[Amazin69]

Originally Posted by RandyMyers

The DH rule actually adds real strategy not take it away as the traditional argument would have you believe.

Ah, again the "traditional" insult. Yeah, it's just "tradition" that keeps me from endorsing the DH. That's why I yearn for the return of segregation, refuse to go to night games, and would certainly never use a "computer" to go on this "internet" thingamabob…oh, wait…

I believe the word you're looking for there is "intelligent".

With few exceptions, pitchers cannot hit through out history.

No, they can hit, just not as well as the other players. The occasional Bob Buhl 0-for-62 season aside, pitchers make enough contact to cause strategy to come into play. A .250 hitter, given four plate appearances per game, can be expected to get one hit per game. A .125 hitter can be expected to produce one hit every other game. That's not really "struck-by-lightning" levels of rare. Give a pitcher 32 starts a year and even with a BA well south of the Mendoza line, he'll be statistically likely to have produced at least one hit 16 separate times. And even a pitcher in a horrific slump can be the fulcrum of a key decision, as we'll see later.

They did not make it to the majors with their bat. In almost every case the decision is a given about pinch hitting.

No, in "almost every case" it's presumed the pinch-hitter is more likely to get a hit than the pitcher. That doesn't make the decision "a given", that's what makes it a tough decision.

It's the basic "bird in the hand" conundrum…do I want to give up this pitcher who is pitching well and probably has more good innings in him to take a chance on a hit (knowing the PH is likely to make an out two-thirds of the time anyway), or do I keep the pitcher going and just pray he can do something with the bat?

A classic example is Game 5 of the 1968 World Series. The Tigers trail, 3 games to 1, facing elimination in their home park. Bottom of the 6th, down 3-2, bases loaded, two out, and Mayo Smith lets Bill Freehan bat (despite Freehan being 0-for-14 in the Series so far) because he doesn't want to lose his veteran backstop. Freehan hits into a force play; opportunity lost. Next inning, still 3-2, Cardinals. Lead-off hitter makes out, bringing up Mickey Lolich. Seven outs left in the Tiger season. Lolich batting on the season: .114/.184/.157. And this is "The Year of the Pitcher", with the high mound and the big strike zone. Surely a pinch-hitter is called for here, right?

But the Cardinals will get two more cracks after this, and the Detroit bullpen is pitching like crap. 6.28 combined ERA to this point in the Series, and that's not counting the two inherited runs Pat Dobson let score in Game 3. And Lolich went the distance in Game 2, the Tigers' only win so far in the Series.

So do you pull the plug on Lolich and hope that Dobson and Don McMahon and Joe Sparma (who gave up a homer to Bob Gibson yesterday) can hold the fort after this? And who are you going to send up, anyhow? Gates Brown is a great pinch-hitter, but if you use him now, with nobody on, what are you going to do if you have a rally going in the 9th and you need him? And the rest of the bench, this being 1968 and all, is horrible-hitting glove guys (Tom Matchick, .202 BA; Dick Tracewski, .156; Ray Oyler, .135; Jim Price, .175, Wayne Comer, .125) and a used-up Eddie Mathews (.212/.281/.385). The infielders were so terrible, Smith has decided to play 4th OF Mickey Stanley at shortstop (a position he'd never played in career) just to get some production out of the spot. So do you gamble on Brown now and the bullpen later, or hold your cards and send up Lolich?

Lolich went up, dropped a weak fly into short RF for a single, started a three-run rally, and finished out the win. (Including the 9th, where the Cards had the tying runs on base with one out.) The Tigers took the next two (Lolich pitching Game 7 on two days' rest), and won the Series.

Put the DH in there and Smith has absolutely NO decision to make. Brown is DHing, and Smith doesn't have a hitter worth his life on the bench, so he just sits back and waits and hopes. Two words: Bo.Ring. The drama was there because Smith was forced to choose between an advantage (Lolich on the mound) and the disadvantage that went with it (Lolich at the bat). The DH kills all that.

Okay, so it's 50 years later and pitchers aren't expected to go nine any more. But this still comes into play, it's just an inning or two earlier. It's the fifth inning and Bartolo Colon has been laboring out there, but the Mets have so many bullpen injuries that they've put the batboy on the active roster and they really don't want to use the entire bullpen, because Dillon Gee got bombed out last night and most of those guys have tired arms to begin with. And since for some goddamn reason, teams nowadays only have a 5-man bench (which is more like a 4-man bench since nobody wants to use the backup catcher to pinch-hit), do you want to use Kirk Nieuwenhuis, your only LH bat on the bench right now and hope you can round up some guys with something left in their arms in the pen, or do you send Bartolo up to bat, and hope he can (pardon the pun) gut out another inning or two before you have to start using your thin reserves? It would be a shame to waste Nieuwenhuis so early and not get anything for it, but there are runners on 2nd and 3rd and two out and what if you never get another chance like this? Does Bartolo even have another inning in him? He was lucky to get out of the 4th only down 3-1…but then he cruised in the top of the 5th, and he's only thrown 70 pitches, so maybe?

