re: Why do most right handed throwers bat right handed?

it’s a very difficult skill to master; most players just aren’t ambidextrous enough to be able to be successful at it.

Almost all people are both hand and foot same dominance. Right handed, right footed - so it's your entire body and coordination is about batting right if you throw right.

Very people are ambidextrous - and very few people do one thing right and the other thing left unless they really work at it. And the population of righty to lefty is about 80%-20%.

Which is why it is an advantage to be able to bat from the left side. Since most people aren't left-handers in the entire population - there are fewer left-handed pitchers of course.

Baseball is a sport that distinctly rewards left-handed hitting. Traditionally cited as an explanation for this is the fact that the left-handed hitter is an extra step closer to first base, but the research of John Walsh (see the References and Resources section below) indicates this isn’t a significant issue. The genuine reason is simply that the left-handed hitter generally enjoys the platoon advantage, since the majority of pitchers are right handed.

Because of the left-handed hitting advantage, baseball attracts more than its share of left-handed athletes, or at least athletes ambidextrous enough to learn to bat lefty. The proportion of left-handed batters (including switch-hitters batting lefty) at the major league level is always far greater than the 20 percent that a random sample of the population would yield; indeed it’s generally more like 40 percent.

ANd: The positions that demand right-handed throwers yield a higher and more stable proportion of right-handed batters.





So you have an 80/20 % ratio just like the general public.

As for switch hitters:



As you can see not much higher - and obviously a very specific skill learned early childhood or ambidextrous people...or the rare right hand left foot person.