# MLB: how about a "Ghost Pinch Hitter" instead of a full time DH? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [July 10, 2012, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-how-about-a-ghost-pinch-hitter-instead-of-a-full-time-dh/627836 "2012-07-10T22:05:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2012, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-how-about-a-ghost-pinch-hitter-instead-of-a-full-time-dh/627836/41 "2012-07-13T16:56:54Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > I pulled the numbers for Ruth and Ankiel, and calculated their OPS+ as pitchers and as non-pitchers. The result, and my take on pitchers at the plate, pitching takes about 50 points off of your OPS+. Which results in most pitchers being absolute rubbish at the plate, even if they have the natural talent to be a better than average hitter. > > Ruth 151 to 208 > Ankiel 40 to 95 > Thanks to Baseball Reference for making the stats available in .csv format. > > Are there any other Pitchers turned Hitters out there to add to this analysis? George Sisler was both a pitcher and a first baseman when he came up but abandoned pitching as it because apparent he could rip it. He pitched in 15 games his rookie year and started 3 more in his second year and he pitched pretty well. After that it was just an inning every couple of years or so in a blowout where they ran out of pitchers. Sisler’s OPS that rookie season was 106, as opposed to his career 125, but that doesn’t really tell you anything, because it was his rookie season. It would be a surprise if it WASN’T lower than his career OPS. (what surprises me is that his career OPS is 125; Sisler wasn’t as good a player as John Olerud, but the .400 batting averages blow people away.) There are other examples of that sort of thing too; Lefty O’Doul started as a pitcher too, but again his OPS was lower because he was an unpolished kid; it’s hard to ascertain what effect pitching had. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2012, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-how-about-a-ghost-pinch-hitter-instead-of-a-full-time-dh/627836/42 "2012-07-13T17:48:49Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > When would that be? > > Take the best hitting pitchers that you know of and let’s see if, over their career, they are even an average hitter. I’d bet you can’t find 3 pitchers in the last 100 years who have posted an OPS+ over 100, while pitching. > > Note, feel free to pick Babe Ruth first, then try and find 2 more. OPS over 1 is a pretty tall order. How many \*catchers \*have a full season OPS over 1? 2nd basemen? When a pitcher has a higher batter average than some other position players on his team, that’s interesting to me. Dontrelle Willis, Bill Swift, Livan Hernandez, etc. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2012, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-how-about-a-ghost-pinch-hitter-instead-of-a-full-time-dh/627836/43 "2012-07-13T17:53:42Z")
> [@bup](#): > > OPS over 1 is a pretty tall order. How many \*catchers \*have a lifetime OPS over 1? 2nd basemen? He said “OPS+ over 100.” That’s not the same as OPS over 1.00. OPS+ is a comparative stat, measuring a player’s OPS against league average, which is defined as 100. So, a player with an OPS+ of 105 is slightly better than league average, and a player with OPS+ of 95 is slightly worse. A player with an OPS of 1.00 likely has an OPS+ of about 140-160, depending on the season. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2012, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-how-about-a-ghost-pinch-hitter-instead-of-a-full-time-dh/627836/44 "2012-07-13T17:55:17Z")
Oh. I’ll be back. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2012, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-how-about-a-ghost-pinch-hitter-instead-of-a-full-time-dh/627836/45 "2012-07-13T18:00:56Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > George Sisler was both a pitcher and a first baseman when he came up but abandoned pitching as it because apparent he could rip it. He pitched in 15 games his rookie year and started 3 more in his second year and he pitched pretty well. After that it was just an inning every couple of years or so in a blowout where they ran out of pitchers. > > Sisler’s OPS that rookie season was 106, as opposed to his career 125, but that doesn’t really tell you anything, because it was his rookie season. It would be a surprise if it WASN’T lower than his career OPS. (what surprises me is that his career OPS is 125; Sisler wasn’t as good a player as John Olerud, but the .400 batting averages blow people away.) Sisler had some sort of horrible injury (I forget what it was exactly) and wasn’t the same hitter when he came back in 1924 as he was in 1922 and earlier. I think his reputation (and his hall of fame case) partially rests on the “what might have been”. