Here's a question the Giants front office should be asking themselves as the season grinds on: Is Patrick Bailey's switch-hitting actually helping, or is it just baseball tradition for tradition's sake?

The numbers tell an interesting story. Bailey's career stats from both sides of the plate are remarkably similar — which sounds like an argument for switch-hitting until you think about it for more than five seconds. If a guy hits roughly the same from both sides, he's not gaining the platoon advantage that's the entire point of switch-hitting. He's just splitting his reps in half and maintaining two different swings instead of perfecting one.

There's precedent here, and it's wearing a Giants uniform in the team's institutional memory. J.T. Snow famously abandoned switch-hitting to focus exclusively on his left-handed swing, and the results spoke for themselves. Snow went on to become one of the more reliable bats in the lineup for years. Sometimes less really is more.

Bailey is the backbone of this team's future. He's already elite behind the plate — his framing, game-calling, and arm are legitimate assets. But the Giants need his bat to take a leap, and asking him to maintain two swings while also shouldering the immense cognitive load of catching in the majors feels like asking him to juggle while riding a unicycle. Sure, it's impressive if you pull it off, but wouldn't you rather he just walked really fast?

Let Bailey lock in from the left side. Let him build muscle memory, simplify his approach, and stop hedging. In a sport obsessed with optimization and analytics, clinging to switch-hitting when the data doesn't support a meaningful advantage is the kind of stubborn thinking that keeps teams mediocre.

The Giants have a good thing in Bailey. Now let him be great — from one side of the plate.