I hate the DH rule because I feel the pitcher is a position player just like any of the other players and deserves a chance at the plate. It also adds wrinkle of intrigue later in the game as the pitchers batting spot approaches and the manager at times has to make a strategic decision.
That said, I realize I live in a anachronistic fantasy world and the DH will eventually be part of all of baseball, and in today’s iPad society, then last thing the sport needs is losing young people bored of the endless pitching changes and consequent commercial breaks in the later innings of the game.
When the DH comes to the NL I won’t like it, but will accept it as a inevitable evolution of the sport.
As much as I hate the DH, the fact that starting pitchers are no longer expected to go the full 9, that little bit of strategy has already fallen by the wayside.
There’s actually very little difference in the average pitching demand between NL and AL, in terms of season IP. AL pitchers and their coaches will tell you that having to face the DH means a turn through the opposing lineup is tougher. NL pitchers and their coaches will tell you that having to bat and run is tougher. If either of these were generally true, I’d expect it to be reflected in leaguewide numbers.
I am struggling to find a reliable source for the number of pitching changes in the AL versus the NL, but a brief examination of pitchers used and complete games makes it pretty evident that both leagues coddle pitchers to an extent unprecedented in baseball history.
I have complained about this before, but the irony of this is that there is scant evidence it works in any respect at all. Pitchers are injured just as often and as badly as they ever were, and there’s precious little reason to think the constant pitching changes are helpful from a tactical point of view; using a huge number of pitchers just means you’re taking innings away from your best pitchers and giving them to your 12th or even 13th-best pitcher.
I’m a lifelong (in my late 40’s) Reds fan and DH hater, but I’m fine (now) with letting the AL keep it - I like the differences in the leagues anyway. If the NL adopts the DH my fandom will lessen considerably. I’ve seen a lot of the local minor league games (which use the DH) and it just isn’t as interesting to me.
I would be incredibly offended. So much so, I may decide to (I realize it’d be symbolic at best) boycott baseball for a year or two. I do believe on a fundamental level that if a position plays offense, it should play defense (what are we, American football?!), which is a compelling argument for some, and doesn’t work for others, but it’s just my POV.
While, in principle, I like non-DH play, the fact that the minor leagues use the DH now (according to Baseball Reference, pitchers in AA and AAA only bat in games in which both teams are affiliated with NL teams, and in A ball, they don’t bat at all, apparently) means that pitchers are getting fairly little batting experiences in the minors. And, if a NL pitcher came up through an AL team’s farm system, he’s gotten none.
As a result, while we always have some pitchers who could be classified as “respectable” batters (by pitcher standards), the vast majority are completely at sea at the plate (whether they’re being asked to hit away or bunt). The futility of those wasted at-bats, in every NL game, to me, outweighs any intrigue and strategy involved in the manager making pitching / batting shifts during close games.
Pitchers have never hit well, of course, but that just exacerbates it.
I grew up with the two leagues being different so to me that’s part of the charm of baseball; were I King of Baseball I’d probably separate the leagues even more than is currently the case, by eliminating interleague play (which would necessitate some shift or expansion, but as King of Baseball I’d add six teams anyway.)
But hey, if the NL wants the DH it’s their circus and their monkeys. As my favourite team is an AL franchise, it doesn’t affect me.
An interesting thought experiment for me is, well, what if my team had been an NL franchise all along? Personally, that would have robbed me of a chance to see Dave Winfield, and probably Paul Molitor, and the team would certainly have been less interesting without the likes of Cliff Johnson. We’d still have Edwin Encarnacion, because he’d be playing first base, but would have lacked the nice story provided by Chris Colabello last year. Removing those players and having pitchers go up and bat .150 and bunt a lot just removes interesting personalities from the game. It takes at bats away from people for whom at bats matter and are the means by which they get to play MLB and thrill millions of people and gives the at bats to guys for whom they mean basically nothing. It did not affect Greg Maddux a whit to get 1,812 plate appearances that he largely wasted, but those 1812 plate appearances could have gone to Billy McMillon or Pedro Swann or some other guy who could actually hit a little and for whom a few hundred more at bats would have actually meant something to their career and earnings.
It is cool to see a pitcher hit a home run (and yes, a Blue Jay pitcher did it once, so that was neat) but it was way, way cooler to watch Paul Molitor.
I also couldn’t find stats on number of pitching changes, but this analysis from 2012 shows AL pitchers tend to throw deeper into games, but are more likely to be removed mid-inning. Average pitch counts differed by only 1. AL teams usually have more pitchers available because they don’t need to carry as many pinch hitters on the roster, so they have more reason to make strategic pitching changes rather than performance-based.
This analysis shows little or no difference in average game length between the leagues. So even though I feel like mid-inning pitching changes slow things down and are frustrating because it breaks up the flow, either it doesn’t have as big an effect as I perceive, or there are other factors.
