Switch Hitting Stats

I don't have a reference for the specific question you've asked, but my quick search shows the only switch hitter above .300 for a career is Chipper Jones... Eddie Murray and Mikey Mantle were really good, but Chipper Jones is hitting .306 in his 17 seasons so far, but that is a combined LH & RH average.

The fact that Eddie Murray and Mikey Mantle each hit less than .300 combined would indicate that neither hit .300 both ways.

I don't know if any players with shorter careers hit both .300 LH & RH. and couldn't find a quick reference.

JMoff,

Thanks for taking a look at it and answering my question as best you can. THis really has me absolutely intrigued. I'm going to keep poking around to see what I can find. I have to believe someone has this data....someone like SABR or Elias Sports Bureau. I'll let you know if I find something, anything!

fenwaysouth,

Now you've got ME intrigued, especially after I started digging in my baseball library and so far I haven't found the answer. Frankie Frisch did hit for a lifetime .316 average so he may have hit .300 from each side. This kind of information is harder than I thought to find. I have virtually every baseball encyclopedia type published since the early 1960's, record books dating from the 1970's and I have not so far been able to find the answer. I do know Mickey Mantle hit 372 HRs from the left side and 164 righthanded. I have all his season home/away splits. I have several books on Mantle and am looking through them because I'm curious to see what his average WAS from each side. Ripper Collins of the St. Louis Gashouse gang popped into mind but his lifetime was .296 although he held the single season HR record of 35 by a switchhitter until the Mick came along. I am going to keep searching.

After more searching I found this: Mantle hit .281 vs RHP and .330 vs LHP which tells the story on him since he would of course batted lefty against the righthanders and of course righthanded against the lefties. I did hear that on a very few occasions he batted right against right when his knee severely bothered him but it was just a few AB's.

I found incomplete splits for Frisch because Retro Sheets while having every box score back to 1919 does not yet have the play by play of all those games and thus has about 3000 of Frisch's 9000 plus AB's not figured in the righthanded/lefthanded splits. These included his seasons with his highest batting averages so one can't at this time make a final determination about him, despite his .316 career average.

Well it seems Chipper is the elusive .300/.300 guy. Lefthanded he has hit.305 with 337 HRs and righthanded his average is .307 with 99 HRs for his .306 lifetime combined average. A really bad final year from either side could knock him below.300 on one side.

Thanks ThreeBagger! That is awesome. What is your source?

I'm really after two things. First who is the best switch hitter of all time based upon batting avg. Based upon your facts, and my requirement of .300 from each side that would appear to be Chipper not "the Mick". Billy Crystal will be devastated it is "not the Mick" ;-). Second, I'm coming to the conclusion in my old age (nobody has accused me of being smart) that switch hitting is overrated. I think the numbers are proving that out too. If only one of these top ten all time switch hitters can hit above .300 from both sides then switch hitting is not a value.

1. Mickey Mantle
2. Pete Rose
3. Chipper Jones
4. Eddie Murray
5. Frankie Frisch
6 George Davis
7. Tim Raines
8. Roberto Alomar
9. Bernie Williams
10. Lance Berkman

My source for this was the Retrosheets that are being continually being compiled by the SABR members and are available on eBaseballWorld.

By the way Pete Rose hit .307 lefthanded and .293 righthanded.

AB--Mantle 8102 Chipper 8142
Runs--Mantle 1677 Chipper 1505
Hits--Mantle 2415 Chipper 2490
extra base hits--Mantle 952 Chipper 966
HRs--Mantle 536 Chipper 436
RBI--Mantle 1509 Chipper 1461
BB--Mantle 1733 Chipper 1404
K's--Mantle 1710 Chipper 1278
Bat. Ave--Mantle .298 Chipper .306
OBP--Mantle .421 Chipper .405
Slug.--Mantle .557 Chipper .536
OPS--Mantle .978 Chipper .941

I know you are looking at batting average only, but isn't this a little too simplistic of a conclusion that Chipper is a superior hitter to Mantle when the stats really say otherwise. All Chipper's averages will decline even further the longer he plays and Mantle already has a healthy lead in OBP, Slug Pct. and OPS which tell far more about a hitter than eight points of batting average. They are only separated at this time by 40 official AB's so a great comparison can be made.

I don't think I or anyone else was suggesting that Chipper Jones was a better hitter than Mickey Mantle.

We were only answering the question posed.

Fun discussion though...

JMoff,

Yes, I was suggesting that Chipper is a better hitter FOR AVG than any switch hitter if he is batting over .300 on both sides. I was trying to focus in on one area and not listen to the baseball experts and historians. I have to say I'm very surprised at Chippers numbers. They are very impressive. It would appear he is the best FOR AVG right now.

ThreeBagger,

Wow! Thanks again, great stuff. It would appear that Mantle and Chipper are close in a lot of categories. Yes, I would give the Mick the edge overall but, I want to point out that Mantle was on some very good teams with hitting protection around him. So, some of the more pure numbers appeal to me more. Specifically Hits, Extrabase Hits, Slg %, OPS, HRs, and K's. I would expect from this that Chipper will be a first ballot HOFer if he continues and stays out of trouble.

