Wilmer Flores, DLM (Designated Lefty Masher)

Every full moon, some players transform into Babe Ruth against left-handed pitchers

Keith Allison/Flickr

We’re all familiar with the LOOGY, the “Lefty One Out Guy”. He’s a left handed relief pitcher whose entire job is to come into a game in a high leverage situation and get a single left-handed batter out. It’s a very niche role, but some players, like Jesse Orosco and Randy Choate, made entire careers out of it.

I am here today to propose the LOOGY’s offensive counterpart — the DLM, or “Designated Lefty Masher”. The term refers to a right handed batter whose job is to demolish left handed pitching.

The DLM is the perfect counter to any left handed pitcher. Left handed pitchers tend to succeed not because of overwhelming stuff, but because hitters didn’t get to see that much left handed pitching during their development, and are thus unaccustomed to it.

But in the DLM, we find a guy whose offensive prowess against lefties more than makes up for the lackluster performance of the rest of your roster against LHPs.

DLMs are different from usual “good” players in that they’re not good against righties — hell, they’re actually offensive liabilities against righties. Which leads to the DLM moniker: they come into games to mash lefties, and that’s it.

DLMs are distinct from platoons in that platoons are basically a pair of players who alternate time at a position depending on if the opposing SP is a lefty or a righty. DLMs can be included in a platoon or not — the important thing is that a DLM faces the lefty pitcher as frequently as possible, be it in a starting role, or as a pinch hitter.