

I know Charlie is a right-handed hitter, but he doesn’t care. He’s hitting 385 against righties this year — granted, that’s only in 26 at-bats.

But Brian Snitker needs to give Ozzie a break from time-to-time against tough, right-handed pitchers. And we all know Charlie needs more at-bats.

The other thought is that Ozzie needs to drop switch-hitting altogether and just hit from the right side where he’s a career .334 hitter (all against lefties).

I think this idea has some merit, but Ozzie is still too young to give this up. It may be something he toys with in the offseason or during Spring Training.

Either way, both of these players have gotten plenty of opportunities in 2019. Hopefully, Snitker makes some changes to put both of these players, and the team, in a successful position going forward.