Why Does Berkman Bat Right-Handed

[Guest]

His split from the left side to right side is terrible. He's a superstar when he bats left-handed. When he bats righty, he's go no power. Last year, he slugged 2 homers from the right-side compared to 40 from the left side. Shouldn't he be switching to being a full-time left-handed hitter?

[mkoss]

Maybe he's even worse left-handed against a lefty. Who knows, but there's got to be a reason.

[The Jury]

Berkman can't hit lefties, which is why there is a slim margin for error for him when he gets to face righties. I don't know why he would need to bat left, maybe only against a Pedro or someone.

[MUEcon]

Well the answer to this is more of a baseball mind games question than a question of Berkman's ability (even though he does struggle with lefties)...being a switch-hitter back in my playing days (my distant memory had to throw that one in there)...its just the idea of a guy that "can" bat from both sides of the plate...it gives versitility in the line-up, creates some distrubance in the pitching changes, plus it is always in the back of the pitchers mind untill a switch hitter steps into the box that a hitter can swing form both sides. its really argueable though, and works better without such huge splits in the batting...but IMO its more because of strategy than anything else...sometimes taking a few hits away is worth the idea.