{"id":4054,"date":"2013-03-08T09:12:49","date_gmt":"2013-03-08T14:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=4054"},"modified":"2021-02-26T09:33:44","modified_gmt":"2021-02-26T14:33:44","slug":"why-id-support-getting-rid-of-the-dh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=4054","title":{"rendered":"Why I’d support a Universal DH"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Yes, I’d like to see more DHs like David Ortiz in the league. Photo wiki\/flickr user Toasterb<\/p><\/div>\n

Every once in a while, during a period of time where there’s a relative dearth of topics I’d like to blog about, I scroll through dozens of draft posts and starter topics I’ve got saved and find one worth expanding on. \u00a0And sometimes one of these random drafts written months or years ago suddenly becomes topical because two hard-ass old-school managers decide to one-up each other<\/a> in a meaningless spring training game. \u00a0Further, seeing this random post on Beyond the Box Score<\/a>, referring to a Joel Sherman<\/strong> article in the NY Post<\/a> on the topic\u00a0spurred me into action to dust off this post and put it up for your perusal and criticism.<\/p>\n

Summary: Despite mostly considering myself to be a baseball purist, I support going to using full-time Designated Hitter in both leagues. \u00a0Here’s a few reasons why:<\/p>\n

1. Standardize rules between the leagues<\/span><\/strong>. \u00a0It is rather ridiculous that in 2013 half of a major US professional sport plays by such vastly different rules than the other half. \u00a0It would be as if the NFC in football was forced to attempt 2-point conversions after every touchdown while the AFC forced the use of a point-after attempt instead.<\/p>\n

Here’s another interesting observation; i’m pretty sure that the National League is the ONLY baseball league in the country that requires its pitchers to hit. \u00a0The DH is in use in the minors, in college ball, in HS and AAU ball, and even in lower-level youth leagues (not that anyone would actually use it down that low, when your pitcher is usually your best hitter).<\/p>\n

2. Improve the fan experience. <\/span><\/strong> As has been more eloquently stated elsewhere, fans would rather see a power hitter batting in the middle of the order than see a feeble .180-hitting starting pitcher batting 9th flail at a 95mph fastball for the 3rd out of each inning. \u00a0Scoring would rise, and more offense means more excitement for the fans. \u00a0Forcing pitchers to bat (and, more often than not, bunt) forces managers into a small ball mentality that is counter to most advanced metrics that advocate never trading an out for a base.<\/p>\n

3. Let NL fans see more AL Stars in Interleague play<\/span><\/strong>. \u00a0Related to #2; right now in interleague games AL DH’s mostly have to sit, or if they do play another starter has to sit. \u00a0As an NL home city fan when the Red Sox come to town I don’t want to see Jon Lester<\/strong> hit; I want to see David Ortiz<\/strong> hit.<\/p>\n

4. Artificially limiting NL Starting Pitchers<\/span><\/strong>. \u00a0Lack of DH in the NL means that managers are forced to remove starters too early, too often, in order to continue rallies in the middle innings. \u00a0I’ve even seen people advocate starters getting yanked in the 2nd or 3rd innings of games in certain situations. \u00a0I’d rather see my starter go as long as he can instead of having the one-out matchup styles of some bullpen managers start in the 5th inning of an (inevitably) 4 hour game.<\/p>\n

5. More hitters get longer careers<\/span><\/strong> as their defensive skills wane. \u00a0Right now there’s a number of halfway decent hitters who are older and thus defensive liabilities who have basically been forced out of baseball that could fit in nicely with one of the 15 NL teams that don’t use a DH. \u00a0If you don’t think the player’s union wouldn’t mind 15 additional jobs for career-twilight veterans (who are mostly at the upper ends of the pay scales), you’re crazy. \u00a0This is essentially why I think the players union would support a universal DH.<\/p>\n

6. Double switches juggled lineup spots is overrated<\/span><\/strong>. \u00a0Purists love it of course, but purists also want baseball to still have the pennant winners immediately advance to the World Series and cringe at divisional play, wild cards and the expanding post-season. \u00a0But expanding and increasing popularity of the sport means reaching out and appealing to the masses, and the masses interests are the same as purists. \u00a0One of the big reasons purists maintain support for the DH is because of the notion that these double switches and earlier pitcher man management makes for a better managed game and forces NL managers to be “better.” \u00a0That’s great and all … but I buy tickets to watch the players play, not to watch some overweight aging manager\u00a0waddle out to the mound in the 5th inning so he can get a lefty-lefty matchup.<\/p>\n

