While it is quite an amazing skill for a person to make solid contact with a bat on a quickly moving, often darting, ball it is even more impressive when the batter can do it from either side of the plate.
A pejorative term sometimes used in politics is RINO which stands for Republican In Name Only. Over the years I have taken to call some batters SWINO meaning Switch Hitter In Name Only. This is to say that some batters are only major league ready from one side of the plate and are give ups from the other.
The truly great switchers are those who can hit for average and power from either side of the plate. Here is a table showing the career numbers of an eclectic group of switch hitters.
| player | OPS vs R | OPS vs L |
|---|---|---|
| Mickey Mantle | 965 | 997 |
| Chipper Jones | 947 | 889 |
| Eddie Murray | 860 | 785 |
| Neil Walker | 799 | 684 |
| Wally Backman | 726 | 460 |
| Mookie Wilson | 660 | 465 |
The top three there are legitimate Hall of Famers. Mantle was often said to be a superior right hand batter but the numbers show that he was awesome from both sides. Chipper Jones was lacking as a righty in his early years but then came on to become a true threat lefty or righty.
The retired Mets, Backman and Mookie Wilson, were both SWINOs as they were of Eric Campbell quality when facing left handed pitching.
This blogger has followed Neil Walker’s career closely for a few years since he has been my second baseman against righties for one of my Strat-O-Matic teams since 2014. While I applauded the Jon Niese (another of my players) for Walker trade it was with the idea that someone, perhaps Wilmer Flores or Matt Reynolds, would have to do the heavy lifting against lefties since Walker usually is feeble that way.
Here are Walker’s career numbers as of the end of the Marlins’ series.
| Split | AB | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| vs RHP | 2532 | 0.274 | 0.343 | 0.456 | 0.799 |
| vs LHP | 721 | 0.265 | 0.322 | 0.362 | 0.684 |
The difference, 115 points in OPS, is very significant.
It is interesting to look at his yearly splits. We’ll eliminate 2009 when he had just 40 plate appearances.
| Season | ABs | BA vs R | OPS vs R | BA vs L | OPS vs L |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 426 | 0.296 | 813 | 0.295 | 809 |
| 2011 | 596 | 0.275 | 767 | 0.269 | 672 |
| 2012 | 472 | 0.291 | 824 | 0.246 | 602 |
| 2013 | 478 | 0.256 | 805 | 0.225 | 518 |
| 2014 | 512 | 0.269 | 831 | 0.280 | 727 |
| 2015 | 543 | 0.276 | 793 | 0.237 | 575 |
| 2016 | 190 | 0.260 | 772 | 0.341 | 1123 |
Scanning down the column headed OPS vs R you will see a remarkable consistency. Clearly Walker is capable of an OPS around 800 against right handed pitchers each and every year.
Previously his best year against southpaws was 2010. In 2014 he had a nice batting average against lefties but was totally powerless.
Now look at his first third of a season this year. He is crushing the lefties with power and on-base. It is difficult to say what has caused this turnabout. Some luck must be involved or some nugget imparted by coach Kevin Long. But in any case Walker has moved from the ranks of SWINO to a certified switch hitter.
With the injuries to David Wright and Travis d’Arnaud the extra unexpected offense that Walker has provided against lefties has been a godsend. Here’s hoping that he keeps it going.