As for switch hitting being a valuable skill or overrated skill, I'm going to look at the others on this list. I've already read an article by hitting guru Walt Herniac on this topic and I kind of side with him that it is overrated in todays game. But, more numbers are needed. Certainly for Mantle, Chipper and Pete Rose it was a tremendous value.

fenwaysouth,

I once read an article I think by Bill James the SABR guru, that U. L. Washington, a switch hitter in the 80's was a good example of a guy who was so bad hitting from his unnatural side and his splits so large, that he really should have just concentrated on hitting from his natural side. I think this occurs more than people think with switch hitters especially once they reach the higher levels. I agree that Chipper is a first ballot Hall of Famer. I think one more factor in any comparison between him and Mantle is the ballpark factor. Most fans younger than myself do not have a remembrance of the OLD Yankee Stadium before the renovations in the mid 1970's and how incredibly large the park was especially for righthanded hitters. I believe it was leftcenter that was 461 feet. Many monstrous 420 to 430 foot drives by Mantle and others were just long outs. That park was not a particuarily good hitters park unless you could really pull the ball down the lines where distances were short. Atlanta was once known as the Launching Pad and has had a rep as an even or slight hitter's advantage park. So I think Mantle's numbers are held down as a result, especially the number of Doubles.

If someone is a switch hitter but a much better from the lest side of the plate, would it be a good decision to just stop hitting right handed considering that yu will face a RHP 90% of the time.

DLOCK,

Probably in absolute terms. But there are always exceptions.

Interesting...I was listening to Larry Bowa the other night and he didn't learn to switch hit until AAA, so he didn't even know he capable of this. Also, a former travel teammate of my son is playing for an elite college baseball team as a freshmen. He has 6.1/6.2 speed in the 60. Ridiculous speed. He spent last year in HS and summerball trying to learn to switch hit at the suggestion of his college coach and pro scouts. He is a natural righty. I'm wondering how it is going. I'll know in a month or so.

PS......Imagine having that kind of speed from the left side.

fenwaysouth - Based on the fact that possible only one hitter could hit above .300 from both sides of the plate, perhaps another question should be, is it worth being a switch hitter? Lots of extra work goes into being able to hit from both sides of the plate. Couldn't that effort be better used to make yourself a better hitter from the "natural" side?

Maury Wills is probably one guy who would not have had a ML career if he hadn't learned to switch hit after he had been in the minors for awhile. He learned to bat left and just chop and slap balls toward the left side and was then able to get on base a little more to highlight his baserunning skills. His ML stats kind of bear this out as lefthanded in 5248 AB's he hit .286 with only 5 HRs, but righthanded in less than half the AB's (2286), he hit 15 HR's while only batting .269. Since he had very little power, it probably saved his career to switch hit especially since he was in the minors for nine or ten years before he made it.

I feel there are two types of potential switch hitters for whom it may make sense to work on switching. One is the righthanded hitting guy who starts young and is a natural once he tries it, ex. Mantle, Rose, Chipper. The other type is a righthanded hitting guy like Wills who is desperate to try SOMETHING or a righthanded speedster such as fenwaysouth described who does it to better use that speed or avoid righty/righty matchups most of the time.

http://blogcritics.org/sports/...e-up-switch-hitting/

My two cents....I'm really beginning to question the value of switch hitting. The goal is to get a hit or get on base. From what I've read so far, every switch hitter has a natural side of the plate. My question is why would you hit from a side you are weaker from? It kind of goes against nature. I've heard of the dominant eye explanation of hitting and it makes total sense. Again, why would you go against what comes natural. The more I analyze this the more I'm convinced that switch hitting is only of value to very, very few. Most players can cover the plate today because umps won't call the inside pitch, so that kind of seals the deal in my mind. You really only have to cover 2/3 to 3/4 of the plate in MLB, so it doesn't matter what side your hittng from. We can only come up with one current or former MLB hitter (Chipper Jones) who has hit over .300 from both sides. The other switch hitting guys on the list are HOF or HOF caliber but they mostly hit lefty on their natural side against righty pitching. So these were very accomplished players and they couldn't do it effectively (hit over .300 on each side). Most hitters are taught to go with the pitch today vs pull the ball which just gives me an even clearer case that switch hitting effectively is an anamoly.

Kind of like the two-way player argument...

Birdman,

I tried to keep the switch hitter discussion to MLB, but I know what you mean. I think it is tremendously difficult to be a two way college player just as it is to be a switch hitter in the MLB. The similiarity IMHO between the two is that you COULD become skilled in two things, but the master of none. THe Chipper JOnes's and Danny Hultzens (UVA) of the world are very rare. Even Hultzens' field playing role seems to be changing to possibly a DH role. His pitching has improved and he is the ace of the staff. Chipper's > .300 success on both sides has me wondering if anyone in the history of MLB has ever done this or is he the first......

quote:

Originally posted by fenwaysouth:
Birdman,

I tried to keep the switch hitter discussion to MLB, but I know what you mean. I think it is tremendously difficult to be a two way college player just as it is to be a switch hitter in the MLB. The similiarity IMHO between the two is that you COULD become skilled in two things, but the master of none. THe Chipper JOnes's and Danny Hultzens (UVA) of the world are very rare. Even Hultzens' field playing role seems to be changing to possibly a DH role. His pitching has improved and he is the ace of the staff. Chipper's > .300 success on both sides has me wondering if anyone in the history of MLB has ever done this or is he the first......

We are in complete agreement on this one, even though my son is trying/attempting to do this. Something has to give or suffer. That is why I feel switch hitting is a lot like a two-way in college.

I haven't even really had this discussion with my son, it is just something that "Dad" was worried about. It isn't bothering him. He has basically told me that of the players that start out being two-way, eventually the coaching staff decides which position is best. At his school, there are several upperclassmen who came in as two-way, and they are now one-way. I have decided to take TPM's advise here, and know that things will eventually work themselves out.