7. NL Teams are at a disadvantage in every inter-league game<\/strong> right now, because they build their rosters for the NL style of play while AL teams are afforded a blank line-up spot for a no-defense slugger all season. \u00a0AL teams are also allowed to “rest” players and just bat them over the course of the greuling 162-game schedule by virtue of the DH, while NL players get no such luxury, meaning you can make the argument that AL teams have a slight advantage in the World Series against their NL counterparts (not that we actually see this advantage … but in theory it exists). \u00a0You can make the counter-argument that AL pitchers are ill-prepared to bat as compared to their NL counter-parts, to which I’ll say that a .180 hitting pitcher is only slightly better than a .120 hitting pitcher.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

8. Interleague every day<\/strong><\/span> means that the #7 issue is exacerbated. \u00a0This is the gist of the Sherman post; now that Houston is in the AL and there’s 15 teams in each league, there’s inter-league games every day. \u00a0Which also means that NL teams are even more disadvantaged since they can no longer do roster-maintenance just ahead of known interleague stretches. \u00a0Likewise, AL teams now have to have their pitchers take BP all throughout the season. \u00a0Its just a bad strategic situation all around.<\/p>\n

9. Pitcher Specialization<\/strong><\/span> leading to worse hitting Pitchers.\u00a0 Related to Point #1 (where the MLB NL is the sole league in America that “forces” pitchers to hit), we’re in the midst of an obvious shift in pitcher specialization, both in the majors (bullpen specialized roles) and during development.\u00a0 More and more, kids are identified as superb pitchers early in their amateur careers (in many cases early in high school) and literally stop hitting.\u00a0 At age 15-16.\u00a0 If you’re a grade-A pitching prospect, do you think you want to jeopardize your draft status or your full-ride by screwing around on the base-paths in some meaningless AAU game?\u00a0 I think not.\u00a0 So these kids who havn’t worked on their hitting since their sophomore year in HS then get drafted or go to college, play years of Div-1 or minor league ball, maybe make it to the majors at age 24-25 …. and they havn’t faced live pitching regularly in a decade!\u00a0 Is that what *anyone* really wants?<\/p>\n

10. Baseball needs to spur offense<\/strong><\/span>: every one knows that the proliferance of upper 90s bullpen arms and the cracking down on PEDs has inevitably led to less offense in the game.\u00a0 Joe Sheehan<\/strong> had a fun stat that pointed out that fans in 2014 were less likely to see a “ball put in play” than at any point since the dead ball era, thanks to the massive spike in strikeouts in the game.\u00a0 Adding a DH and eliminating a position that league-wide bats about .122 would help.<\/p>\n

Its time. \u00a0End the DH. \u00a0I was hoping for a resolution in the last CBA, but we have to wait a bit longer.<\/p>\n

\n

post-publishing edit: for context here was the 2019 slash lines for Pitchers in baseball: Here\u2019s the link:\u00a0Major League Total Stats ” 2019 ” Pitchers ” Dashboard<\/a><\/span>. they slashed a collective .128\/.160\/.162 with a staggering 43.5% strikeout rate and a -18 wRC+. 43% strikeout rate! Why do baseball fans advocate to keep this, at the same time when they\u2019re probably complaining about \u2026 how often baseball players strike out right now. By way of comparison, here\u2019s the DH slash line for 2019: .252\/.339\/.467 for a wRC+ of 110.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every once in a while, during a period of time where there’s a relative dearth of topics I’d like to blog about, I scroll through dozens of draft posts and starter topics I’ve got saved and find one worth expanding on. \u00a0And sometimes one of these random drafts written months or years ago suddenly becomes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[605,845,1579,221,431],"class_list":["post-4054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonnatsbaseball","tag-david-ortiz","tag-dusty-baker","tag-joel-sherman","tag-jon-lester","tag-kirk-gibson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4054"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16938,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4054\/revisions\/16938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}