Who is the all time greatest switch hitter in MLB history? Let’s take a look at the candidates.
What is the most dangerous type of hitter? Is it a hitter who hits for average? A hitter who hits for power? Is it a hitter who does both? Is it a switch hitter with power?
Can I have a power and high average hitter who walks? This could go on all day as might most things in baseball when you start to quibble about defining a positive or negative quality. For the sake of this discussion, let’s agree for the moment that the most dangerous type of hitter is a switch hitter with power. (If you disagree, fine. Write your own essay. If you don’t make yours about switch hitters, a pitcher who could get each of your top five out could be named within ten seconds.)
So, what criteria might be applied? 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.
But a very good way to cut down the numbers is to look at the top of the list for repeat home run days from both sides.
In the popular mind, people of a certain age would likely put Mickey Mantle on the list as the all time greatest switch hitter near the top; those a bit younger might assume that Eddie Murray is there. Younger fans might pick a player with a gorgeous swing, Carlos Beltran. All three are on the top-five list. None is at the top.
The top five in this area, games with home runs from both sides of the plate, are actually eight players in total who collectively homered more than once 92 times. (Some of these players hit more than two home runs in the games they homered batting left and right.)
Candidates for the All Time Greatest Switch Hitter Title
Tied for “sixth” place on this list are Mantle, Ken Caminiti, and Tony Clark. All three homered from both sides of the plate ten times.
Tied for fourth are Murray and Chili Davis with 11 games. Beltran is third with 12.
Tied for the lead with 14 games with left and right-handed homers are Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher.
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So, the notion of games with glamorous right and left-handed homers helped us to cut create a list of candidates. They all scored at least twice in all 92 of these games, but the gap between first and sixth place is only four games. Something else important must be considered since a top switch hitter with power rarely bats both right and left-handed in the same at bat, and often from only one side in a given game. The former requires a pitching change probably related to an injury, and may never have actually happened to most if not all the players on this list. The latter does happen with some frequency, but not every time the switch hitter plays.
We need to look at RBI since baseball is a game of runs scored first and foremost.
Career RBI rearrange the list somewhat significantly, sorting four players with at least 1372 RBI toward the top, and leaving four with fewer than that behind. The RBI leaders in the group are Murray with 1917, Beltran (1587), Mantle (1509), and Davis (1372). The “new four” all played at least 18 years. The others did not.
This longevity argues for their legitimacy as the top four. These hitters were dangerous for roughly two decades. Murray and Beltran did play 21 and 20 years, respectively.
Arranging the Top Four
If the next measure is career home runs, Mantle would move toward the top of the list with 536, with a lead of 32 on Murray, but home runs of a particular variety have already been used as a yardstick. It might be time to move onto OPS, which yields a pretty good indicator of scoring potential and, in home runs, “danger” made actual.
This too seems to jump Mantle over Murray, .977 to .836. In fact, Murray drops to fourth on the list of eight originally selected, also behind Teixeira (.869) and Beltran (.837).
A top five list for the all time greatest switch hitter title seems to be emerging, including Teixeira, but how should the top switch hitter with power be selected? We have given a nod already to longevity, so it might be time to consider durability on a continuing basis.
If our top five are Murray, Beltran, Mantle, Davis, and Teixeira, arranging them by RBI (and almost in order for longevity – Mantle and Davis trade places), how many games per season did each appear in? Average games per season are as follows: Murray (144.1), Beltran (129.3), Mantle (133.4), Davis (128.2), and Teixeira (133).
This is interesting because much has been written over many years about Mantle’s playing time being cut into by injuries. A New York Post article in 2003 began:
“Mickey Mantle hit 536 – many of them gargantuan – home runs in 18 seasons.
“He drove in 1,509 runs. And scored 1,677 runs.
“On one leg.”
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.
Yet Mantle is second on the list in games per season in our search for the top switch hitter with power. He is the home run leader in this group; he won the Triple Crown in 1956.
Nevertheless, because of his lead on this list in RBI, his overall longevity, and his 10.7 games per season lead over Mantle in durability, the all time greatest switch hitter with power is Eddie Murray. Keep in mind Murray also hit 504 home runs.
Mickey Mantle is second. He would likely be first if he hadn’t ripped up his knee in the second game of the 1951 World Series on a drainpipe cover in the outfield.
Third is Carlos Beltran. Mark Teixeira should be considered fourth on the strength of his .869 OPS and proximity to Chili Davis in RBI, a mere minus-74, despite playing five fewer seasons. Davis is the fifth top switch hitter with power, having booked 1372 RBI and .811 OPS.
Next: All time greatest relievers
All five of these players were not only candidates to be considered the all time greatest switch hitter in MLB history, but were most often the most dangerous hitters in their teams’ lineups. On any day.