Starting this season, the NL and the AL are going to play interleague games in a fashion quite unlike before; namely, year-round interleague play. With this new development (making it very unfeasible to call up a Quad A guy to be your DH for the 2 weeks you play at AL stadiums), the calls for the NL to adopt the DH rule have started. I'd like to go through the arguments for the DH and tell why I don't particularly love them.
1. Pitchers are terrible hitters.
This is one of the first things that any article espousing the DH rule will be quick to point out. Traditionally, pitchers are terrible hitters, and for some reason people think this either lessens the prestige of the game or is less entertaining. I think this is a pretty awful argument. Just because most pitchers aren't very good at the plate, that doesn't mean that they all are. People are always looking to sabermetrics to find "the new market inefficiency." That inefficiency could very well be pitchers hitting.
It's also not like pitchers didn't grow up hitting the baseball anyway. There is no DH in little league, or in high school. Traditionally, your best player was your pitcher or your shortstop, and that guy hit like .600/.600/1.800. There is at least some skill there. I understand that the more time a pitcher spends in the cage is less time he spends refining his repertoire, but I very much suspect that the marginal benefit of spending an extra 2 hours taking batting instruction from world class hitting coaches could outweigh the marginal cost of the 49th and 50th hour working on mechanics/long tossing/whatever professional pitchers are doing.
One last thing. If you can't be bothered with pitchers batting, just use the double switch! You can essentially skip over your pitcher in many circumstances when replacing him, so many times your pitcher only has 3 PA in a single game. That's 3 opportunities to knock in that 7th or 8th hitter that gets on base 28-31% of the time.
2. Games are better with more scoring.
This is a subjective argument. You might enjoy games with more offense – that doesn't make games with more offense objectively better. If high-scoring games are way better than low-scoring ones, why do people seem to remember shutouts and nail-biting 2-1 and 1-0 games better than 10-7 or 9-8 affairs? I love baseball; low-scoring games, high-scoring games, because they are all baseball games.
I think the real argument people are furthering here is that games are better when their team is scoring more often. I'm not sure that's objectively true, either, even if it feels good. There's also another way for games to be higher-scoring: help pitchers hit better.
3. Pitchers could get injured while batting.
That's not a road you want to start walking down. Do you know what's tremendously more dangerous to a pitcher than swinging a baseball bat? (warning: first two links are violent) This. Or this. Or this. Getting hit by line drives has literally killed coaches before. If we are talking about making sure pitchers (who, by the way, are supposed to be excellent physical specimens) don't get injured, we should be talking about making sure all infielders wear helmets or use batting practice guards, not preventing pitchers from swinging a fucking bat or running to first base half-heartedly.
4. It's unfair to the National League to not have a DH.
Is it more unfair to the National League to not have a DH, or for the American League to have to put Adam Dunn at 1B and sit Konerko when they play the Cubs? Or put Dunn in LF? The cut runs both ways: the DH shortens American League benches for National League games (if the DH truly cannot field). It might be easier for the AL to adjust to not having a DH than it is for the NL to adjust in the other direction, but I seriously doubt it. It isn't like the NL bench bats couldn't use the extra ABs during interleague play.
A side point in this direction is "this would create more high paying jobs, so the players secretly want this to happen." I feel like this is a poor argument. It's not like there are so many DHs in the league right that some are just dying for work. Guess how many "DHs" qualified for the batting title this year? That would be 6 (50% or more games at DH). Two of them (Delmon Young, Jesus Montero) weren't even league-average hitters last year. People actually want to add 15 more DHs to baseball, so the "pure hitters" that don't exist for even half of the teams eligible to field one can find work?
Adding DHs won't increase the talent pool in baseball; it'll dilute it. You aren't going to pull more league-average hitters into the majors; you're going to to pull your worst fielder into the DH role and replace that guy with a AAA guy (Soriano to DH, replaced by Tony Campana. Woooooooo). Opening the DH just widens the fringe.
As you can tell, I come pretty heavily on the side of letting the pitcher bat. I don't think there are any really compelling reasons as to why the change should be made, and I have a few reasons why it shouldn't.
1. Playing shortstop takes a tremendous physical toll on your body. It's a different type of fatigue than a pitcher faces, no doubt, but I'd imagine that on the whole, it takes a much greater physical toll to play SS 162 games a year than it does to pitch in 32. There are also many poor hitting shortstops in baseball. Where are the calls for designated hitters for these guys? Why are the players who have to field every day forced to hit every day while the pitchers get away scott free?
