that the biggest reason for the DH is that pitchers don't know how to bat and that takes away from the enjoyment of the game.

not a pro/con argument for the DH.

But I'll tell you, I've gone from watching real baseball in Cleveland to DH baseball in both Cleveland and Oakland, and then back to real baseball in San Francisco. The Show is hands-down more compelling without the DH rule.

of baseball.

when he gets in the batter's box.

he'll tan your hide.

.250 AVG, .370 SLG, 2 Doubles, 14 RBIs and 3 HRs in 100 ABs.

100 at bats in 12 years? Give me a break!

Now, your typical NL pitcher is Tim Lincecum who has a .118 AV in 313 ABs over 6 years. And .134 SLG, 3 Doubles, 15 RBIs, 0 HRs and 151 SOs. He strikes out 40% of his plate appearances!

Tim isn't the discussion here. Pants shitting is.

On edit: Milwaukee, to be clear. And inter-league play.

Only El could take a metaphor and take it literally.



Oh wait a second, your talking about "pants shitting" also!

and does not shit his pants. And that if you would even suggest such a thing you might find a rosin bag shoved up your behind.

Guess that's why there are a lot of . . . . . . over there.

I chose Outdoor Life for a reason...

Same beliefs.

.257 in 109 ABs. He doesn't hit for a lot of power though, just 2 doubles. Dusty Baker continued to use him as a pinch hitter even when he was too injured to pitch during his rookie year.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=hunt--002art



SERIESLY, I'm hiding!

We hear a lot from purists about pitchers batting, but I wonder what baseball would be like if other players were forced to pitch? Or play catcher? What would the "ideal" baseball player be like if one had to play every position on a regular basis?

I have no real axe to grind here, by the way. I appreciate the purist argument and I also appreciate the argument that pitchers are so bad at hitting that, barring pinch-hitters, every 9th at bat is almost a joke. It just seems that the DH rule is the only instance in the major US team sports in the US where so many people feel specialization has gone too far. Nobody is clamoring for punters and kickers to get more involved in blocking, running, throwing and tackling, or for the NFL to switch to the single-platoon model.

The 9th slot is ripe for parody by clowns and buffoons. But they overlook that key to the game is moving runners into or closer to scoring position. Watch the dugout -- players are as heartily congratulated if they advance the runner making an out or not. That could be David Ortiz as easily as Matt Cain. Doesn't matter how they do it as long as it gets done. Hitting is difficult enough that just putting the ball in play is an achievement. The sacrifice bunt? A damn exciting play. The 9th slot can also work the pitch count. If the batter can force an extra ten pitches from the opposition that's all the quicker the starter will be gone.

There's something else -- perhaps it's intangible. But I like the idea of the pitcher being able to help his own cause. It's just cool.

But while I appreciate that there's more managerial strategy involved without the DH, I can't say, as an at-best casual fan, that I come away from a game feeling that watching this or that manager strategize is the real draw. I suppose in terms of dramatic effect those comparatively rare occasions when a weak-hitting pitcher makes an effective offensive play are a bit more memorable than comparable plays by other players. But at the same time, when guys at the bottom of the order manage to generate runners in scoring position and the pitcher is up with 2 outs, it seems like their contributions lose some of their value because of the "easy out" (or the need to pinch hit for a guy who may be pitching effectively, if immediate runs are needed).

They should play it like volleyball, and rotate positions every inning. Nine positions, nine innings. Perfect!

But there are a lot of rules concerning whoever is pitching. If you rotate the so-called positions then you must have a whole lot of new rules defining the positions and what is allowed. It won't work.

You could just stipulate that a different player must pitch each inning.

Of course, allowing any kind of substitution under this scheme would mess up the mathematical beauty... not to mention extra innings and rain-shortened games!

isn't so much specialization but that there are 9 batters. Why is there 9 batters originally? Because there are 9 players in the outfield. Rather than going to 8 batters, which I would be supportive of, they kept the 9 batters and freed up a spot that went to someone playing defense.

You're talking about two different things. That's conflation, pure and simple. And that's not even addressing your need to use the term "purists," which is just a pointless logical fallacy from the get go.

Get rid of the damn DH rule!

The Texas Rangers just paid over $100 million for a Japanese pitcher that has never played American baseball. Why did they do such a thing? Because elite pitching is at a high premium in the game. Teams that have it are always championship contenders, and those that do not have it won't even sniff the playoffs.

