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Baseball or Softball-Thinking About Being a Switch Hitter?

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Switch Hitter Questions

Becoming a switch hitter is a difficult decision that some baseball and softball players will have to make. Before you make the decision to become a switch hitter, you need to be able to answer some questions about yourself. If you’re a natural right handed batter, are you willing to bat left handed potentially 90% of the time? Or, if you’re a natural left handed batter are you willing to bat right handed if the game depended on it? If you’re not willing to make these decisions/sacrifices, maybe switch hitting isn’t for you. Also, if you are willing to make these sacrifices, you at least have the mentality a switch hitter needs.

Although it’s great to have the mentality of a switch hitter, it’s going to take a lot more than that to be successful. It’s going to take a natural ability from the other side of the plate. If your initial feel for hitting on the other side of the plate isn’t comfortable, becoming a switch hitter will be extremely difficult.

Stepping on the Other Side

When you step on the other side of the box you need to feel at least one distinct advantage. Hopefully the advantage you will notice will be your vision. Some players will step in the other batter’s box and instantly notice their vision is better on that side. This will obviously be a huge advantage to someone experimenting with switch hitting. Other advantages may come in the form of power or a natural swing plane. Without having a distinct and noticeable advantage to switch hitting, it’s difficult to justify the purpose of your experiment.

Once you feel like you have the mentality and natural ability to become a switch hitter, you need to make the decision. Are you going to do it the rest of your career? In order to make this decision you have to ask yourself if you believe your skill is equal on both sides of the plate. If you’re going to be better on one side of the plate, there’s no point being a switch hitter.

Preference?

One thing switch hitters will always get asked is what side do you prefer? It’s hard for people to believe, but a true switch hitter will not have a preference. Stats may say otherwise but the confidence level from each side of the plate will be the same.

There can be a lot of upside to being a switch hitter but you need to understand what your capabilities are before you put in the effort. All aspiring switch hitters need to realize that it takes double the work to be successful. If you take a hundred swings a day right handed, you have to take a 100 left handed. If you can envision yourself hitting on both sides of the plate successfully, ask yourself the necessary questions and determine as soon as possible if switch hitting is for you!

Kevin Hussey – The Baseball Zone

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