This is obviously an insane argument. This line of thinking would rationalize 9 designated hitters, and no one would both field and hit. I don't believe for a second that we should have designated fielders, and I don't think anyone else does either… but it makes more sense to me than designated hitters for just pitchers (from a physical standpoint). Is there any position that would not benefit from not having to worry about hitting the baseball?
2. The game of baseball is getting tighter and tighter. After the A's played Moneyball, everything changed. Instead of going with your gut first and the numbers second, teams utilize both scouting and statistical analysis. Especially with the rising costs of competitive baseball (that would likely slightly increase with the introduction of the DH, but that's not a huge issue), and the rising intelligence of even the very bad teams, teams are looking for every edge they can get. Here's one:
On 15 teams, there currently is a collection of about 5 guys who hit pretty poorly. If you developed each of them to where they hit just .200/.250/.300, you'd double their productivity (essentially) and provide a benefit to your team that almost no other team in your league has. Of course, that's the pitcher in the National League. Owings and Zambrano and Leake and Hamels and Jackson and Wood have all shown that pitchers don't have to be terrible at hitting; they just are, usually. The pitchers that make a concerted effort to improve in that area usually do so (and the teams that field these pitchers reap the rewards). I don't think the answer to "pitchers hit poorly right now" is "don't make them hit." I think it's "teach them how to hit, because hitting is part of their job."
There's a hidden point I'm making here (that isn't so hidden). The Cubs have always had a better hitting staff than normal. 2 of the top 10 hitting pitchers last year either played for the Cubs last year (Travis Wood) or will play for them this year (Edwin Jackson). The gap between the best and worst hitting pitchers is huge, also. That means that there is a ton of room for improvement in this area that any team that wants to divert resources to hitting instruction can take advantage of.
If we're being completely honest, I don't hate the designated hitter. I think it's pretty dumb, but I'm not calling for it's repeal from the AL. Frankly, I could care less; it's been around longer than I have. I just don't think there is any compelling reason to change it now.
Fixed.
Aisle424Quote Reply
I love not having a DH.
1) It introduces complex strategy that doesn’t exist in the AL – pinch hitters, double switches, sacrifice bunts that make sense
2) When a pitcher actually does something, it’s that much sweeter. Kerry Wood’s home run in Game 7 of the NLCS is one of my favorite baseball moments ever, even if the euphoria was short-lived.
3) Watching Matt Garza try to swing a bat will never not be entertaining.
The WreckardQuote Reply
There’s no way this is that easy.
BerseliusQuote Reply
Personally, I don’t like the DH because it further compartmentalizes players into specialties the way the bullpen has done to pitching. A DH can only hit and that’s fine, but the idea is to have nine players who play both sides of the ball.
But it’s going to come to the National League. It almost has to. You can’t have two leagues with two different sets of rules playing each other every day. It just won’t last. The DH isn’t going anywhere since the MLBPA won’t allow the loss of jobs, so the only way to make it uniform is to bring it to the NL. It’s really the only option unless they quickly add two more teams and we can have 16 in each league and not have an interleague game everyday. I don’t see that happening.
So the only real question is when it happens, not if it should. That bridge is already behind us.
Aisle424Quote Reply
I agree with this, and if this happened, then the game would be much more enjoyable. The problem is that even in the minors, for clubs whose parent clubs are in the NL, they usually use the DH and don’t really develop the hitting aspect of the pitchers’ game, so by the time they get to the bigs they’re almost useless anyway. At least it seems that way to me.
However, if they made a concerted effort to teach the pitchers to hit/bunt better, then it might stave off the DH–>NL for a few more years.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
Bring the DH. All that “strategy” is just to get around having your pitcher bat anyway. Let the best players on your team compete. This isn’t 1920.
BerseliusQuote Reply
I can’t stand the DH. It makes the game unequal in regard to interleague and World Series play. It’s essentially a skilled position one league has and another does not.
I actually wrote my own take on the issue some time ago: http://www.sportsbygeorge.com/2013/01/03/the-easiest-and-most-asinine-job-in-sports-basballs-designated-hitter/
George DarkowQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
Are you proposing some type of bunt tournament?
mikeakaleroyQuote Reply
Has anyone ever written anything on what effect the DH has on free agency? For example, I’m trying to remember the last big-name free agent 1B to sign with an NL team and I’m coming up empty.
