Don’t forget defensive indifference. If, for instance, the pitching team is winning 15-0 in the ninth inning, and someone on the losing team “steals” second base, the catcher may decide to not bother throwing to second to get him out. The game’s official scorer (who also determines things like whether or not an error was made on a particular play) would then make the determination whether this is a stolen base or defensive indifference and not a stolen base.
Polycarp:
Much more recent than that. The AA’s last year was 1997.
There was worse in the major leagues, not too long ago. Before they re-alligned the divisions, Atlanta was in the National League West.
Here’s what I’ve always wanted to know. The designated hitter rule was put into place so that that the (usually) weak hitting pitcher doesn’t have to pitch. I know that many pitchers are weak hitters because they only play once every five days (starting pitchers that is - relievers are a whole 'nother animal and hit even less) and just about everyone says that hitting is something that needs to be done regularly if it’s to be done well. But what if there was a pitcher who also had the talent/skill to be a very good hitter if he hit regularly. Could he then DH as well as pitch? It wouldn’t be any problem on the days he doesn’t start - he’d be just another non-position player on those days. But on the days that he does start, could he DH for himself? It’s not so far-fetched as one might think. Consider Babe Ruth. Before he was converted, he was a heck of a pitcher - he won 20 games twice and had a career ERA of 2.28 (thanks Baseball-Almanac!). If the DH rule had existed at the time, I would think that it would have been mighty tempting to try to get him to do both.
Surely you’re not implying the role of a DH in this man’s career! The DH wasn’t enacted for another 50 years after his debut…
Or maybe I’m just reading it wrong. If that is the case, sorry.
I don’t see why he couldn’t, but it’s very hard to find any pitcher that good at both. Sure, a lot of players are great high school hitters, but that doesn’t mean a thing when they get to the bigs, even if they don’t pitch at all.
And of course, Babe Ruth did do what you’re asking - when the pitcher DHs for himself, that simply means he’s hitting for himself, doesn’t it?
Of course, the reason that college and high school pitchers are often among the better hitters as well is that the pitchers are usually the best athletes in general.
Yes, Babe Ruth did hit for himself. But that was outside of the designated hitter rule. And as a pitcher who could only pitch every four days or so (back before five man rotations), that left a lot of days when he didn’t play. And a very potent bat was taken out of the lineup on the other days.
I took a closer look at the DH rule. Even if a pitcher was a good enough hitter to be a DH on days when he didn’t pitch, he couldn’t be the DH on days when he did. If a pitcher hits for himself at any time in a game, the DH is gone for the game. That, by itself, is probably enough reasons a manager would not use a good hitting pitcher to hit for himself - if he is taken out of the game for pitching reasons, the manager would be stuck with the normal pitchers hitting for themselves, or would be forced to use pinch-hitters(as an aside, I remember some talk last year that Mike Hampton might hit for himself during interleauge games - I don’t think it ended up happening, though.)
I guess what I’m wondering is, consider the theoretical case of a pitcher that is a good enough hitter to hit for himself on days that he pitches and DH on days that he doesn’t. Are there other reasons (such as their conditioning program) that would not allow them to play such a role?
As a continued hijack to this thread - if Ruth was a rookie in the Major Leagues today, would he ever have made the switch? I very strongly suspect he would not have done so. Really good pitchers seem much more hard to get than good hitters these days.
Definitely don’t think he’d make a switch. Not only is good pitching hard to find, good lefty pitching is almost impossible to find.
One reason they wouldn’t do this is that it’s more likely that even the worst guy off the bench is a better hitter than the best pitcher, no matter how good Mike Hampton is at hitting. Now one reason to to it would be for the manager to save his bench and possibly concede an out when the pitcher does bat (in other words, same as any other NL game). The thing is, though, both teams need to play by the same rules in the same game - so if one team uses a DH, the other hasta.
Cardinal, I’m still here. This is turning into a really interesting thread.
Airman, that was a very funny link. It sounds like Germany Schaefer was quite a character. I bet it was fun to watch him playing.
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<note to self>Check who is logged in before posting</note to self>
It was me who posted the above post. Doh!!
Rick
Aww geez. I read the posts and would have been content had a Yankee or even Boston Red Sox fan posted.
First off - the junior league (american) no longer plays Baseball. The Pitcher does not bat. George Herman (Babe) Ruth used to pitch for the Boston Red Sox. Indeed, he still has the highest winning percentage for a pitcher in The World Series. Babe Ruth knew how to pitch and hit. Whitey Ford was a winning Yankee pitcher - he too was familiar with using a wooden stick to hit a ball. He was no Babe Ruth.
The fans in NY do not show up fashionably late nor do they leave early. When a NY team clinches a title, NYC does not turn into a battleground of upturned cars set on fire.
That being said, I do not like the Yankees and I despise their fans. In July 2000 I went to an ‘interleague’ game at Shea Stadium - Mets home - that was littered with Yankee fans.
In October 2000, I was at Shea Stadium to see the Yankees win the World Series with a massive percentage of Yankee ‘fans’ at Shea Stadium.
I cannot not like Jeter or Joe Torre, and Joe picked a favourite Met - Robin Ventura to complete the infield.
I hate the Yankees – and let me count the ways with Clemens;)
Oops - I don’t depise Yankee fans.
