All-Time Greatest Switch-Hitters

The stolen-base machine had many All-Star appearances and over 2,600 hits in his career. He could hit home runs from either side at about the same rate, but as a lefty, his stolen-base and walk totals shot propasser up dramatically. Jorge Posada is known for being a Yankee during the great teams of the 1990s and 2000s as well as a great offensive catcher. He’s also the No. 2 catcher overall on the switch-hitter list.

Three paragraphs comprising two complete sentences and two fragments seem a formula for drama. This same, unattributed piece also asserted that “injuries robbed The Mick of a Ruthian standing in baseball’s history” and enumerated 13 separate, significant injuries or conditions that befell Mantle. Tied for the lead with 14 games with left and right-handed homers are Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher. Hitters have homered from each side of the plate well over 300 times. Pretty obviously many of those occurrences were recurrences by the same players, and no one is actually interested in how many players have homered from each side of the plate. A three-division world champion and former undisputed light-welterweight king, Terence Crawford has become a genuine master of switch-hitting in his era.

Carlos Zambrano (5.5 WAR) is the ninth-best Cubs switch hitter of all time, which is a bit surprising since pitching was his day job . He’s tenth all time in home runs by a Cubs switch hitter, with 23, leaving Jerry Mumphrey and Damon Berryhill in the dust. Zambrano was no proto-Ohtani, as his career total of 240 strikeouts to 10 walks indicates, but his pinch-hitting would still fit in today’s game, with its bloated pitching staffs and short benches. Best Rookie Seasons in MLB History It’s incredibly difficult to break into professional sports. In baseball, the chances of even making it to the major leagues are slim to none.

So did Derek Jeter, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig and Don Mattingly. Well, Mickey Mantle hit more home runs than all of those guys, while hitting from both sides of the plate. He also did it in the same gigantic ballpark as DiMaggio and Gehrig, but DiMaggio never hit a home run over the left-center wall. Polanco still has a very long way to go towards becoming one of the greatest players in Twins history, but as far as the greatest switch-hitters in franchise history go, he’s already there. When Carlos Beltran was healthy, he was one of the most feared hitters in baseball with his five tool capabilities.

Catcher is another slot where the choices are few, but Brayan Peña provides a respectable option with his .251 average, 12 home runs and 86 RBIs, mostly in a reserve and platoon role over four seasons. Bob Stinson is our reserve catcher with three home runs and a .264 average over two seasons with the club. José Offerman, however, played much of his three years with the Royals at second. Kurt Stillwell is a close second at shortstop, and we’d like to move him to second base, but he never played any position other than shortstop in four seasons with the Royals. Murray took those words to heart during his 21-year big league career, driving home hundreds of teammates en route to six seasons with at least 100 RBI. Eddie Murray drove in runs more often than any other player of his generation.

He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1998 by the Veteran’s Committee. Eddie Murray – Hall of Famer and the only other switch-hitter with 500 career homers. Also, is one of two switch hitters with 3,000 or more hits.

Getty ImagesAmong the players on this list, Frisch has the highest batting average, and he has the rare distinction of hitting more triples than home runs in his career. When you factor in the 10 Gold Glove Awards that he won during his illustrious career, it becomes clear that Alomar is one of the most complete players in the last 30 years. The 12-time All-Star did hit .314 in 6,465 left-handed at-bats, much better than the .276 mark that he hit in 2,608 right-handed at-bats. He’s also the only switch hitter to hit over .300 in his career while also collecting at least 400 home runs. The eight-time all-star and first-ballot Hall of Famer finished his career with over 2,700 hits and 468 home runs.

Smith played primarily with the Red Sox and Dodgers, hitting over 300 home runs and 2,000 hits, hitting .287 in his career. He could hit for power a bit better left-handed, but his batting average from both sides was almost identical. In baseball, a switch hitter is a player who bats both right-handed and left-handed, usually right-handed against left-handed pitchers and left-handed against right-handed pitchers. Once this switch happened, no one would want to walk Maris, for Mantle would be on-deck, giving the Yankees almost a guaranteed run, possibly two.

At first base is Kendrys Morales, who swatted 52 home runs, had 199 RBIs and hit .277 over two seasons and helped the Royals to the 2015 World Series title. Tiring of his injuries, the then-declining Cubs traded Galan to the Dodgers for reliever Mace Brown in August, 1941. Brown would never pitch with the major league club while Galan would go on to have a productive stay in Brooklyn, partially but not entirely thanks to depleted wartime pitching. Without sabermetrics, players with Happ’s strikeout propensity might never have made it to the majors. Happ is exactly the kind of player – good but not great – who teams no longer shower with big free agent bucks. Your favorite teams, topics, and players all on your favorite mobile devices.

To this day he holds the records for the most home runs in World Series play with 18. He finished top 5 in the MVP voting nine times while winning the MVP three times, which no switch hitter has ever done. Switch hitters made their primary contribution as players getting on base and then scoring runs. Rose, Frisch, and Carey were among those who did it by getting hits; Tommy Tucker, who was a pretty fair hitter, had an extra talent in getting hit by pitches . A large number had an unusual talent for receiving bases on balls. This included, not only Mantle, who was a great threat with the bat, but little Miller Huggins, who led the NL four times in walks, and Donie Bush, who led the AL five times.