GBTSQuote Reply
@ mikeakaleroy:
They’ve yet to send me a royalty check for that idea. I’m pissed.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ GBTS:
Ryan Howard, maybe? Though obviously he was just reupping to stay in Philly. Did McGwire sign a deal with the Cardinals after Oakland traded him? You’re right though. I’m not coming up with any big examples at 1B
mikeakaleroyQuote Reply
@ GBTS:
@ mikeakaleroy:
The most recent example I can think of is Lance Berkman with the Cards, but he was more of a 1B/OF type. He did play 1B for the majority of his last few years with the Astros though.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
New aside
http://obstructedview.net/uncategorized/dave-cameron-on-draft-pick-compensation.html
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ mikeakaleroy:
Derrek Lee, Pujols extension with StL
BerseliusQuote Reply
Well, I guess Lee was an extension too. But those should count for something.
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
I thought about Lee, but I always thought of him as a defender first, and an offensive threat second. If he were in the AL, I don’t think he’d be anyone’s full time DH.
mikeakaleroyQuote Reply
@ mikeakaleroy:
Pujols and Fielder were certainly signed with the assumption that they’d become DH’s in the latter part of their contracts, which probably plays into the point GBTS was making above.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
Right, I agree with that. What I’m saying is that I don’t know that an AL team would have signed Lee long term with the thoughts of him becoming their DH at the end of the contract.
mikeakaleroyQuote Reply
Arguments 1 and 3 carry some weight for me. With regard to 1, yes, pitchers are awful hitters almost to a man. Including Leake and Stras. Maybe Micah isn’t bad, but he’s likely far worse than his mediocre hitting numbers indicate. And while it would be nice to see them put more effort into hitting, I just don’t see that happening (and, frankly, they’d still probably suck anyway. Being a professional athlete who hit well in Little League doesn’t usually translate into being a Major League hitter.) Personally, I don’t find watching pitchers hit (and bunt) to be entertaining and I know many other see it the same way. I don’t see how it’s a “pretty awful argument.”
As for 3, the fact that pitchers are in more dangers from line drives than hitting/baserunning is irrelevant. Pitching off the mound is the essential part of their job. Having them hit and run exposes them to additional danger without adding much entertainment value. If you want to argue that it would help prevent injuries more if you make them wear helmets on the mound, that’s a separate argument entirely (and, I think a reasonable one).
I’d also add that I like seeing a starter go deep into a game, and so do most fans. Pitchers hitting (and hence getting pinch-hit for) results in starters being pulled earlier than they ordinarily would be.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
And, for the record, I don’t really love the DH. It’s just that, the more baseball I watch, the more impatient I get with watching pitchers go into auto-bunt mode.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Rizzo the Rat wrote:
The presence of the DH makes this effect more slight than you’d expect.
Stat / AL / NL
Pitches 95.94 95.05
Inn Pitched 5.92 5.80
Batters Faced 25.52 25.13
The WreckardQuote Reply
@ mikeakaleroy:
I think they would have signed somebody with more pop and less knees 😀
The fact that the only major free agent NL quasi-1B I can think of is Lance Berkman probably means something too. With 1B there’s nowhere to hide them if there’s no DH.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ The Wreckard:
Yeah, but that’s an indication of how suboptimally managers are are handling pinch-hitters. If I had a nickle for every time I saw a manager let his pitcher hit only to pull him a half-inning later, I could fill Scrooge McDuck’s money bin.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
@ Rizzo the Rat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fyE6N4JQt0
mikeakaleroyQuote Reply
My opinion on the DH is relatively simple. As a fan, I want to watch the best players and I want to watch guys who actually take pride in their work. Pitchers take zero pride in their ability to hit baseballs. They don’t bother taking much batting practice because their job has already become specialized. That’s already happened and there’s no turning back. The pitchers made their jobs specialized by not doing anything useful or entertaining at the plate (on the whole). They’re such bad hitters that a 21 year old 1st baseman at a major college (and many from juco) would be superior hitters.
I’ll jump on the no DH bandwagon when we see power hitting 3rd basemen pitch an inning per game. To me, I feel ripped off going to a game and having to watch a pitcher bat 5 times or so.