I think that in Real Baseball as it Ought to be Played, all players should be expected to do all of their own batting, and if there were a rule change that made that happen, I’d be in favor of it. But we don’t have that in either league. Even in the NL, pitchers are hired basically without regard for their batting ability, and it’s just accepted that the pitcher is a dead at-bat. And if a pitcher ever does come up for a particularly crucial at-bat, you swap him out for a pinch-hitter for half an inning and then swap back to a different real pitcher as soon as you take the field. In real baseball, you’d keep the pitcher in for that crucial at-bat, and if you were worried that was going to be a problem, you’d look for pitchers who were decent batters as well in the first place.
Basically, I think that the way that both leagues do it makes a mockery of the game, but if you’re going to be making a mockery of the game, then you might as well admit it.
I love the DH in the AL. I honestly don’t care if the NL adopts it or not.
I much prefer watching the players do the strategizing on the field than the managers. Where’s the strategy in blowing 3 fastballs by a crappy-hitting pitcher?
Not to mention the disadvantage NL teams are at when they play interleague games. There’s a reason the AL has a winning record over the NL the past 12 straight seasons and in 18 out of 22 season of interleague play.
I prefer no DH, but it inevitable that the NL will take it up, since pitchers coming up today have no experience batting in HS, College, or the minor leagues*. It’s tough to learn a skill when your first introduction to it is against the top players in the game.
*Yes, some minor league affiliates don’t use it, but a starter usually gets fewer PAs in five years of the minors than he will in a single year of pitching in the majors.
Fuck the DH! One of the surest Signs of the Stagnation of Civilization. Besides, the Dodgers usually have a few pitchers that can hit, so it keeps the opposition on its toes.
When I am God-Emperor, there will be no DH, no inter-league play except in Spring Training, the lights will be removed from Wrigley Field, and the Giants and Yankees will be fined a billion dollars a year for being the Giants and Yankees.
You can’t learn a skill to any significant degree you were not good at in the first place, and pitchers generally aren’t good at hitting. There have been exceptions, but if you look at the hitting records of pitchers prior to the DH but in more or less modern baseball, they couldn’t hit for crap. While practice helps, it’s largely just because as pro teams select pitchers, they don’t care if they can hit or not. Pitchers are entirely judged on their pitching - even their fielding skills aren’t really a concern, as evidence by anyone who ever watched Randy Johnson hilariously try to field his position.
I mean, when I say Johnson was bad, I don’t mean he was bad the way a major leaguer is bad. Like, Manny Ramirez was a really bad outfielder, but that’s comparing him to major leaguers. If you stuck Manny on a high school team or a competitive slo-pitch league, he’d look amazing. You would never want to hit a ball to him. Randy would have been a bad fielding pitcher on a high school team. He was hilarious. Watching him go after a ground ball was to witness a giant bag of elbows and shins rolling down a flight of stairs. Slowly. Then when he finally got to the ball he’d panic and quite often heave it away. For most of his career his fielding percentage was actually below .900 but he rallied at the end and got it just above, largely because I think he realized his limitations and stopped trying to pick up anything that wasn’t hit right at him. He also couldn’t hit, of course. It’s hard to imagine he could do anything athletic BUT pitch, but pitch he certainly could.
Long ago, Cecil pointed out the two reasons pitchers suck at hitting:
[QUOTE=Cecil Adams]
As for pitchers, they can’t hit for basically two reasons: (1) they don’t bat often enough to get good at it, and (2) natural selection.
[/QUOTE]
You’re just debating the relative weights of the two reasons, with you (RickJay) claiming #2 is by far the more significant. Myself, I’m not quite so sure.
And if pitchers’ fielding skills weren’t a concern at all, they wouldn’t award Gold Gloves to pitchers. Sure, a pitcher’s ability to actually pitch is far more important than anything else, but their other skills can make a difference and therefore do matter and make the game more interesting.
I know I’m in the minority, but I like the DH. My thought is that a batting line up should consist of nine hitters, not eight hitters and an automatic out. I’m somewhat flabbergasted that purists haven’t yet come to terms with it. Its no longer some experimental rule: the American League has been using it for almost as long as I’ve been alive. And by now it has been adopted by virtually every high-level baseball competition in the world except for the National League and one of the Japanese professional leagues. The fact is that it is the National League, not the American League, which is out of step with the rest of the baseball world with regards to the DH, though you would never know it from the rhetoric from the anti-DH side.
My response to those who argue that pitchers should have to hit like any other defensive player is that pitchers aren’t like other defensive players. The pitcher is the only player who is involved in literally every play (while he is on the field.) Their defensive role is so decisive that they are the only players who stats include wins and losses.
BTW I’m one who likes having a real distinction between the leagues. If it were up to my I would not only abolish interleague play, but also go back to having separate league offices and umpiring crews. Heck, let them have separate TV contracts while we’re at it. But, if they are going to have an interleague championship, then they should be playing the same game, and having one league with the DH and one without is IMHO too much like playing different games.