Been reading a lot of posts on the forums and given the amount of wisdom here, I wanted to get some insight on an idea I have.
My son just finished his 12u season and is now going to be making the leap to the 54/80 field as 13u. He is a solid contact hitter – has hit .340 and above the last 2 seasons and draws a lot of walks, but not much for driving the ball to gaps - in a fairly competitive travel league in the area. He really hasn't hit a growth spurt yet, so that explains some of the lack of power. He hits and throws right handed. He is definitely right-handed dominant, but left eye dominant, and the questions comes around hitting.
We were messing around in the cage last night, and he started to take some swings lefty off the tee and soft toss. His swing looked pretty smooth and he was hitting the ball hard with a lot of line drives – much harder than I would have expected for someone who has never really done it other than messing around with wiffle balls/bats - but with a fair amount of pop ups and grounders mixed in...
Is it worth his time – as well as mine, as I’ll be taking him to cages/lessons and such - to have him explore hitting lefty? The only reason I am entertaining the concept is because of what I saw last night and that he is also a lefty shot in hockey and does quite well in it. Hockey was the first sport he played, and shooting lefty just came natural to him. As we picked up baseball, I just let him hit however was natural. However, part of me thinks he has the ability to hit lefty given how much hockey he plays.
My son is a very hard worker, loves baseball, and I feel that if I don’t encourage him to at least explore it for a bit and help him give it a go, we'll both end up regretting it. I am just concerned this experiment my blow up...
With season being over just last week, in my opinion, now is the time to start working on it, if he wants to do it next season at 13u.
Anyone have any thoughts/insights? Thanks!