I’m OK with no DH. As long as the pitchers get in the cage and take as much BP as the position players do. Also, while not in anyway affecting the quality of their pitches. This will require twice as much work on their part for the same amount of money so it’s unlikely to happen, but that’s the only way I’ll favor not having a DH. This is just about the fan experience to me.
dmick89Quote Reply
Not counting extensions, the only 1B/DH big name to sign with an NL team as a free agent that I can think of is Dunn with the Nats, and he signed what, 2 years? All the big landings (Giambi, Teixeira, Konerko, Dunn again, Pujols, Fielder) have gone AL.
GBTSQuote Reply
I guess what I’m saying is the Cubs should lock the fuck up out of Rizzo. (dying laughing)
GBTSQuote Reply
One interesting nuance is that it reduces the defensive abilities needed from your third baseman. Cabrera could never play third in the NL these days… he’d be winded from chasing down 3-4 bunts per game. 8 out of the 10 worst fielding third basemen in baseball were in the AL (min 500 innings).
The WreckardQuote Reply
If baseball started today and we knew that pitchers would be ridiculously bad hitters, would they force them to bat? I find it very hard to believe that they’d do that. More likely is they’d go with a lineup of 8, which I’m all for. Anything to keep the pitchers from hitting.
The Wreckard wrote:
That would have been pretty fucking sweet no matter who hit it. I’d agree it’s kind of fun watching a pitcher hit a home run, but in the postseason I don’t think a game changing home run by a pitcher would be any more exciting than one by a position player. Maybe it would. I don’t know. I remember Sosa’s home run in game 1 just as much as I do Wood’s. Both were huge home runs.
dmick89Quote Reply
By the way, Myles, I really enjoyed this post. I’m basically the opposite of you, but well done.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
Speaking of hitters pitching, I LOVED watching Zambrano hit. But Zambrano + events like Wood HR etc do not balance out the ~140 shitty PAs by every other starting pitcher.
BerseliusQuote Reply
For a cross-sports analogy, it’s always exciting when a Packers RB busts a 50 yard run. But that doesn’t make up for the 1 yard runs into the line on every other play (dying laughing)
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
Yeah, this. Good piece.
BerseliusQuote Reply
I like that we don’t all agree on this issue and the comments haven’t devolved into name-calling.
Nice job, fuckfaces.
Aisle424Quote Reply
I agree about Zambrano hitting. His hitting stats profile is… unique to say the least. In some respects he’s terrible (i.e., a typical pitcher), but in others he’s awesome (even for a position player). He’s like a bizarre hybrid of great hitter and pitcher–basically he swings the bat really, really hard, with poor strikezone judgment and contact skills, but when he actually makes contact, he does a ton of damage.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Z is also an extreme groundball hitter. But his flyballs leave the park more often than Pujols’.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
The counterargument to Z is Garza. Garza provides not only the strongest argument against pitchers hitting, but fielding as well. (Though, oddly, I haven’t heard many calls for a Designated Fielder. Yet.)
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Good post. I’m anti-DH as well, but I’ll echo the skepticism of other re:pitchers hitting better just by focusing on it more. It reminds me of fans convinced that Dwight Howard and Shaq could shoot 75% from the free throw line if they just practiced more. Pitcher batting lines are what happens when selecting a group of amateur players for reasons having nothing to do with their ability to hit.
GWQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
A little true. The analogy to football works. Most teams don’t ask their return man to do much else beyond return (or be a shitty receiver), and the days of having a offensive starter do the placekicking is long gone.
26.2cubfanQuote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
let’s say we require a position player from the starting lineup to record an out as a pitcher prior to bringing in a second relief pitcher.. or at least prior to making a second pitching change in a single inning.
GWQuote Reply
The Prince and Pujols signings are the biggest reasons for me that regardless of what rule baseball goes with, it should be the same rule for both leagues. AL teams can give longer contracts to sluggers because defense isn’t an issue if they can’t adequately defend, same thing with Hamilton too. AL teams will offer longer contracts and the players values won’t diminish as fast, with the longer contracts, they can offer less per year, and have a more cost efficient team. The fact that AL teams can avoid injuring their pitchers more by not making them swing a bat for most of the year is another pretty good reason. I’m all for not having a DH for all the reasons you mentioned, but I just think it’s a lot more important to have the same rules for both leagues. Since the AL won’t get rid of the DH, I think the NL just has to add the DH.
AndrewQuote Reply
Andrew wrote:
That’s pretty much my stance too. As much as I don’t want the DH, it is inevitable.
