The DH: Curse or Menace?

[Amazinz]

It is an old argument. But it's not like this was some new crusade by the "purists" to convince the AL to let go of the crutch. Less obvious since the thread was merged, this was more about Steinbrenner's idiocy and hubris suggesting the NL should "join" the inferior format.

[Yoda]

So why should one of my great gloves have to dedicate himself to hitting, then? Or one of my nine hitters to even bringing a glove to the park?

Why? Because they would be out of a job? Is that a good enough reason or no?

It's not that far off from asking a pitcher to do one of those things.

Actually, it is very different since pitching is a highly specialized skill. Not everyone can go on the mound and throw a pitch at 95+ MPH in the strike zone. Pitchers are paid to pitch. Not based on how they field or hit. If they do then I'd like to see some evidence of this.

And one of your primary arguments here is about what you as a fan would rather see. Does it not stand to follow that you'd like to see the best 9 possible fielders, the best 9 possible batters, and the best possible pitchers out there, regardless of how many of the above roles they are filling? If not, how come? Shouldn't Ozzie Smith been able to just focus on his defense and not have to get up and bat .211, .230, .222, .243, and .248 like he did from '79 to '83?

The game is getting more specialized every day. Players bring different assets to a team. Would you like to see football players play both offense and defense? If not, then how come? It is obviously as simple as dedicating some extra time practicing.

[DVauthrin]

So why should one of my great gloves have to dedicate himself to hitting, then? Or one of my nine hitters to even bringing a glove to the park? It's not that far off from asking a pitcher to do one of those things. And one of your primary arguments here is about what you as a fan would rather see. Does it not stand to follow that you'd like to see the best 9 possible fielders, the best 9 possible batters, and the best possible pitchers out there, regardless of how many of the above roles they are filling? If not, how come? Shouldn't Ozzie Smith been able to just focus on his defense and not have to get up and bat .211, .230, .222, .243, and .248 like he did from '79 to '83?

I like this train of thought. Why should a pitcher be exempt and nobody else? Catchers take the biggest physical beating so why can't they be hit for? Historically, they've been a pretty bad hitting group as well...

for a long time you could have added SS, 2B, and CF to that list as well. defense always comes first up the middle..

[ROC AllStars]

And regardless of whether or not I, or you, or anyone would rather see David Ortiz over Bartolo Colon pick up a bat, the fact remains that the initial conditions that necessitated the adoption of the DH rule no longer exist. When the rule was adopted in 1973, it was intended to drive up AL attendance and narrow the AL-NL gap. Neither of those issues are pressing today. Unless you argue that the AL would again flounder in the absence of the DH rule, which I think is absurd, then you can't really justify the maintenance of the rule. The conditions necessitating it have vanished, but the rule lingers. Just an opinion.

[Yoda]

And regardless of whether or not I, or you, or anyone would rather see David Ortiz over Bartolo Colon pick up a bat, the fact remains that the initial conditions that necessitated the adoption of the DH rule no longer exist. When the rule was adopted in 1973, it was intended to drive up AL attendance and narrow the AL-NL gap. Neither of those issues are pressing today. Unless you argue that the AL would again flounder in the absence of the DH rule, which I think is absurd, then you can't really justify the maintenance of the rule. The conditions necessitating it have vanished, but the rule lingers. Just an opinion.

And I'd like to see every football player play offense as well as defense. I mean why not? It can't be that difficult with enough practice.

[ROC AllStars]

And regardless of whether or not I, or you, or anyone would rather see David Ortiz over Bartolo Colon pick up a bat, the fact remains that the initial conditions that necessitated the adoption of the DH rule no longer exist. When the rule was adopted in 1973, it was intended to drive up AL attendance and narrow the AL-NL gap. Neither of those issues are pressing today. Unless you argue that the AL would again flounder in the absence of the DH rule, which I think is absurd, then you can't really justify the maintenance of the rule. The conditions necessitating it have vanished, but the rule lingers. Just an opinion.

And I'd like to see every football player play offense as well as defense. I mean why not? It can't be that difficult with enough practice.

I agree that pitchers can't hit as well as hitters, and that they really don't have the time to practice. I'm arguing that those considerations are irrelevant.

