{"id":586334,"date":"2026-02-22T09:40:40","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T09:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/586334\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T09:40:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T09:40:40","slug":"why-switch-hitters-like-francisco-lindor-have-become-a-rarity-in-mlb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/586334\/","title":{"rendered":"Why switch-hitters like Francisco Lindor have become a rarity in MLB"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Carlos Beltr\u00e1n calls it a \u201cblessing.\u201d That Bernie Williams had gone first. That Kevin Long entered his life. The time in which he played.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/02\/18\/sports\/one-big-thing-excites-carlos-beltran-about-these-2026-mets\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Beltr\u00e1n had been<\/a> a second-round pick in 1995, and after he played A-ball in 1996, just before he would turn 20, Royals officials and Beltr\u00e1n determined the natural righty hitter should attempt to switch-hit to better capitalize on his speed from the left side.<\/p>\n<p>That Beltr\u00e1n embraced the notion owed much to Williams \u2014 who, like Beltr\u00e1n, was a fleet center fielder from the northern coast of Puerto Rico. So Beltr\u00e1n knew well that at 19, after two seasons in the low minors, Williams had made a fateful decision\u2014 a natural righty, he would learn to switch-hit or he would give up pro baseball and return to his native island to go to medical school.<\/p>\n<p>Working tirelessly with particularly Brian Butterfield and Carlos Tosca, Williams adapted to hitting from both sides. That only changed Yankees history, as he became a middle-of-the-order, switch-hitting force of a dynasty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlos Beltr\u00e1n calls it a \u201cblessing.\u201d That Bernie Williams had gone first. That Kevin Long entered his life.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,24555,325,227,599,4,61,62,185,430,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-586334","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-bernie-williams","10":"tag-carlos-beltran","11":"tag-francisco-lindor","12":"tag-hardball","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-new-york-mets","15":"tag-new-york-yankees","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-sports-columnists","18":"tag-sports-plus"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116113625948444360","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}