I looked at a list of the highest MLB career batting averages and was surprised to see so few switch hitters. The highest ranked switch hitters was some guy named Frankie Frisch at .316, or 68th all-time. Next was Chipper Jones at .310, or number 109 all-time. 3rd was Lance Berkman, at .304, #156. Only 2 switch hitters have lifetime batting averages over .305.
Since switch hitters have an advantage every at-bat, why so few on the list?
Imagine how bad they’d hit if they weren’t switch-hitters.
Sorry, should have put this in The Game Room
Oh yeah.
Moved from CS to TGR.
I’d imagine that if you were a great hitter anyway that you wouldn’t practice hitting the other way.
Part of it is switch hitting is a modern development. Averages were higher in Frisch’s day (1920s) but he was a rarity as a switch hitter. You haven’t had a .400 hitter since 1941, I’d have to look up Frisch’s contemporaries but there were several: Hornsby, Cobb, Terry. The entire National League hit over .300 in 1930.
Switch hitters are more common in recent days. Many teams try to have faster runners that are right handed learn to hit left handed to take advantage of their speed. Maury Wills was one of these. Bud Harrleson was another. Somethings it works, other times it doesn’t. Baseball statistician Bill James had an article once on how he thought the Kansas City Royals hurt U.L. Washington’s career by having him learn to hit left handed. Washington was a relatively well built man with some power right handed. But left handed (were he had
the majority of his at bats) he was a not very good slap hitter.
Many switch hitters also say it is possible to be in a hitting groove on one side and in a slump the other the same time. You end up seldom being in a hot streak.
How does that work, exactly? I’ve only ever batted from the left side, but I can tell you that being a step closer to first base seems to me to be more than outweighed by the fact that the left-handed batter’s body is mis-oriented for getting a quick start to first. It’s almost like a dance move shifting your body around to head in the right direction … If I was hoping to use speed to beat out throws to first & get infield hits, I feel like I’d rather hit right-handed & build up momentum right out of the batter’s box.
As has already been pointed out, there simply weren’t any switch hitters around when batting averages were REALLY high.
However, there’s also an element of selection bias here. Nobody, or at least damned few people, is a natural switch hitter. If a kid hits well from the right or left side, he (or she) will generally stick with it; why would Ted Williams want to have farted around learning to bat right handed when he was doing so well batting left? Switch hitting is a hard skill to learn, and so few successful hitters will bother. If you’re murdering every pitcher you see you’re not going to mess around with what works. The people who try switch hitting often do so because they’re NOT doing all that well, and are trying to see if they can enhance their hitting by getting the platoon advantage.
Not necessarily. Most switch hitters have a difference in how the hit righty and lefty. They may be better hitting for average or power from one side or another. There is an advantage to picking up pitches, and the extra step toward first base does seem to help on close plays, but sometimes a hitter gives up power or average from the other side.
But also, in general, a really great hitter from one side probably isn’t going to try things from the other unless he started early (like Mickey Mantle).
Wouldn’t part of it be if you swing righthand the bat’s momentum carries your trunk and face towards third and you have to briefly reorient yourself to run to first while swinging lefthand hour arms/bats get you pointed to third.
Apparently one of the great unknowns in baseball is why you run to first and not to third, No one seems to know who made that decision.
Couldn’t it just be due to the fact that the vast majority of batters aren’t switch hitters?
I mean, if you have a much larger pool of non-switch hitters, then you’re more likely to find some extreme outliers in terms of batting ability in that pool than you are in the smaller pool of batters who are switch hitters.
Because 1 comes before 3?
If you ran to third first, they would call it first, and first would be called third.
I think he means why first base is on the right side and 3rd base is on the left side. If predominantly righties made the game, you’d think that the bases would have been flipped over.
The interesting question, it seems to me, is whether switch-hitting helps at all.
Most switch-hitters bat better from their “natural” side, and suffer a platoon decline from their “unnatural” side, same as right-naded or left-handed batters. I’d be surprised if the difference between these two sides was a whole lot smaller than it would be if they just batted from their natural side against all pitchers. Wally Backman, I can remember, batted from both sides of the plate, but he was only any good batting left-handed, and needed to be platooned for basically his entire career. You often hear of switch-hitters being turned around to face a left- (or right-)handed relief pitcher because “he’s much weaker as a left-handed batter,” leaving open the question of how much worse off he’d be if he batted right-handed vs. a righthanded pitcher.
Don’t know how we’d study this, exactly, but to me it’s an open question whether swtich-hitting does all that much for most switch-hitters.