[mweir145]

This again? Well it's easy, the AL is clearly the superior league, and that's partly because of their use of the DH.

[KCollins1304]

I don't think hitting is nearly as easy as you think it is.

If it was so easy to do this, teams would recognize this and capitalize on it. If your pitchers could hit somewhere .220-.250, they would add a significant amount of win shares. I'm not well versed enough to give you exact numbers, but I'm confident if pitchers could become just below average hitters(fielders) then they would because it would be worth it.

When did I say hitting is easy? It's one of the hardest thing to do in sports, especially if you stop practicing it. But, again, my high school team faced Josh Beckett when he was at Spring. The guy hit near .500 with power in high school. He would have been an early pick as a hitter. You really think if he didn't continue to work on his swing in the cage as he progressed that he couldn't be a good hitter? Thing is, once he signed, he stopped putting the amount of time in the cage needed to stay sharp at the teams request i'm sure.

James Loney was both a stud pitcher, and stud left handed hitter while at Elkins. The dodgers told him to focus on being a position player, but if he had kept working as a pitcher, he had the talent to pitch in the majors...

These are just two cases. There are plenty more like them in baseball.

Sure some guys could never hit as a pitcher, but some position players struggle hitting as well. The lack of good hitting pitchers is do to the fact they stop practicing it, not their hitting talent. Teams would rather them focus all their time and energy on either pitching or hitting, but it's not like the time isn't there.

And the fact that they don't practice it and are horrible at it is enough justification for me to use the DH. If it was easy to maintain hitting while doing all the things they need to do for pitching, then you wouldn't see such horrible numbers from pitchers hitting. People wouldn't want the DH if the pitchers could hit as well as you think they are capable of.

[AdvRider]

And I'd like to see every football player play offense as well as defense. I mean why not? It can't be that difficult with enough practice.

Touché!

[DVauthrin]

I don't think hitting is nearly as easy as you think it is.

If it was so easy to do this, teams would recognize this and capitalize on it. If your pitchers could hit somewhere .220-.250, they would add a significant amount of win shares. I'm not well versed enough to give you exact numbers, but I'm confident if pitchers could become just below average hitters(fielders) then they would because it would be worth it.

When did I say hitting is easy? It's one of the hardest thing to do in sports, especially if you stop practicing it. But, again, my high school team faced Josh Beckett when he was at Spring. The guy hit near .500 with power in high school. He would have been an early pick as a hitter. You really think if he didn't continue to work on his swing in the cage as he progressed that he couldn't be a good hitter? Thing is, once he signed, he stopped putting the amount of time in the cage needed to stay sharp at the teams request i'm sure.

James Loney was both a stud pitcher, and stud left handed hitter while at Elkins. The dodgers told him to focus on being a position player, but if he had kept working as a pitcher, he had the talent to pitch in the majors...

These are just two cases. There are plenty more like them in baseball.

Sure some guys could never hit as a pitcher, but some position players struggle hitting as well. The lack of good hitting pitchers is do to the fact they stop practicing it, not their hitting talent. Teams would rather them focus all their time and energy on either pitching or hitting, but it's not like the time isn't there.

And the fact that they don't practice it and are horrible at it is enough justification for me to use the DH. If it was easy to maintain hitting while doing all the things they need to do for pitching, then you wouldn't see such horrible numbers from pitchers hitting. People wouldn't want the DH if the pitchers could hit as well as you think they are capable of.

To me the solution isn't using the DH(that's an unnecessary cop out), it's having the pitchers actually taking BP in the minors/mlb level and looking at video for at most an hour a day. That still leaves them with plenty of time to prepare for a start and/or get their throwing in for the day. A lot of them may not be stars, but could be serviceable hitters if they worked a little each day on it. And some could be really good at it.

Again, it's not time that's the issue, it is the request of the team paying their signing bonus/salary. They are so afraid they might hurt something that affects their pitching, that they have them put in minimum effort into hitting. And by doing so, you have an incident like you did with wang because he never works on running the bases because he never needs to in his league.

Stop babying pitchers and make them work on all aspects of their game is what I want to see done.