Given the investment and need for elite pitchers, managers do not want their pitchers to do anything where they might injure themselves. Thus, pitchers are never going to be tasked with putting in the time and effort to develop themselves into major league hitters. It's never going to happen, and most teams know this.

This whole argument about "purity of the game" is hogwash. There's no real strategy involved when you know the hitter at the plate has no real hitting skills at all and will never develop them. MLB knows full well that pitching is a specialized, highly needed skill set which demands a huge investment by the teams, and that investment will be protected above all else.

Thanks Yavin4

Yavin, your post reeks of pickled herring.

What a team "invests" (you must be a fan of the Wall $treet Yankee$) is irrelevant to any discussion of whether or not the the DH should be abolished. They can sign him for whatever money Bernanke conjures up next time he hits the print button, it doesn't mean he shouldn't have to take his place in the batting order.

The argument that a pitcher can get hurt when he comes to the plate was silly last spring when El Sup brought it up, and it's no better when you bring it. Sure, a pitcher can get hurt playing baseball. He can even get hurt batting. The article that El Sup based his aforementioned silly argument last spring was about a freak accident in which a player, a pitcher, got knocked in the face and badly injured while taking batting practice. Having said that, you may now please provide me with the name of the pitcher who beaned Herb Score or who threw the wicked fast ball that Dizzy Dean fouled off his foot, breaking his toe. Both of these injuries effectively ended careers. Now, having established that a pitcher can get hurt while performing his specialized skill as easily as he can get hurt doing the other things a ball player is expected to do in a real baseball game, maybe you would like to change the rules so that batters just knock a ball off a tee? Who needs a pitcher if he's just going to get hurt and wash away Steinbrenner's money?

No, when I read El Sup's case for the DH last spring I thought I had read the silliest thing we're going read at DU except for a Republican stump speech. Ah, but congratulations, Yavin, you've topped him.

There's no real strategy involved when you know the hitter at the plate has no real hitting skills at all and will never develop them.

No, maybe that pitcher has no batting skills, but knowing when to lift him for a pinch hitter is another skill and one that impoverishes baseball when it is removed. It reminds me of another one of El Sup's particularly bad arguments for the DH made last year when a DH hit a game winning home run. "I'd rather see a slugger hit," he self-righteously fumed, "than a manager think." Guess what? You would have seen the slugger hit in that situation even if they were actually playing baseball. Unless the manager is as dumb as a typical GOP presidential candidate, corporate executive or even Bud Selig, but no manager, not even in the American League, is that dumb.

First, ALL teams invest heavily in their top pitchers, not just the Yankees. Teams like the Phillies, Giants, and Mariners invest a huge percentage of their entire payroll in their best pitchers, and you cannot dismiss this as a factor.

Second, because of this investment, teams are not going to require that the pitchers put in the time and the effort to become major league hitters, just like teams would not want their top position players to go to the mound and pitch a few innings.

Third, as stated in the original post, the NL is the one few remaining leagues without a DH. That means that pitchers are developed in college and the minors without getting any experience hitting.

Fourth, pinch hitting for a pitcher also forces a manager to go to a lesser pitcher. Thus, the game is deprived of seeing the best against the best.

In sum, forcing a player in a sport into doing something that that player has never put in any time nor effort to actually do is making a mockery of the game. In other sports where the players have to play both offense and defense, they have to put time, effort, and practice into doing both in order to become elite. Pitchers cannot and will not put in that effort to become hitters.

He's doing a pretty good job so for as a pitcher. There are other pitchers as well such as Carlos Zambrano who has 23 homers.

Anyways my position is, if most fans in AL like it. Keep it the way it is by having DH in AL and no DH in NL. I like the NL the way it is and Fourth is part of the strategy that I like. It is also interesting when managers put the pitcher at 8th so they have a decent batter at 9th before the 1-2-3 hitters so they are more likely to have a runner on with fewer outs to work with.

I agree completely with your argument because I know the theory of opportunity cost. To me there were 9 batters for a reason, because there were 9 players in the outfield and infield so in the spirit of baseball, I'm against it. I'd be more supportive of a 8-man batting lineup than a DH but keep it out of the NL. Don't care what the AL likes.

