I can only relate the experience with my youngest son. He is a natural righty. He was encouraged to work on switch hitting by Jim Lefebvre, the former player and manager. He was encouraged by Brian Harper, the former player and current minor league manager, to become a left-handed hitter.
His swing is remarkably similar from either side, although at given times he will hit better from one side of the plate than the other. Last fall and through the high school season, he was better left-handed. This summer, he was better right-handed.
I believe that had he never switch hit, he would be better right-handed than he currently is from either side. However, some interesting opportunities have come his way, and I believe it is because he has become a very strong and consistent left-handed hitter. I also think he has more room to improve from the left side since he did not begin this until the summer between eighth and ninth grade. It has not been an easy road, but it has been productive. And, interestingly enough, at the Junior Sunbelt tournament a year ago, the coach went with a right-left switch from game-to game. jemazjr stayed in the lineup much more than would have been the case because he could go right or left.
He was drafted in June and is now playing at Arizona State. The pro guys liked the switch-hitting and the college coaches the left-handed hitting, which, again, in his case was more important than the switch-hitting. I just don't know what the interest level would have been had he remained right-handed only. It also would be interesting to see how he would do batting left against a lhp, something he has never done outside of batting practice (and then only on occasion). It would be good to get more right-handed opportunities, especially in games.
He will tell you that it is not easy. To this day, I still cannot say whether it was the best thing, but I do believe in this particular case it was an important thing. I also believe that the ESPN article is a little overstated.
My older two sons, by the way, were right-handers exclusively (and my oldest son was the right-handed platoon his first year of college, which was tough). My grandson clearly will be a righthanded. I hope he is good.