Excellent observation - supporters of modern baseball need not concede the “I heart strategy!” point. For example, Red Sox fans are still upset with Grady Little for sending Pedro back out for the eighth inning in Game 7 against the Yankees in 2003. That was a strategic decision you wouldn’t see in the NL, and it meant a lot more than any pinch-hitting move.
The rule does not require you to use a DH. If you want to let Bumgarner hit, let him hit. If it’s his day off and he’s that useful with a bat, let him be the DH. Note the fact that pitchers who can be useful at the plate are so rare that they can be named individually, btw.
The DH is almost exactly as specialized a position as the pitcher.
I would never want to see baseball split into two squads, one for offense and one for defense, except for the all-star game. That might be an interesting spectacle.
There’s no way of knowing what the lineup would have been without the DH, so no way of knowing if the #9 spot would have been up in the next half-inning. But there’s a 2/3 chance it wouldn’t have. Also, Pedro might not have gone all-out in the seventh if he’d been able to predict Grady not seeing it and making a dumb move (“but it was Strategy!”).
Point being, there’s strategy in baseball outside the single non-DH league too. It just looks different, and is* in alignment* rather than opposition to using the best players’ talents the best way.
Yes, the point of the DH would be to make the pitcher more of a specialized position. Don’t you understand we National League fans DON’T WANT THAT. You obviously don’t understand why we love the game and just parroting out that “it’s more entertaining” completely misses the point.
And I simply can’t understand that if its ok for the pitcher to be specialized, why my Mets couldn’t have made Rey Ordonez a specialized defensive SS in the 2000s?
Wrong. The position is already specialized and always has been. The point, as you should know after more than forty years, is to eliminate the farce of making him try to do something he can’t, clogging up lineups, ending rallies, get more good bats in the lineup, and, the thing that really matters to MLB, improving the entertainment experience for the customers of its business.
I do understand that you’re wrong and stubborn about it, yes. But why do you think it is that all the rest of baseball has the DH, quite happily, and has for probably longer than you’ve been alive?
If you’re not willing even to consider the fact that you’re wrong, much less why, then don’t be surprised at the derision your clinging to archaism receives. The NL is stuck in the past, the only league to be, and it is the NL’s responsibility and those of the fans who harbor a nostalgia for the old days that it represents, to defend their stance. The DH is the default, taking exception requires defense, and you don’t have any supportable way to do it.
It doesn’t matter if it’s ok or not. It is, and always has been, and has to be. It’s a fact, and inescapable.
Your logical fallacies have already been explained and repetition will not help you. If all you have left to offer is footstomping and recalcitrance, then it’s time to reconsider your position.
Or not - strong speculation is that the NL will be required to cut the shit and leave the 19th century behind in the next CBA. It won’t take a full season for you to look back and laugh about how you could ever have thought killing rallies four times a game was a good thing. But it won’t even matter if you do.
No, I’m not at all excited about that, because that would be stupid. If my team’s ace pitcher has a shutout going with his best heat and a sharp breaking ball, there’s no way in hell he’s going to be pulled for a pinch-hitter.
Unless perhaps the score is 0-0 in the 9th inning of a playoff game, in which case it might be worth it to pull him in order to have a good chance at plating what might well turn out to be the game-winning run. In that scenario, it’s a tough decision that the manager faces, and yes, I’m am excited to see that.
Because it’s the same idea as having the DH, only 9 times worse…and even AL fans couldn’t stomach that.
I could actually get behind this idea, if they would end the stupid “the All Star Game winning league gets home field advantage in the World Series” rule.
If regular-season interleague play didn’t exist, there’d probably be more. But teams are now forced to distort their lineups pretty regularly, and more fans now see the rules discrepancy as being untenable any longer. So does MLB itself, per rumor.
Actually, it is a huge leap. You’re talking about going from one DH to nine. You’re talking about removing one guy from the lineup whose BA is on average 100 points lower than every other player.
This comment makes it sound like NL teams actually take pitchers’ hitting ability into consideration. I promise you they don’t. Madison Bumgarner could hit .000 and he would still start every 5th game for the Giants. Not only that, but he’d still fetch huge contract offers from NL teams when he becomes a FA. Teams don’t care if pitchers can hit because the position is already specialized.
To the DH question. Why limit it to just pitchers? Did you know that there are hundreds of minor league players who are much better defenders than almost all major leaguers BUT who can’t hit a lick? They hit worse than most pitchers, but are spectacular with the glove. Why not let them play defense and just have a designated offensive player. Make it like football, an offense and a defense.
Also, you know what I hate. I hate watching Adrian Gonzalez or Prince Fielder get on base and then have the guy at the plate hit what should be a triple but those mooks on base are so slow that it ends up only being a single. Why not just have a bunch of track stars run the bases. Designated runners for everyone. The best sluggers are almost always slow especially as they get older.
I propose that we separate the game into three phases. Hitting, base running and defense. Each phase has its own designated player. This would clearly be the most fun because players would only be doing what they do best, right?
You post as if the DH rule was a mere proposal, unproven, with the effects on the game unknown. Wrong. It isn’t - it’s in place everywhere else in baseball, and has been since 1973. The DH rule is the default, it is what baseball is, and those who wish to take exception to it have the burden of justifying their resistance.
Once upon a time pitchers were not automatic outs. Maybe they weren’t fantastic hitters, but most short stops aren’t either. Maybe the game won’t ever go back to that, but I think that the DH robs something from the game. It simply existing robs it from the NL a bit too, but putting it in place for everyone will rob it from the game completely.
You may be right that this is inevitable, but that doesn’t mean that I have to like it. The argument for the DH is that we shouldn’t have to watch bad hitters hit. In all seriousness, why not just go to designated hitters for every position and designated fielders? The quality of hitting and fielding will go up across the board.
The main argument for the DH is that that is what baseball is, and has been for over forty years, and it’s time for the NL to get on board. Arguing against something nobody is proposing is a waste of keystrokes.
In 1830 slavery was the default position too. Doesn’t make it right. It isn’t what baseball is at all. It is a perversion that has corrupted and defiled God’s Own Sport, and it and its adherents are doomed to be cast into the Pit of Eternal Torment, forever to bewail their heresy.
