Now that the NL has moved to using a designated hitter, should baseball just go all the way and forget about players being “ironmen” and playing both offense and defense? In other words, you have your best 9 offensive players in the batting lineup and best 9 defensive players in the field and naturally there would be some crossover.
I think, sure. It would make the game more interesting and has worked well for football since they moved away from players going both ways. I am not a baseball purist. I don’t feel that what happened in 1897 where a right-handed pitcher facing a left-handed hitter in the second game of a double-header on a Tuesday and a 2-2 count has anything to do with the same scenario today. But then again, baseball fans really are fanatics and devote their lives to keeping the game as “pure” (whatever that means but I think it has to do with unwritten rules).
Ew, no. I’m not a purist (I am 100% for the DH) but I’m a die hard fan.
There would be so much idleness from all 18 players during a game. A batter will only bat an average of 3 or 4 times per game. A fielder would be involved in a handful of plays. Everyone’s muscles would be cold all the time. Games would just be 3 hours of grown men doing calisthenics to stay engaged.
The 9-to-a-side aspect is not about purity, it’s about the pace of the game. The pace of the game is completely different than that of football. There is no reason to force baseball into the mold of football.
Problem number one, from the POV of teams, is more players to pay. That ain’t gonna happen.
Another issue as far as promoting the game is more players. The game has a bit of a problem right now in that outside their cities, players are not really known, even some of the stars. By the public in general, not the true baseball fans. If you had twice the number, seems even more of a problem. I think more people would gravitate to the offensive players, not defensive ones, and the pitchers (mostly the starters at that). Is an Ozzie Smith type who never bats be a popular player, well-known even by most fans of the game? I doubt it.
As pointed out, the offensive players would be sitting on the bench most the game. Boring. Baseball is not like football which is much more physical.
A fun thing about baseball is that we can debate who the best overall player is or was. Barry Bonds is just ahead in WAR of Willie Mays. But give me Willie any day, a great outfielder. You want to take away from me the thrill of Mays at the plate and the field? No thanks.
This sums it up for me. Baseball players already sit or stand around more than other athletes in team sports during a game, so doubling down on inactivity doesn’t seem like the best move.
I think it would be pretty cool. You would probably have to move the fences back…actually, probably get rid of the fences entirely and have an endless field.
Okay, 11 guys each team. You’re probably going to need 5 outfielders.
Would the quality of play on defense between a normal 2-way baseball play and a defensive specialist even be that different? I feel like any baseball player is a good enough athlete to make almost all the plays required of them on defense, so there’s not that much room for improvement for defensive specialists. Sure, maybe you could get some outfielders that were faster, but how often is the defensive skill of baseball players the crucial difference in a play? Fatigue saved by not playing both ways is not really a factor in baseball compared to other, more taxing sports, so we’re really talking about defensive skill/physical specialization.
I guess the other question is - are there players out there that would be great hitters but just aren’t up to the capability of playing defense in the major leagues? I guess specialization would allow that too.
It would lead to even less offense. Imagine insanely good athletes at every position. Right now, we think of a guy like Goldschmidt as an excellent defender. And he is, comparatively. But he’s a big fella. Imagine an infield of Ozzie Smiths and an outfield of Ichiros. It would be fun as hell to watch, for a short period of time.
I think the NL fans are going to be salty for awhile, and with good reason. I don’t think we’re meant to take this proposal seriously, though.
Defensive skill difference can be fairly dramatic in the major leagues, and immensely different in lower levels of baseball. There absolutely are players who can hit in the major leagues but are significant defensive liabilities. They used to stick them at first base, which is where they do the least damage.
Generally speaking, however, major league ballplayers can play some position, because they’ve been working at it their whole lives.
Imagine your whole outfield could hit like the devil but defensively consisted of them all defending like Manny being Manny – or worse Dick Stuart at shortstop.
No. The designated* hitter improves the game. But your proposed rule would make a massive mess of things. Roster sizes would need to inflate to 34-35 players, most teams would be fine with an average fielder who hits, and they’d fill the extra spot with yet another relief pitcher to slow the game down.
Assuming they’d institute roster limits on which types of players you can have to limit the potential pitching problems, as mentioned by others, it wouldn’t be all that fun to watch. Roster and lineup construction are still very interesting strategic components to the game.
Honestly, with the ever growing acceptance of the “three true outcome” offensive strategy, defense gets less and less important. If you implemented separate offense and defense, the game would skew even further that way.
Not necessarily. It just means that at some positions, especially first base, the difference in hitting ability between the best and an average player is larger than the difference in defensive performance between the best player and and an average player. Someone with a good bat but only average defensive ability can be played at first base or left field without hurting the defense much. That’s a lot less true for a shortstop or catcher.
In other words, having a whole team of DHs might not make sense, but having 3, with the shortstop and catcher in addition to the pitcher, might.
ETA. Think of it this way. Someone playing fantasy baseball would have a huge advantage if they could play a first baseman or outfielder in their second base, shortstop, and catcher slot. The same would go for a real baseball team if that player got to DH.
ETA 2. Of course that’s not taking into account payroll issues. In such a system the Dodgers and Yankees of the world would be at an even bigger advantage over the Orioles or Pirates of the world.
Between left field, 1st base and the DH you can already “hide” 3 hitters. If you have a few actual 5 tool players, you’re up to 5 of the 9 being hitters. That seems to track with my memories.
Good teams have a few more. Bad teams have the hitters to hide but never get the great players.