My problem with the DH rule isn’t that the pitcher never bats - though that is something that “feels wrong” from a purist point of view - but that there is such a thing as a full time, even career DH.
You may say “a pitcher is not really SUPPOSED to hit”, and have a point. But a position player is supposed to have a position, which means a fielding position. If a DH is like a permanent pinch hitter, then like a pinch hitter’s traditional role, it should be a rotating bench/utility slot.
If I were Commissioner, I’d make a rule that no player could have no more than 250 PAs (plate appearances) in a season as a DH. You wanna play a guy every day? Get him a glove or send him down!
I love David Ortiz, but the fact that he is a megastar who has been a DH since his early 20s is terrible. It’s not his fault, he can play an OK 1B, but as a career ALer he’s never had an incentive to improve. To me he should be playing 1B most of the time, at least 2/3rds, to be a real baseball player and not just a hitter. And/or his GM or manager should have to live with his sub par defense to keep his mighty bat in the lineup.
According to Baseball Reference, he’s played in 1,969 games over 17 regular seasons, with 8,249 PAs (plate appearances) - and only 2,054 innings as a fielder (at 1B). And most of that comes from Interleague games, since his rookie year was 1997 (the first year of Interleague regular season play). Compare that with Jeff Bagwell, who retired with 9,431 PAs and 18,521.1 (1/3) innings played in the field (just about all at 1B).
“I really wish I could spend more of my life watching Dwight Howard (or Shaq before him) helplessly fling the ball at the basket during free throws” - No fans of the NBA after the designated free throw shooter rule suggested by Bayard.
It’s not necessarily that we want to watch Howard and Shaq miss free throws, or a fat designated hitter flail at the ball in the field, but that there are, and should be, consequences to playing an NBA player who can’t shoot or a MLB player who can’t field. And there should be benefits to having a big man who can shoot, a team solely made of good fielders, or, yes, a pitcher who can hit.
So? Before the rule, you had full-time, even career pinch-hitters. The rule was largely to let them get in the game more. Look up Rusty Staub, Manny Mota, Dave Kingman for a few examples. Eliminate the rule and you’d merely take away 3 AB’s per game from David Ortiz. Plus you’d have to watch pitchers bat and get pulled prematurely.
For the record:
I really wish I could spend more of my life watching pitchers hit, and watching managers make tougher and more interesting substitution decisions.
And, yes, I am a fan of an AL team whose current DH is competent enough to be a WS MVP. (I’d like to watch him field more, too.)
How about “The DH is to baseball as tomatoes are to clam chowder?”
Yes, of course, it’s far more fascinating and fun to witness a manager exploring the intricacies of the double switch than to actually watch good hitters hit and good pitchers pitch, isn’t it?
While I personally wouldn’t say the NL version “sucks,” this is the root of the issue. The AL started in 1901 as a wholly separate competitor to the NL, much like the AFL to the NFL. The leagues survived as separate entities for decades, only having an overall commissioner since the 1920s, and never meeting except for All-Star games and World Series. They had separate league administrations, separate umpiring crews and equipment (with different strike zones), and yes, differing rules once the DH was instituted in the AL.
Why not? Why shouldn’t two separate leagues who just happen to be playing the same sport have differing rules? The AFL had the two-point conversion. The ABA had the red-white-and-blue basketball and the three-point shot. Why not?
(And yes, I’m aware that the umpiring crews have been unified and the AL and NL exist now as mostly a fiction of separate entities, mainly for statistical and sentimental reasons. Doesn’t mean I have to like it. Damn interleague play, screwing up almost a century of history. Harrumph.)
I’d say it’s more like making your quarterback play both ways.
Think about how different the game might be if either your quarterbacks had to be tough, fast and agile enough to play some sort of defensive back position, or if the defenses essentially had to play a man down because the quarterbacks would be effectively useless.
The occasional Randall Cunningham/Michael Vick/Colin Kaepernick style quarterback might be able to pull it off well on both sides of the ball, but for most teams, you’d either have a less than awesome QB who is a competent DB as well, or a good QB who’s a less than stellar DB.
That being said, I’m not a fan of the DH. Pitchers aren’t special, and neither are quarterbacks. Pitchers should be able to hit and field as well as pitch, and quarterbacks should be able to do more than simply throw the ball.
Yes it is. The casual fan wants a game with 10 home runs. I like to watch a game with strategy. It doesn’t stop me from being a fan of an American League team. But I appreciate the NL game more.
How about if the NFC kept the normal rules, but the AFC decided that there would be no kickoffs, that all possessions started at the 30 yard line. There would be some NFC teams that have good kickers, kick coverage and kick returners that would be disadvantaged by such a change.
Personally, I think that the DH rule is a bit silly, but it’s far less silly than the convolutions NL teams go through to deal with the same problem. All of what Loach considers strategy, I consider to be a distraction from the heart of baseball. If I want to see strategy, I’ll watch a chess match. If I want to see sports, then I’ll watch sports.
You are the manager of a NL team. Your pitcher is performing flawlessly. But you need runs. Do you pull the pitcher for a bat, and hope that the reliever can perform as well? Or do you keep the pitcher in the game and hope your normal lineup comes through? This is the beauty of the NL. It is a complicated decision for the manager. And I love it.
It isn’t really strategy, or even much thought. It’s just playing a hunch, and little more “complicated” and “beautiful” than a coin flip. The result either way is to take one or more of the team’s best performers off the field, so you have the privilege of watching some lesser lights instead. If you love that, you’re welcome to it.
There certainly are some pitchers capable of swinging a bat very well. And then there’s the dilemma about whether to back a batter off that’s crowding the plate or to send him a message whatever the reason when you know you yourself might be up there as well in the other half of the inning.
There are so few good-hitting pitchers that you can name them individually. As for the retaliation stuff, that’s been pretty much umpired out of the game in recent years.
I’m in the camp that likes to see the best hitters vs. the best pitchers. I don’t want to have to pull my stud starting pitcher because we have a scoring opportunity in the 7th.
AL teams are not required to use the DH, by the way. It’s an option that every single AL manager takes advantage of because the alternative is silly.
I’m well familiar with the history of Kingman and Staub. They were great situational hitters, but incomplete players.
My post was a suggestion for a way to make the DH palatable to me. Let Ortiz bat 5 times a game, every game, and let there be a substitute hitter for the pitcher, but he has to play the field a majority of the time to do so.
Its weird because of the intense specialization that the game requires. Most sports that I know of require you to be good at the entire thing and its weird when you can be good at a niche skill and still be on top of the game. It wouldn’t be odd if it didn’t stand out so much but it stands out because it is odd.