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Excellent article today by Sully at LL.  Now, there's a sentence that contains five trite observations in seven words. Dare you to top that, amigo.

The excellent article is followed by a weird spitting match in the threads, but ... we'll raise one eyebrow, lower the other, and walk by.  Like when you walk by The Crypt downtown.  In any case, the question is interesting, and they have had it in the Cuisinart over there at BJOL this month.

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=== Talking Points ===

Talk to ANY big leaguer about giving up his switch hitting, and the conversation will last one-point-five seconds.  "It's too late," he shrugs.

So the question is moot.  James, who (as an expert on the player pool containing every MLB player who ever lived...) does not like switch hitting, follows on by acknowledging "not having hit right against RHP's for years and years, it may not be a viable option to do it."

Nick Franklin, I think, is drawing very close to the point of no return.  What a shame.

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No study has resolved the question for a person who didn't start off rooting for one answer or the other, I don't think.  As you know, whether it's in medicine or baseball, you can cite studies that back up either side.  The META-study situation is confusing to me (and to James).

I know one thing:  it's not as simple as "what part of 'slider breaking into you' don't you understand?"  Every question and issue known to mankind, every single one, is easy to solve if you refuse to look at any variable except for your single favorite variable.  Supposing that bending over in half put your eyes closer to the ball?  Would any other variables complicate the situation?

James has an interesting remark here:  nobody hits with one hand.  Both swings are two-handed.  Think for a second.

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I don't think you could ever completely capture this issue, because you could never isolate the variables.  What you'd need would be like 100x teenage sets of twins, half of whom gave up switch-hitting.  

It doesn't cover it, just to ask "Do switch-hitters have larger-than-normal platoon differentials?"  Because their entire baseball development arc has been morphed by the very fact that they hit switch.  

But:  James observes that in the 1970's and 1980's, platoon splits seemed very large for MLB switch-hitters, and they are generally much smaller now.  As he says, "I don't know that this resolves the larger issue."

Right, because if Lance Berkman's career OPS is 1007 from the left side and 777 from the right side ... there's no way to know what he (OR ANY OTHER PLAYER) would have been in an alternate universe, had they never switch-hit a single time.  Maybe Berkman would have been a 1116 OPS guy, like Teddy, if he'd just hit left.   Or maybe his embarrassments against LHP's would have wrecked his career.  How can you predict?

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Math hasn't solve this problem, and we've given you the experimental-design considerations that make it unlikely that math ever will solve the problem.

You're left with a thought experiment.  Take the gorgeous lefty swings you've seen -- Ichiro, Junior, Olerud, those kind of guys -- and tell me that you can picture their SW careers as working out better.  No chance.  Imagine Junior if somebody had stapled a righty swing on to him at age 17.

People point out, "Mick was the only epic hitter who batted switch," and we go "one hitter in 25.  That doesn't prove much."  But the point there is if you have a Lou Gehrig swing, you don't want to mess with it.  The great hitters didn't switch.  That's why.

Switch-hitting might be a good idea for some teenagers -- but for guys with swings like Ichiro, Junior, and Nick Franklin?  You'd have to have rocks in your head.

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James states his conviction against switch-hitting thusly:

On switch hitting... You have written that on the seventies somebody thought that young speedsters would take advantage of switch hitting, thus a lot of young players became switch hitters. You thought that to be one of the worst ideas in the history of coaching and mentioned U. L. Washington, as example of a good right handed hitter but a poor left handed hitter. However, there are some hitters who are sort of natural switch hitters, aren't there? Tony Fernandez might be one of the SH with more evened stats: as a RHH against LHP: .286/.343/.391 in BA/OBP/SLG; as a LHH against RHP: .289/.349/.402. Do you know about a switch hitter with so evened stats?

Asked by: jbdominicano

Answered: 12/15/2012

MANY of the switch hitters now have even stats.   In the 60s. .. .after Maury Wills. .. a lot of guys started switch hitting when they were 19, 20 years old.   Wills became a switch hitter in the minor leagues, to take advantage of his speed.   It worked for him, so for a while, any kid who could run, they tried to make him a switch hitter.   Mike Schmidt was a switch hitter in college.    A lot of them. ..80% of them, I'd say, couldn't hit worth a [nickel] left-handed.   Schmidt was smart enough to give it up after a couple of years and go back to hitting the way that was natural to him. But now, a lot of kids start switch-hitting at age 5, and most of the switch hitters today are true switch hitters.  About the same one way as the other.

Giving us a compass bearing here:  has the player in question been swinging the bat naturally from both sides, since he was a toddler?

I don't know what the case is with Morales; he's going to switch-hit for the rest of his life, and he had a good year in 2012 batting righty, so maybe he was a toddler hitting from both side.  

I dunno about Morales or Smoak.  I do know that switch-hitting was plastered on to Nick Franklin in high school, in a cowardly attempt to keep him from being embarrassed by 84 MPH fastballs.

It probably ain't too late for Franklin right now.  But in two months, it probably will be.