Mark Teixeira is an enigma. One of the few switch hitters that I am aware of that seem to hit equally as well from both sides of the plate. Mantle obviously could do it. Robbie Alomar was a good one imho. Maybe there are lots of them out there who can do it well from both sides and I am forgetting about them (see my updated notes below as I indeed forgot some of them).
It seems to me that there are so few who ever come along and excel at it that it does not justify trying to do it. I have seen some advice that if you are going to do it that you have to remain committed to it and accept lots of failure. I wonder about that strategy. Perhaps every once and a blue moon a natural switch hitter is born. Maybe Dad's out there are justified suggesting it to their sons if they have some suspicion the son might be a natural at it. In other words, if the son seems to take to it right away and demonstrate consistent results naturally. If you have to grind at it i.e., it does not come as naturally, perhaps it is more of a gimmick and a player would be better served learning to hit lefty's and righty's equally as well from the same side of the plate. That is one thing we will never know about many switch hitters - could they have hit even better if they would have stuck to one side? I don't really know about any of this but was just throwing thoughts/suspicions out there for discussion
Regarding Texeira's power numbers... He had many more left handed plate appearances so that will obviously skew the numbers. Moreover, Yankee Stadium played extremely small in right field this year as there was some suggestion that it created a jet stream for fly balls. Notorius non-power hitters were hitting them out there this year.
If any one can find a top 10 all-time switch hitter list I would like to see it. I would also like to see the splits for these hitters to see how they hit from the respective sides of the plate.
Actually, before posting this I went and did a search and there were more of them than came to mind. Pete Rose, Chipper Jones, and Eddie Murray were three great ones that should have come immediately to mind. Here is a pretty good list I found:
ALL TIME
Mickey Mantle (HOF)
Pete Rose (would have been a HOF)
Eddie Murray (HOF)
Chipper Jones (future HOF)
Frankie Frisch (HOF)
Roberto Alomar (future HOF)
Omar Vizquel (probably a future HOF)
Ted Simmons
Bernie Williams
Chili Davis
ACTIVE
Chipper Jones
Omar Vizquel
Carlos Beltran
Victor Martinez
Mark Teixeira
Jose Reyes
Jimmy Rollins
Lance Berkman
Jorge Posada
Brian Roberts