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2012, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-how-about-a-ghost-pinch-hitter-instead-of-a-full-time-dh/627836/46 "2012-07-13T23:01:58Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > Sisler had some sort of horrible injury (I forget what it was exactly) and wasn’t the same hitter when he came back in 1924 as he was in 1922 and earlier. I think his reputation (and his hall of fame case) partially rests on the “what might have been”. Sinus infection, actually. ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2012, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-how-about-a-ghost-pinch-hitter-instead-of-a-full-time-dh/627836/47 "2012-07-14T17:58:08Z")
I’m not sure exactly how this figures into the discussion, but the San Francisco Giants used Madison Bumgarner as a pinch hitter a couple of times last year. I don’t recall him being terribly successful at it, though. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2012, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-how-about-a-ghost-pinch-hitter-instead-of-a-full-time-dh/627836/48 "2012-07-15T04:54:40Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Are there any other Pitchers turned Hitters out there to add to this analysis? Smokey Joe Wood-- Pitcher for the Red Sox , then outfielder for the Indians ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2012, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-how-about-a-ghost-pinch-hitter-instead-of-a-full-time-dh/627836/49 "2012-07-15T11:13:07Z")
Little more data Sisler Rookie year OPS+ 106 1916 - 1922 OPS+ 157 1923 Sinusitis 1924 - 1930 OPS+ 99 Smokey Joe Wood 1908 -1917 - OPS+ 89 1918 - 1922 - OPS+ 116 ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2012, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-how-about-a-ghost-pinch-hitter-instead-of-a-full-time-dh/627836/50 "2012-07-15T11:26:40Z")
Since this thread has at least somewhat devolved into a DH-or-no discussion, I’m surprised nobody has brought up the minors. According to Wikipedia, A ball and the rookie leagues are entirely DH, and AA and AAA only have pitchers hit in games between two NL affiliates. It would seem that sometime during the past 40 years, MLB has decided that, at the margin, it makes more sense to get a few extra AB’s to everyday players, and let pitchers’ hitting skills atrophy earlier and more completely than they did back in the pre-DH days. Given that developmental environment, having the pitcher bat for himself in MLB makes far less sense to me than if the minors still operated under pre-DH rules. I’d long been under the impression that the AL was the exception in an otherwise DH-free world, but apparently it’s practically the other way around. Even amateur baseball, including the NCAA, largely uses the DH. I see the OP’s idea as a way of compromising between DH and non-DH, and getting everybody on the same page again. The idea of being able to pinch-hit for the pitcher once a a game without having to take the pitcher out isn’t a bad one, with that goal in mind, but I agree with mhendo that the PH should be treated like any other PH: once he’s out of the game, he’s out. Either he replaces a player in the field in the next half-inning, or his day is over, just like a regular PH. But finding out that, by and large, pitchers don’t hit in the minors, has really changed my view of the desirability of a compromise. If you’re not even giving pitchers their normal ABs in the minors, then you’ve already made the call. Pitchers aren’t hitters, and that’s that. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2012, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-how-about-a-ghost-pinch-hitter-instead-of-a-full-time-dh/627836/51 "2012-07-15T14:53:17Z")
This idea of letting pitchers hitting skills atrophy got me searching, and I found an interesting article by [Nate Silver](http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2004/04/no_hitter.html). > [@](#): > > Pitcher hitting wasn’t always so putrid. In the 1870s, the average pitcher had an OPS (on base percentage plus slugging percentage) equal to 84 percent of the OPS of an average position player. By the 1920s, it had slipped to 66 percent; in the 1950s, 58 percent. By the 1970s, things had gotten so ugly—52 percent—that a restraining order (the designated-hitter rule) mandated that American League hurlers must stay 60 feet from home plate at all times. In the 31 years since the advent of the DH, things have gotten only worse: In the aughts, pitchers are managing an OPS of .365, just 47 percent of that of everyday players. Relative Pitcher OPS has lost 5 additional percent since the DH came in, not at all out of line with the general trend over the last 100+ years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-how-about-a-ghost-pinch-hitter-instead-of-a-full-time-dh/627836.md?page=2)