This has been answered, but it’s rare that you reach that stage (certainly not in a nine inning game). And there are always pitchers who could be pressed into service – the previous day’s starter, for instance, could play the outfield. Back in 1986, the Mets had two players thrown out of the game, leading to a bunch of switches – the catcher moved to third base, the backup catcher entered the game, the pitcher (Jesse Orosco, a left hander) moved to left field and another pitcher (Roger McDowell, a right hander) entered the game. Orosco and McDowell would switch positions to get a favorable matchup.
Unlikely. You want a left hander to take on dangerous left handed batters in tough situations and lefty-vs.-lefty splits for a pitcher are often very favorable to them. Players see fewer lefties, for one thing…
If a lefty can get both right and left handers out, they will be a regular reliever. But there is a lot of value in a lefty who can consistently get left handed batters out, even if he’s not so good against righties.
Starting pitchers are expecting to pitch to the same batter multiple times in the course of a game. Increasingly, a reliever is only expecting to throw once to any given batter. The slight edge gained by the windup is less important when the batter is only going to see you throw 5-7 pitches at him. The more important thing to that pitcher is that he control the game. He’s put in there for one purpose - don’t let them score for 1 inning (maybe 2, but maybe only 1 at-bat).
We almost had the same situation tonight: due to injuries, the Mets used up all their position players, with their backup catcher playing third base for the first time in his career. If anyone else had been injured, a pitcher would have had to play the field.
That helps illustrate the problem of having 12 pitchers, even 13, on the roster. The typical number was 10 not so long ago, in the days of 4-man rotations. It’s an even tighter constraint if you have a full-time DH too.
But the big bullpen is not going away, and it’s probably time to go to 26 or 27 man rosters, to keep games from getting farcical and players from getting hurt doing unfamiliar things.
I think that another part of it is that relievers are more likely to be called into the game with runners on base, and therefore more likely to be pitching from the stretch. Couple that with the fact that relievers are typically not as sound in terms of pitching mechanics as starters are, and there’s another reason why they might want to only use one delivery. BTW, one starter that only pitches from the stretch is Carlos Carrasco of the Indians - he credits that with helping him develop the way he did last season.
Going from windup to stretch is really not that difficult. I’m curious, though, why you say relievers’ mechanics are typically not as sound as starters’. I would agree that some get away with a more quirky delivery since they don’t throw as many innings. But I’ve never heard anyone make that observation and frankly, never put much thought into it.
This has probably been covered, but one of the big reasons pitchers aren’t generally good hitters is because they practically never get to swing the bat after high school.
In high school, your best pitchers are generally your best overall athletes and oftentimes your best hitter, too. Even using the DH, the coach will have the DH bat for some other player (say, the right fielder, says the guy speaking from personal experience, even though I finished the year with a higher batting average than our DH). As you move into higher levels (college and the minors), pretty much every position player is skilled enough to swing the bat. Since nearly every league from high school through the majors uses the DH (except for the NL, of course), pitchers practically never get to bat as they move up the ranks. So, when and if they do get the opportunity, they’re facing far more skilled pitchers than they were used to in high school, with the serious disadvantage of hardly ever getting the chance to step into the box and swing the bat.
With the count 3 and two and two outs why is the batter looking to the third base coach for a sign? What possible sign could be transmitted in that situation?
The primary reason pitchers are poor hitters is pretty much the same reason NHL goalies aren’t usually very good at dribbling basketballs. A pitcher’s hitting skill is an irrelevance; it has so little to do with their success that giving up any degree of pitching skill to get hitting skill isn’t worth it. They are not selected for their hitting ability, so there’s no reason you’d expect them to be able to hit.
As kids, of course they’re often the best hitters - but they’re probably also the best at ten other sports, too. The slight difference between “major league hitter” and “nope” is not evident in high school.
No. In High School baseball and many amateur leagues the DH can bat in place of any other fielder as well.
And BTW in college baseball, the DH can only bat for the pitcher, but one player can serve both roles. If he is relieved as a pitcher, he can continue as the DH. If he’s pinch-hit for as DH, he can continue to pitch.
It’s true. We often DH’d for one of our outfielders when I was in high school.
To be honest, I thought the same rule applied all the way up to MLB, but why would any team ever DH for someone other than the pitcher?
Why isn’t a caught foul tip an automatic out? I know the rule (it’s not out unless 3rd strike etc), but - the ball hit the bat, the ball was caught. LOGICALLY, it’s no different to a pop-up caught by the catcher.
Coming from a cricket background where the bowlers deliberately try to get the batsman out via the equivalent of foul tips, it’s odd.
I’m just wondering what is the justification behind the rule. If the answer is ‘It just is’, well, that’s fine. There’s a lot of weird rules in sports.
Wild guess-It takes no skill to catch a foul tip. There’s no way to react in time so any caught tip didn’t really change direction enough to count. Still doesn’t explain the 3rd strike.
It can be really hard to tell the difference between a foul tip and a missed swing. I’m sure it’s common that a batter barely grazes the ball, so that the path of the pitch isn’t deflected much. By treating a foul tip the same as a swing-and-a-miss, they avoid a lot of hard (and possibly incorrect) judgment calls.
If it’s not caught it’s not a foul tip. The definition of a foul tip is “a batted ball that goes sharp and direct from the bat to the catcher’s hands and is legally caught.”
The rules leave a hard judgment call for the home plate umpire: when the batter swings with two strikes and the catcher drops the ball, the umpire has to decide whether it was a foul ball or a missed swing.
BTW, the grammar in the definition of a foul tip has always bothered me. It should say, “sharply and directly,” not “sharp and direct.”
