Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt Arnold
The best part of the game - love or hate the DH, you can decide how you want your universe to go. For me, playing with a DH team vs a non-DH team, it's a lot easier in roster construction to play with the DH. And while I do agree that there's more strategy in the non-DH game, sometimes I don't want that strategy. I mean, when I have the hotshot young 1B coming up behind my All-Star current veteran, I hate to be in an NL-league where now I have to trade one of them.
MLB within the next 5-10 years will switch to both leagues having a DH. At some point they'll bring up the debate, and the vast majority of NL teams will vote in favour. Just to be able to hide a guy whose defense has fallen is a big, big edge for them. And having that roster spot for flexibility - don't you think the Dodgers would love to have been able to throw Kemp or Ethier at DH last season?
It's the future of the game, and we'll have to accept it. Doesn't mean you have to like it, but it will be the reality of all of baseball sometime in the next few years.
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I agree with this, with the minor exception that I do not believe the DH is the future of the game. The DH is the current state of the game, since just about every college and professional league in the world, certainly way over 95% of them, use the DH.
In one key way, the DH is like sabermetrics. A lot of people still yell and kick and scream against the idea of "eggheaded math nerds who live in their mother's basement and never played the game" ruining baseball with all their stupid statistics s***. But the fact is, 30 out of 30 major league organizations have embraced advanced performance metrics to at least some degree of significance, and it will never go backwards. There is no more war over the use of advanced statistics in baseball, because sabermetrics has already won it.
So has the DH. The DH has won the war practically everywhere around the world. And at some point, the only two consequential leagues left that are still in denial will get the clue.