Learning to use the opposite hand to throw

There is a switch pitcher who made the majors so it can be done but that guy probably started to do it as a little kid. A guy who can throw 80 could probably learn to throw 70 within half a year with the non dominant hand but that would require a ton of training and then you are still not close to were you were before. How old is he?

There have been a few ambidextrous pitchers.  Pablo Sandoval is a natural lefty - in fact there's video of him throwing a bullpen lefty for the Giants - but he switched because wanted to be a catcher, and he's probably naturally ambidextrous.  I looked this a while back when my kid's shoulder was hurt and saw that there is a fair amount of literature online about patients changing handedness after amputation.  Of course that doesn't mean they can become high-level throwers.    I think it would be very, very hard.  Can your son do it?  Only one way to find out.

Carter Kieboom just drafted by the Nats. SS but can pith from both sides.

My son can throw with both hands. I taught him how to throw right handed when he was two. By he time he was four he was obviously left handed. He grew up throwing right handed. In high school he started throwing left handed for something to do when he had shoulder surgery. But as soon as his right shoulder was better throwing lefty was just a novelty. If he was throwing either hand in a tossing the ball warmup you wouldn't know which hand he is.

I don't know if being a natural lefty made the coordination to throw easier. What I have wondered is if he had been taught to throw left as a kid would he have thrown harder than as a right hander.

As it was he preferred to be a position player. Throwing right allowed for more options. He was a shortstop until moved to center in travel ball in high school.

Dominik85 posted:

There is a switch pitcher who made the majors so it can be done but that guy probably started to do it as a little kid. A guy who can throw 80 could probably learn to throw 70 within half a year with the non dominant hand but that would require a ton of training and then you are still not close to were you were before. How old is he?

Venditte was the switch pitcher. He was drafted by the Yankees. He reached the majors with the A's. Here's a video of what happens when a switch pitcher meets a switch hitter and baseball hasn't created rules for the situation.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yDyCRTlKllk

Greg Harris was also an ambidextrous pitcher. He only did it once in a MLB game.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s4ozn8kaTTU

A kid in my kids LL did it. Hurt his throwing shoulder in his left arm when he was like 11 i think so he got a different mitt and started throwing from the other side. Last i heard he was a junior part time player (Corner IFer i think) on a really good HS Varsity team.

Billy Wagner switched arms after an injury. He learned to throw smoke.

I throw a baseball righty and a football lefty. Go figure. A lot will depend how dominant one side is.  

Golfman25 posted:

I throw a baseball righty and a football lefty. Go figure. A lot will depend how dominant one side is.  

Golf as a fellow Illinois guy maybe you remember Chris machalik?  Just the opposite. Left hand pitcher and right hand quarterback. Pitched a bit in the bigs. Joliet Catholic kid.  When you said that made me wonder if my memory was backwards and you are him!

P.S. Of course it can be done. Just how much effort you want to put into it. My son is doing it cause he's weird like that. Probably like 50's for mph. Getting there slowly. 

Isn't your son 20 and playing club ball? You said from prev posts that u regretted him pitching in fall and letting him pitch/catch as younger player. Now it's labrum, which is pretty serious. Best your son can hope for IMO is to DH or get into coaching. Don't see him learning to throw well enough opposite hand to be good on defense.

Time to be realistic and realize playing can cause injuries which cost money. A lot of time to spend on rehab when school should be main focus. 

2020dad posted:

Golfman25 posted:

I throw a baseball righty and a football lefty. Go figure. A lot will depend how dominant one side is.  

Golf as a fellow Illinois guy maybe you remember Chris machalik?  Just the opposite. Left hand pitcher and right hand quarterback. Pitched a bit in the bigs. Joliet Catholic kid.  When you said that made me wonder if my memory was backwards and you are him!

Ok you caught me.    No I wish.  Just kidding.  I was away at school when he was coming up, so I am not familiar with him. 

Rafael Nadal is a natural right hander and plays left.  I think given enough and early training it can be done. 

Dominik85 posted:

Rafael Nadal is a natural right hander and plays left.  I think given enough and early training it can be done. 

Anything can be done well with enough training. My son was a natural lefty who throws right handed. My daughter is a natural righty who hit left handed.

I started playing tennis after college. It felt more natural holding the tennis racket in my glove hand. I play right handed. Yet I serve in volleyball and spike left handed. For some reason I grew up playing ping pong right handed. Maybe it was due to what I saw others do. I also golf right handed. It was a matter of the clubs I was handed.

playball2011 posted:

Isn't your son 20 and playing club ball? You said from prev posts that u regretted him pitching in fall and letting him pitch/catch as younger player. Now it's labrum, which is pretty serious. Best your son can hope for IMO is to DH or get into coaching. Don't see him learning to throw well enough opposite hand to be good on defense.

Time to be realistic and realize playing can cause injuries which cost money. A lot of time to spend on rehab when school should be main focus. 

+1

The injuries sustained from any sport is life long.  Dont compromise your health to continue when more than likely its time to refocus. 

Sounds to me with all those injuries your son hasnt ever been in a really good conditioning program. If this is true, the same thing will happen all over again and again.

Some of you thinking there she goes again. However, I have a pitcher who realized that he could stay in the game and get as much joy and satisfaction doing something else other than play.

After being told he needed to put the ball down for 6 months, he knew it would be the best thing to do. It was a wise and mature decision made with no help from us trying to convince him to stay with it.

JMO

Dominik85 posted:

Rafael Nadal is a natural right hander and plays left.  I think given enough and early training it can be done. 

Took the words right out of my mouth.  However, Nadal had the advantage of learning to play from the left side much earlier in life.  Being left handed is a decided advantage in tennis which is probably why his Uncle (Coach Tony) helped that along.  The OP's son is either in high school or college, and that is probably going to make it that much harder to develop in a shorter period of time.....but I think he has nothing to lose either especially if he can effectively DH.   I  wish him the OP's son the best in his efforts.  I'd start throwing lefty today!

daveccpa posted:

This is a semi serious question.  Has anyone seen someone try to learn to throw with their non-dominant arm?  

My son learned today that he has a torn tabrum.  This will be his 3rd surgery on his right arm.  The first thing he told my wife was that he wanted to get a right handed mit so he could play in the field this fall.  Last January he had surgery on his elbow and was DH most of the summer.  He would do pretty much anything to keep playing.

I've tried to throw left handed and its not pretty so I don't think switching would be easy.

Many years back after my son was in college and had his shoulder scoped, he was going whacky not being able to do a whole lot. I borrowed a lefthander’s glove, gave it to him, and it was back to the driveway the same way we’d done it 10 years earlier when he’d said he wanted to learn to pitch.

It took several hundred throws before he could throw something that looked reasonably like he had played the game before, and several hundred more before he could actually pitch to me while I was sitting on my chair and not having to get up to chase many balls. Several hundred more and he was actually able to throw BP for his college team while mixing in an OK hook and pretty good knuckler.

But as soon as he was cleared to throw again by the doctor the interest in throwing left handed disappeared. Now maybe if he wasn’t able to pitch again with his normal hand he’d have been able to pull off the conversion, but I have my doubts. Once you get to college age it’s really tough to find the desire and willpower to do something like that, not to mention the time. Now if you’ve got tons of $$$$ and are willing to carry the boy, maybe it’s something he can do. Unfortunately we weren’t in that position and after over 10 years of living and breathing baseball my boy wasn’t willing to make that kind of sacrifice.