What is the difference between a designated hitter (DH) which can only be used in the American Leauge and a “pinch hitter” that can be used in both leagues. Could a national leauge team get around the “no DH” rule by substituting a pinch hitter for the pitcher?
Short answer: the DH is part of the actual lineup, whereas the pinch hitter is inserted for (usually) the pitcher or another weak-hitting player.
NL teams frequently have someone bat for the pitcher if they’re down in the game late, or if the pitcher is tired. But once you pinch hit for someone, that someone is out of the game.
A DH bats in place of the pitcher for the whole game. It can be the same person or a replacement.
A pinch hitter refers to any replacement hitter for any player. An NL manager could pinch hit for the pitcher each time his turn in the lineup came up, but he would have to use a different hitter each time.
BobT misses one other important point - the pitcher would have to be replaced after every at bat.
Simply put, a pinch hitter takes the place of the player he is hitting for. The designated hitter rule effectively splits the pitcher position amongst two players, one who fields and one who bats, and both stay in the game indefinitely.
So why not take your 4 or 5 starting pitchers, and have each one pitch until they have to bat, then pinch-hit for them? Since they only pitch a couple innings, they should be able to pitch again in a couple days, instead of four or five. Has any manager ever tried this?
Because they have to warm up . . . warming up in and of itself takes a while. Besides, some pitchers hit better than a decent percent of their team.
This would also piss the hell out of the pitchers. And the opposing team. I suppose the networks would like it, though, as they’d get plenty of commercial time.
In 1991 I believe, Tony La Russa experimented with a system of using three pitchers per game for three innings each with an option of using his closer, Eckersley, as need be.
It was a dismal failure. The pitchers didn’t like it and that year all of the Oakland pitchers were having bad years anyway.
In the NL, it would be more difficult because you don’t know how often your pitcher’s spot is going to come up. You may end up using five pitchers a game along with 4 pinch hitters. That doesn’t leave you with many other reserves if need be. Backup catchers would rarely play as they would have to be held back for emergencies.
I suppose such an NL plan of pinch hitting for the pitcher every time is workable in September when the rosters are expanded. I look it as a sort of like a hockey team pulling its goalie at the start of the game (which was done once.)
Yeah, what those guys said. I can’t add anything to the debate about pinch hitting for your pitcher everytime he comes to bat, but this raises an interesting issue re: DH (or Designated Pitcher, as I prefer to think of it).
Having the pitcher take his own at-bats influences the strategy of the game. Should the pitcher be taken out in the early innings if there are men on base? What if he’s pitching very well? What condition is your bullpen in; can your middle relievers step in and do well?
Other strategy questions arise (they are probably endless). This is the main reason I don’t care for the DH rule. Granted, people come to the games to see hitting, but they also come to see good pitching (or good hitting vs. good pitching). I’m sure the St. Louis Browns packed 'em in (relatively speaking) when it was known that someone like Bob Feller was pitching for the opposing club.
Maybe I should have started a whole 'nother thread on this, but since I’ve already hijacked this one, comments? BobT? Chaim? iampunha?
Actually, manager Tony La Russa proposed using pitchers in three-inning stints once; it wasn’t connected o pinch hitting, but it’s an idea that been floated.
The basic reason you don’t do this is because you end up using your best pitchers less. If you leave your starters in the game as long as possible without blowing their arms out, you’re maximizing the amount your best pitchers pitch. Using a more staggered rotation means you’ll have inferior pitchers pitching innings that otherwise would have gone to your aces.
Having your starters pitch more innings also allows you more flexibility and strategy in using your relievers. If you have to replace your pitcher whenever his spot in the lineup comes around, you’re locked into using at least 3 or 4 and often five pitchers a game at specific times. You can’t save more pitchers for late-inning situations where you can use righties or lefties in key platoon situations (for those who don’t know, “platooning” is an aspect of strategy whereby the hitting team tries to get righthanded hitters to face lefthanded pitchers and vice versa, while the pitching team tries to arrange the opposite. Almost all hitters hit better against the opposite type of pitching.) If you’ve already used three or four relief pitchers by the time the eigth inning rolls around, your options are limited.
I’ve always wondered what would happen if you had nine closers on your team and they all pitched one inning. Of course, it would be real difficult to fit nine quality closers under the salary cap, but that aside, would it work? Unless somone got rocked, no batter would see the same pitcher twice in a game. Warming up wouldn’t be a real problem, because you’re not waiting for the pitcher spot to come up in the batting order, you’re going to switch every inning, so you can get the guy up and throwing in the previous inning or earlier depending on the guy you want to use. You could have the same guy pitch the 5th inning every game and he’d end up with something like 50 wins on the season, which would be cool for him. With nine position players and maybe 11 pitchers on your staff, there are 4 spots left over for pinch hitters and one for the backup catcher. You could bat your pitcher in non-critical situations and use pinch hitters every other time in all but the longest games. Imagine facing a tough closer every at bat for the whole game. It would be intimidating.
