Greatest Switch Hitters Then and Now
Growing up, for me, it was HOFer Mickey Mantle who embodied the great switch hitter. Switch-hitting seemed to be an even more special talent than the normally insanely talented people who play professional baseball. All you need to do is think about throwing a ball with your non-dominant hand and how weird that feels, then then think about standing at home plate from your non-dominant side trying to hit a 94-mph slider. Ok, it’s unthinkable but you get what I mean.
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Who comes to mind as the best switch hitter after Mickey Mantle?
I am a fan like you and a Met fan as well, so I know that HOFer Eddie Murray played for the Mets at the end of his career and was a great switch hitter. Eddie was not as great for the Mets mind you since he played his age 36 and 37 seasons for them and was past his prime. Yet 37-year-old Eddie Murray still managed an excellent final season in 1993 with the Mets hitting 27 homers with 100 RBIs and batting .285, for what was a dreadful team that lost 103 games. Not Eddie’s fault.
MLB.com put out an article earlier this year ‘The Greatest switch-hitting lineup of all time.
CF- Mantle
1B — Murray
2B — HOFer Roberto Alomar
SS — Francisco Lindor
3B — HOFer Chipper Jones
RF — Reggie Smith
LF — HOFer Tim Raines
C — HOFer Ted Simmons
UT — Pete Rose
P — Carlos Zambrano
I don’t have much of quibble on any of the choices. I might have taken Carlos Beltran over Reggie Smith although Beltran was primarily a CF and Reggie Smith seems to get passed over for, EVERYTHING so it was nice to see his name here.
Other names that contend but don’t (in my view) supplant the names above:
1B — Mark Teixeira
LF — Lance Berkman
CF — Bernie Williams
RF — Chili Davis
1B — DH — Carlos Santana
SS — Jimmy Rollins
3B — Jose Ramirez
C — Jorge Posada over Victor Martinez
2B — HOFer Frankie Frisch
The best switch hitters playing in 2024
Lindor who also gets passed over for everything, and Ramirez, are on Hall-of-Fame career tracks and with Ketel Marte blossoming at age 31, they make three terrific active switch hitters which is a lot for any one season. Switch-hitting free agent darling Anthony Santander had a career season and is poised to cash in on a big contract. Santander hit 44 home runs in 2024, the fifth-most by a switch-hitter in a single season in MLB history. Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh had a very good 2024. Jeimer Candelaria, Ozzie Albies, Victor Caratini, Ian Happ, Josh Bell, Tyler Heneman, Luis Rengifo, and Bryan Reynolds are good but clearly a cut below.
It seemed to me that there are fewer switch hitters than there used to be. Over the past four seasons, the number of switch-hitting batters in the Majors has slowly ticked down from 10.7 percent in 2021 to 10.1 in ’22 to 9.7 in ’23 to 9.3 in the 2024 season. So, there are fewer switch hitters, but it’d be hard to notice that difference. This season of the roughly 550 batters to log a plate appearance through the end of June, only 58 were switch hitters, according to Stathead. All that tracks with about 10% of MLB hitters being switch hitters.
Switch hitters mess up platoons
Might switch hitting be a defense against being platooned? I am sure that it doesn’t start out that way, but it is a side benefit. Switch-hitting is something that virtually anyone that’s ever held a bat to face a pitcher has tried. For most of us it feels unnatural at first. The idea that the pitcher’s curveball or slider will be coming toward you instead moving away from you is the primary reason batters consider switch hitting. Few pitchers throw a screwball. But the changeup that breaks in the opposite direction of the curveball/slider is not any easy pitch to pick up or put in play. We’ve seen switch hitters choose to hit right-handed against right-handed pitchers with devastating changeups. But switch hitters do make it easier for managers to pass on pinch hitting for them.
This week writer David Harris points out: “…of the 15 players in MLB to hit the most home runs last year, five (Anthony Santander, Jose Ramirez, Ketel Marte, Cal Raleigh, and Francisco Lindor) were switch-hitters. That compares to an overall rate in my dataset of 10% switch-hitters. This seems the more unexpected because a lot of switch-hitters seem to be speedy middle infielders or catchers. Obviously, what you would want to know as a scout is if switch-hitting ability indicates a certain athleticism that you should assign extra value to and that might translate to success…”
Like David, aside from Mantle, Murray, and Chipper, I’ve always thought switch hitters were speedy players who are not always power hitters. Beyond Raines and Alomar both of whom were speedy but also managed to hit home runs, players like Willie McGee and Jose Reyes seemed to be the prototypical switch hitters.
One more thought on former Cubs hurler Carlos Zambrano being included since he was a good hitting pitcher and a switch hitter; is that he had to be a great hitter since exposing his throwing shoulder when hitting from left side has long been a baseball bugaboo. Zambrano batted .238 for his career with 24 home runs and an OPS+ of 62. He was a good hitter. But only for a pitcher.
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Davey Johnson while managing the Mets never let Dwight ‘Doc’ Gooden bat left-handed even though Doc claimed it was his better hitting side. Apparently that protection Johnson offered Gooden did not apply to David Cone who already was a left-handed hitter before he joined the Mets from Kansas City. I always thought that was odd. BTW Cone batted .155 with an OPS+ of 6 for his career. Coney is an underappreciated HOF candidate and might have been better off being a switch hitter!
About the Author: Mark Kolier along with his son Gordon co-hosts a baseball podcast called ‘Almost Cooperstown’. He also has written baseball-related articles that can be accessed on Medium.com and Substack.com.
