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Originally Posted by BIG17EASY
This is not an argument against (or for) the DH.
As we can see from chuck's graph, pitchers in the NL were poor hitters long before the DH was instituted in the AL. Click the link and change the league to AL and you get similar numbers -- collective batting averages mostly below .200 with a few years slightly above .200. So we can't blame the DH at lower levels for pitchers being poor hitters.
The fact of the matter is, pitchers don't play daily and their time between starts is spent largely on their craft (pitching), as chuck points out. So even if the DH were to be abolished an all organized baseball on the entire planet, pitchers are going to continue to be weak hitters. Will they be a little better? Probably. Will they be league average. No.
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I'm not maintaining that pitchers were league average hitters before the DH and became poor hitters after the DH was implemented. However, it's pretty clear that pitchers hit worse as a position after the DH was implemented than before, and that probably by the late 1980's, pitchers coming into the majors were all DH'ed for once they played beyond high school.
I'm not saying this is the whole reason, or even the main reason, pitchers became worse hitters after the DH came into effect, but I also can't see where there would be zero connection between the two. The proof in that pudding can be seen by comparing AL pitchers batting versus NL pitchers since the interleague era began in 1997: in those 18 seasons (including this), AL pitchers batted on average 19% worse than NL pitchers, and AL pitchers' batting average was as high as NL pitchers' in only one of those 18 years (2007, where it was .147 to .146). That's a pretty powerful data point in the service of the "practice makes better" argument.
Understand, though, that a key impetus for implementing the DH was, in part, how bad pitchers became at hitting
before the DH went into effect. In the AL expansion year of 1961, pitchers "hit" .159, second lowest only to the .155 from the previous season. They never hit that high again, going as low as .128 in 1965. That's a really strong argument pointing to the futility of continuing to force pitchers to hit. I mean, how bad does it have to get before we can all agree to give up on the idea altogether?
Quote:
Originally Posted by BIG17EASY
On the flip side, I don't think calling pitchers a specialized position that shouldn't hit is a valid argument for the DH. Designated hitter is also a specialized position often filled by players who are defensively inferior. I'm not saying every DH is a bad defender (just like not every pitcher is a bad hitter), but the position of DH is just as specialized as the position of pitcher. So if a goal of removing specialization is going to be achieved, getting rid of the DH does that by requiring pitchers to hit and, therefore, be more well-rounded players. Adding the DH in both leagues only leads to more specialization -- two positions on a 10-position lineup card that only do one thing, pitch or hit.
Just my (more than) two cents.
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I hear this argument a lot: “The DH should be banned because players should be well-rounded and have to play the complete game, so that means pitchers should bat.” All due respect, I think that’s a ridiculous statement on its face. Because think about it: if the argument “pitchers should be well-rounded and play the complete game by having to bat” is a valid argument, then the idea that “every player should be well-rounded and play the whole game by having to pitch” is equally valid. So, why not rotate all the players around the field each inning so that all nine of them have a chance to pitch, the way they do in cricket? That way, all players can be well-rounded and play the complete game. They both sound equally ridiculous to me.
By making pitchers hit, you are actually asking them to do much, much more than anybody else on the field: they would have to not only bat and to defend their position like everyone else, but they would also have to pitch, which no one else is being made to do. Pitching is such an important—and, yes, specialized—part of the game that they in practical terms completely neglect their development on what everyone knows is a crucial part of the game (hitting) to concentrate almost solely on pitching, another crucial part of the game that no other player is being made to do.
And besides, I don't think this kind of specialization is bad. I think it's good.