The plan above sounds a lot like the All-Star game, which in recent years has been dominated by pitchers. Each pitcher usually only goes one inning and comes out throwing his best stuff. The losing team is the one who has one pitcher who is having an off night.
You don’t want to, generally, take out a pitcher until he shows signs of ineffectiveness. These signs vary from throwing two or three homerun balls consecutively to doing the Rick Ankiel to . . . well, other stuff.
If you have four relievers to waste and your next starter is going to throw a complete game shutout, and you want to piss off your pitcher, go ahead and do that. But you’re not showing a lot of confidence in your pitcher, and chances are a pinch-hitter isn’t going to make that much of a difference anyway.
Besides that, middle relief and closers tend to get rocked for more runs, on average, than starters. Starters are generally better than relief, which is because they basically have to be.
And yes, I’m leaving out a lot of situational stuff and not showing too much data, but it’s 2 bloody AM and I don’t feel like looking up the average ERA for starters and relievers overall and from the 4th inning on. Someone with a paying ESPN Insider account can look up those crazy stats.
Although I’m an NL guy, I’ve never felt any personal opposition to the DH. Not many people come to the park today to see a good pitcher. Possibly, Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson, but that’s about it.
Tell people that Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa is coming in and the fans will be there in big numbers.
I’m not sure that people like to come to the ballpark to see strategy. I might, but that’s just me.
BobT, some comedian I heard a few months ago said this:
“Letting someone hit for the pitcher is like letting Larry Bird shoot free throws for Shaq.” Or something to that effect.
I prefer to see good pitching than blowouts. And I enjoy strategy as well . . . it’s nice when a game isn’t 6-5 all solo shots. Have a double steal, or someone try to fake their way to the catcher erring on a stolen base throw. Call a balk once in a while. Make the game scratch ‘n’ claw.
Baseball doesn’t have a salary cap, but it still wouldn’t work.
The problem with using nine one-inning closers is;
- It’ll be a strategic catastrophe, and
- You’ll wreck all their arms.
Point 2 first; your plan would blow out every arm in the bullpen by July. Even if you carry twelve pitchers, each pitcher would have to pitch an average of 120 games a year. No major league pitcher has ever come close to that; the record is 106, and that’s much higher than the next highest (nobody else has pitched 100 games in a season.) Relief pitchers who pitch 80 times a year are extremely likely to have shoulder and elbow injuries.
You can’t realistically carry more than 11-12 pitchers, since you only have 25 guys on the team anyway, so a “nine closers” plan just can’t be done.
Point 1: Even if you didn’t wreck their arms, you have very few strategic options in-game. If by the ninth inning you’ve already used eight pitchers, you’ll have next to no bullpen left, since we have to assume your 2-3 extra pitchers need to rest sometime. If the game goes into extra innings, you’re screwed. If your ninth inning closer gets into trouble, you have nobody left to replace him.
Plus, if you use your pinch hitters to hit for the pitchers, you have no options left on the bench, either.
One other point of this, is that when the pitcher has to bat, he’s more worried about hitting players with the ball, because he can be hit back by the opposing pitcher. Some speculate that this is why Roger Clemens didn’t pitch at Shea during the recently ended Subway Series, because of the whole Mike Piazza thing.
Taking the liberty of the inexact quote, baseball writer Bill James once wrote that the DH actually increases strategy. The gist of his argument, which I agree with, is this: You’re pitcher comes to bat early in the game with men on base you have to have him bunt. What’s so ‘strategic’ about that? With the DH, bunting in such a situation is an option and not a requirement. A team can decide to bunt or not to bunt. With the pitcher comes to the plate, there is no real option. Every one in the park knows he’s going to bunt, unless he wants to use his .150 batting average to swing away, which isn’t a real option.
Similarly, when you’re behind in the late innings and the pitcher’s spot comes up, you have to pinch hit for him. It isn’t an option, unless you want to have him use his .150 batting average again. With the DH, when to pinch hit is a choice, not a requirement. Strategy comes from making choices, not from having choices virtually required in certain situations.
The strategy in National League games revolves around the pitcher’s spot in the batting order to a great degree, due to the weakness of most pitchers as hitters. Teams will intentionally walk the guy in front of the hitter in order to get to the pitcher’s spot. This is considered great NL strategy. Me, I want to see the pitcher try to get the batter out, and the batter try to get a hit without all teh hoo-ha about the pitcher’s spot in the order.