First, ALL teams invest heavily in their top pitchers, not just the Yankees. Teams like the Phillies, Giants, and Mariners invest a huge percentage of their entire payroll in their best pitchers, and you cannot dismiss this as a factor.

Why can't that be dismissed as a factor? After all, it was true before there was a DH. Therefore, it is not a factor.

{T}eams are not going to require that the pitchers put in the time and the effort to become major league hitters, just like teams would not want their top position players to go to the mound and pitch a few innings.

Again, this is true before there was a designated hitter. Baseball got along fine without it.

NL is the one few remaining leagues without a DH. That means that pitchers are developed in college and the minors without getting any experience hitting.

I don't see why the NL should stoop to that level. Should I have voted for Reagan in 1984 just because most of the country did? I thought he was a poor president then, and I haven't changed my mind in almost 30 years.

{P}inch hitting for a pitcher also forces a manager to go to a lesser pitcher. Thus, the game is deprived of seeing the best against the best.

That's ridiculous. First of all, you are presuming that the pitcher being lifted is a better pitcher than the one who will relieve him in the following inning. That is not always the case, so you certainly can't make the statement. Closers are almost always better than then the set-up men. Moreover, the starting pitcher, even if he is the ace of the staff, may already be out of the game. If the fans came to see two of the best pitchers go against each either, if that was the case, then they've seen it and got their money's worth.

The reason that the manager is forced to go to another pitcher is simply because those are the rules. He must decide whether his pitcher should go on and continue to get opposing batters out, or if he should take him out for a chance to score a badly needed run or two. It's just like that game I play. You have to make a move, and each move improves your position in some way and probably weakens it in some other way. It has consequences; some are good, some less good. It is what makes the game interesting.

Before 1973, major league baseball featured two leagues that played a thinking man's game. One of those leagues dumbed down the game in 1973 with the belief that it would produce more excitement by introducing greater offensive punch. The average American League game scores just one more run than they typical National League game. That's half a run per team per game, a very modest increase in run production at the expense of stripping the game of much of it cerebral appeal. That is too high a price to have paid for such little return. It is long past the time that we recognize that the DH is an experiment that failed, and end the experiment.

Baseball got along without the DH before 1973, and it is a much better game without it.

Teams were not paying over $100 million for a pitcher from Japan that never pitched in America before.

The scale of investment in pitching has changed dramatically since 1973. So much so, that teams ARE NOT going to require that their pitchers put in the time and effort to become decent major league hitters. Before 1973, pitchers did put in that time and effort.

I don't think so. Hank Aguirre left baseball in 1970 with a .085 battiing average. Of course, he was an exceptionally poor hitter. The Detroit Tigers, for whom he played most of his career, didn't care about his inability to hit. Pitchers were never signed to contracts based on any ability to hit the baseball, and if a pitcher could hit decently as could Warren Spahn or Don Drysdale, that was just a pleasant surprise. A typical pitcher wasn't a decent hitter even back then, unless you think a batting average of about .140 is decent. Juan Marichal, who was considered a decent hitter as pitchers go, but not a power hitter, had a .165 batting average in 16 years. Warren Spahn, considered an exceptionally good hitter, had a lifetime batting average of .194 in 21 years with 35 home runs.

Teams invest more in ballplayers, not just pitchers, then they used to. I remember when the highest paid player in the majors was Willie Mays at $125K/yr. That pitchers are paid more now has nothing to do what is expected of them at the plate. Your argument that before 1973 pitchers put in time and effort to become "decent" hitters is simply not true. Typically, they were never decent hitters.

I am arguing that the scale of investment in pitching means that teams, more so than ever, won't require their pitchers to put in that time and effort. In fact, pitchers are never going to be able to develop ANY hitting skills since there is a DH in both college and the minors.

So, if you enjoy seeing someone look foolish doing something that they have zero skills at, then by all means, let's watch pitchers at the plate.

for what they paid pitchers. Curt Flood took on MLB in 1972 which opened the gates for free agency. Before that landmark Supreme Court case, players were under the reserve clause which meant they were under control of one MLB team until they traded them or no longer wanted them. This obviously had the effect of keeping salaries low as players didn't have the option to shop for best contracts.

The reality is that teams are keeping more pitchers now for specialty situations. They have to make a choice one way or another. It's as simple as that.