I have a question though.. you guys mentioned that the MLBPA will never agree to getting rid of the DH, but does the NL pay more for the bench players since they get more use than in the AL? So effectively in the AL you have 15 more higher paid guys, but 45 lower paid guys compared to the NL.
WaLiQuote Reply
@ WaLi:
Thinking about this, it probably isn’t 45 guys, but probably closer to 30 as not every bench player in the NL will be paid more than every bench player in the AL.
I think this has some merit based on if you look at the median of the salaries between the two leagues, they match up pretty close. If the DH was causing such a large swing in payroll then it would be shown in the salaries.
WaLiQuote Reply
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/2013-zips-projections-chicago-cubs/
GWQuote Reply
@ GW:
Is Vizcaino project to return early next year? I thought it would be September at the earliest.
WaLiQuote Reply
GW wrote:
Is this a question? I’m not sure what you’re asking. I can say that I wouldn’t like it, but I can also say that it would effectively end mid-inning pitching changes. That I’m in favor of so I wouldn’t even mind that rule because the number of times a team would make a mid-inning pitching change would be in mop up duty when the game’s not much fun anyway. A team would never bring in a position player to pitch in the middle of an inning of a close game.
But this does bring up another pet peeve: mid-inning pitching changes. I feel like 1 is OK, but it’s annoying.
dmick89Quote Reply
WaLi wrote:
The DH creates an additional regular player who gets paid more. The DH bats 600-700 times per season. A pinch hitter doesn’t come close to that.
dmick89Quote Reply
Now that there are more interleague games, I wonder if more DH-ish types will start coming over to the NL.
BerseliusQuote Reply
I know some have mentioned that the pitcher batting adds strategy, but I disagree. Bottom of the 7th inning, down by 1 with men on the corners, pitcher coming up, pinch hitting in that situation is not strategy. Lefty on the mound, right handed pinch hitter and vice versa. I don’t see this as strategy. Off the top of my head, here is a list of things that might be called strategy that both leagues do.
defensive positioning (for bunt, power hitters, groundball hitters, pull hitters, etc)
pitch selection
hit and run
pitch outs
platooning (gaining the advantage)
working counts
stealing bases
What does the NL have that the AL doesn’t?
more mid-inning pitching changes (see my above comment)
more bunts (but is this strategy, pitchers bunt all the time and it’s generally accepted it’s not a wise decision most of the time)
more intentional walks (also not often a sound strategy)
more pinch hitters
So two of those are generally poor ideas and only give the team doing it less of a chance to win. I don’t see how that’s any good. The mid-inning pitching changes, which only gives us the 6th and 7th guys in the bullpen who should be pitching in AA or AAA. And it wastes my time. Pinch hitters (gaining platoon advantage happens in both leagues, pinch hitting for pitchers who shouldn’t be batting).
In my opinion, the American League has more strategy because they don’t employ the strategies that hurt their team win as frequently as the NL teams do. To me, that’s strategy. Lowering your win expectation isn’t strategy.
That said, I do get why people don’t like the DH. My preference would be for an 8-man lineup, but that will cost baseball 30 every day jobs and there’s no way the MLBPA would agree to that.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ Berselius:
I think the Cubs only play 18 interleague games next season so that’s what, 6 more than previously? Wasn’t there a time when they played 15 IL games? I seem to remember that. I don’t think we’ll see more DH types come to the NL until the NL gets the DH, which I think will happen by the end of the decade.
dmick89Quote Reply
I like how the DH gives managers/GM’s more flexability when putting together lineups. I also like how it can extend the careers of good players.
EdwinQuote Reply
Edwin wrote:
WaLiQuote Reply
new shit: http://obstructedview.net/commentary-and-analysis/how-many-games-will-the-2013-cubs-win.html
dmick89Quote Reply
Three points: 1: The DH is not REQUIRED to hit for the pitcher. If you want your DH to hit for your shortstop that is perfectly acceptable within the rules. 2: What do the Cubs over the last 100 years have to show for the fact that they have slightly better hitting pitchers than other teams? 3.: I only ever saw Nolan Ryan play live once. That was in the 1985 All-Star game where he took three of the ugliest swings of a baseball bat I have ever seen above the t-ball level. I have been a DH supporter ever since.
DonQuote Reply
Babe Ruth is a perfect example of you can be a good pitcher and batter.
AustinQuote Reply