Schoeneweis: Is He As Bad As All That?

Eh, yes and no. Two highly improbable saves from last week not withstanding, Schoeneweis is a LOOGY. He's been awful this year against righties. More awful, in fact, than his pretty awful career rates. On the other hand, he's also been very good against lefties. Take a look.

Holy crap, that's a huge platoon split. Of course, that doesn't give you any context, so look at Scotty compared to all other NL left-handers.

Huh. Compared to the average NL lefty, he's been as much worse against RHB, as he has been better against LHB. So I have to wonder, why does Schoeneweis ever pitch to a right-handed batter? Is his huge platoon differential in '07 a fluke, or does it accurately reflect his career numbers. Well, ask and ye shall receive.

I've added trend lines to show that it looks like Scott's platoon split is getting bigger. He's becoming more effective against lefties, but even less effective against righties. Why is that, I wonder? Has he dropped down to throw more sidearm? Stopped throwing some pitch, or started throwing another?

As always, I have no answers, just colorful graphs and more questions. Foremost, of course, is why has Schoeneweis been allowed to pitch to 151 right-handed batters this year?