And that last bit was about the All-star game. It was really cool for Joe Torre to name Robin Ventura.
nuff said
I just checked the rules (I do love baseball-almanac.com)
This makes sense - both teams have to have the option of using the DH, but neither must use the DH.
And I challange the idea that the worst hitting player on the team is * always* going to better than the pitcher. I’ll use Hampton because he’s the best current example. Hampton hit .291 last year, with a .582 slugging percentage and 7 home runs. He’s hitting .375 this year. You can claim that those numbers have been inflated by Coors Field, and you’d be right - but Coors field can’t be the only reason that since 1998 he’s a .295 batter (unless my math is off) since 2 of those years were spent in Houston, in the old Astrodome which was a notoriously hitter-unfriendly park. Even when you include his first three seasons, with two awful hitting years, and one mediocre one, he’s still a career .251 hitter with a career OBP of .301.
Is he an anomoly? Absolutely. The worst player on the bench a better hitter than him? I don’t buy it.
Yeah, but those two years he was in Houston, he didn’t play at the Astrodome, he played at Enron, didn’t he? I forget when the new park was built - but Enron/Astros field is known for being a mini-Coors.
Also, sure - he’s hitting .375 now. In how many ABs? I don’t question he’s a good hitting pitcher; I question he’s a good hitting hitter. His .375 would turn into .245 or worse over a full season, as pitchers were more accustomed to throwing to him. (Most pitchers are so bad in the batter’s box because they have no idea what’s coming and want to get out of there, pronto - all the pitcher has to do, usually, is throw it hard, down the middle. Hampton’s better than most because he knows how to hit fastballs and curves, but inevitably he’d be thrown an offspeed, a slider, a sinker, a cutter, anything, and he’d be toast.)
Nope. “Ten-run” Field opened in 2000, and he was with the Mets that year. You are right - .375 in one portion of one year doesn’t really mean anything. That’s why I checked the stats for the last 4 & 1/2 years as well as the career stats. It is possible that if he hit every day, he would not do as well. However, considering the fact that most hitters say that to hit well, you need to hit every day, he might do as well or better. He might not. The wear of having to hit every day plus prepare to pitch every 5th day might be too much for him.
I also don’t believe that opposing pitchers are facing him unaware that he can hit and are just satisfied throwing him fastballs and curves.
Considering how Hampton has pitched since joining Colorado, maybe he should start shagging more fly balls 
Hope your kids are enjoying that great Denver school system, Mike:p
Another question: What’s with the RHP vs LHP matchups against batters?
Ooh, I’ll take this one! Because of the angle from which the ball is delivered, a left handed hitter will by and large be more successful against a right handed pitcher, while a right handed batter will be more successful against a left handed pitcher. Similarly, left handed pitchers have a better time with left handed hitters, and vice versa.
Now obviously, this doesn’t apply across the board; some players are exceptions. However, as a generalization, it works when planning your strategy for a game. So let’s say that you’re managing a team like the New York Mets in a series against the New York Yankees. The first pitcher you face is a right-handed pitcher, Orlando Hernandez. Your best players - Mike Piazza, Edgardo Alfonso, theoretically if not in practice Mo Vaughn - will play no matter what, even though the first two are right handed and thus will be somewhat less successful against Hernandez than against a left handed pitcher. But in selecting your starting center fielder, you have two choices: Timo Perez and Jay Payton. Perez is left handed, Payton right handed, and in terms of skill are roughly the same. Conventional wisdom would start Perez in this case, because as a lefty he’d give more trouble to Hernandez (unless Payton is hot, or Perez is slumping, or historically struggles against Hernandez). The next day, against Andy Pettite, a left handed pitcher, you’d start Payton.
So let’s say it’s the seventh inning, and Perez is coming up. You’re managing the Yankees, and Hernandez is getting tired. The bases are loaded, with two outs, and you really need to get Perez out. You have two relievers, lefty Mike Stanton and righty Ramiro Mendoza, ready to come in. You will probably select Stanton, because as a lefty he’ll cause trouble for Perez (though the Mets might pinch hit for Perez with a righty hitter if you do that).
Frequently, some left handed relief pitchers might be brought in just to get a single out against a left handed batter. The problem is, if your lefty specialist fails, then you might have a string of right handed hitters up next; you’d then have to bring in another reliever, which means you’ve burned one of your pitchers and still not even gotten the out - this can lead to trouble in later innings if you start running out of pitchers.
All part of the complex series of decisions that make baseball my favorite sport to watch.
- FCF
Thanks, storyteller, but why is it easier for a lefty batter to hit a RHP than a LHP? Easier to see the ball, or angle that the ball takes to the plate?
Yes, but storyteller, where are you playing - Yankee or Shea Stadium? If at Shea, who made the last out? Is Hernandez scheduled to hit 2nd at the top of the 8th? If your lefty specialist fails, you’ll have to burn yet another reliever.
The additional layer of complexity that not having a DH creates is why I’m a NL fan (well that, and the fact that the D-Backs play in the NL. But I was an NL fan before the D-Backs were a gleam in Jerry Colangalo’s eye).
For anyone who likes this sort of thing, watch the movie Little Big League. It’s a fun, family sort of movie that you can’t really take too seriously (it’s about a 12 year old kid that inherits the Minnesotta Twins from his grandfather) but it contains a scene that has the all time greatest baseball strategy discussion that I’ve ever seen on film.