(This isn't an actual 2015 Mets game, I'm just asking you to imagine the scenario. There is no "right" answer. Because Terry Collins has a decision to make. With the DH, no such decision. Again, boring. Pull off the DH's kneecaps!)

While strategic decisions with the DH are more difficult. You don't have that automatic out any more but instead have to deal with one of the opposing teams better hitters. Do you shift your defense, hold the runner tighter knowing it will open a hole for a player who can actually handle the bat, etc.

No, those aren't strategic decisions, that's just the scouting report. The manager has made his decision on how he's going to play the DH just as he's made his decision on how he's going to play every other guy in the lineup, well before the national anthem was even sung. He doesn't have to think about this at all.

Whereas the presence of the supposedly-weaker hitter not only provides entertainment when the unexpected hero comes through…

(One of the highlights of the stretch drive for the 1969 Mets was a double-header in Pittsburgh where the Mets were not hitting well, and were further shorthanded because Cleon Jones was out with a leg injury and Art Shamsky was observing Rosh Hashanah. The Mets' regulars didn't drive in a single run all day, but they got the sweep, both games by 1-0, with the pitcher driving in his own run in both cases. Don Cardwell was hitting .171 at that point, so maybe he had a chance to "help himself", but the other game, where Jerry Koosman was the pitching/hitting hero? Koos was hitting a rollicking .044 coming in. But he did it, and it's remembered because of it. DH, and nobody remembers these games.

In Game 3 of the NLCS, people remember Nolan Ryan coming on in long relief to shut down a Braves rally and enable the Mets to get back in the game. What they may not remember is that Ryan started the Mets' winning rally with a hit, after batting an impressive .103 for the year. Miracle Mets, on the mound and at the plate.)

…not only does the psychological damage of allowing a hit to the opposing pitcher (or worse, walking him) carry a greater chance of totally undoing a hurler because "dammit, I should be able to get the pitcher out, ffs!", but the "easy out" expectation gives the opposing manager a chance to royally screw up…if the manager is unbelievably stupid, that is. For the sake of the argument, let's call this unbearably stupid, loud-mouthed, self-promoting cornball of a manager "Tommy Lasorda".

Return with us now to the halcyon days of August 31, 1983. The 77-54 Dodgers, struggling to stay ahead of the Braves in the NL West, are at Beautiful Shea Stadium to take on the Mets, 54-78, buried in last, and having already fired George Bamberger and playing out the string under Frank Howard. (Keith Hernandez writes that Dave Kingman rejoiced when the Mets traded for Hernandez, even though it meant Sky King would have to ride the pine the rest of the year, because Dave knew that he wouldn't have to come back next season. Yeah, not a highly-motivated team here. Tom Seaver, in his one-year return, called them "The Stems"…"Mets" spelled backwards.) Your pitching matchup is Fernando Valenzuela (13-7) vs. Mike Torrez (8-14, on the way to leading the NL in losses, earned runs allowed, and walks; he already had his epic 10-walk performance against Cincinnati earlier this season). But Torrez has won his last two starts, so…

Torrez allows a run in the top of the first on a Dusty Baker RBI groundout, but then settles down a bit. Meanwhile, Fernando cruises through the first three innings, allowing but a single hit (by Mookie Wilson) and two walks. In the bottom of the fourth, however, things get interesting.

George Foster leads off by grounding out, but then Mark Bradley (former Dodger) ties the game with an inside-the-park HR to RF. (I'm guessing that Mike Marshall [not the screwball pitcher, the other one] didn't do a great job of tracking the ball down in the corner.) Perhaps slightly rattled, Fernando doesn't do a great job on Bob Bailor's grounder (listed as "single to P" on the PBP) and then lets Bailor steal 2B. He rallies to strike out Junior Ortiz for the second out, though, bringing up rookie SS Jose Oquendo.

Now, Oquendo was a fantastic gloveman, which is why then-manager Bamberger had pulled him out of the minors at the start of May and given him the SS job instead of incumbent Ron Gardenhire. And Oquendo not only fielded well, he got off to a good start with the bat. After 40 games (June 17), he was hitting .299/.372/.346, certainly respectable. But then the wheels fell off.

Oh, boy, did they fall off. In his next 56 games (June 18-August 30), Oquendo posted a rousing .186/.205/.210 slash line. Ten weeks of .414 OPS. He went 25 games at one point without drawing a single walk. His last extra-base hit was a double on June 25th, 48 games previously.

Now, you might think the struggling Oquendo would be the answer to Valenzuela's prayers, and that Fernando was seeing an easy ticket out of the inning. Well, maybe he was, but the distinctly stupid walking sack of pasta Tommy Lasorda looked past Oquendo, to the "pathetic" Mike Torrez, riding an 0-for-43 slump, and gave Oquendo the intentional walk. An intenional walk to a guy who went almost a month without any walks. Seriously.

As Bill James later wrote, this was bad baseball because Lasorda had two chances to get his pitcher out of the inning, and he threw one of them away. Say Oquendo somehow manages a hit; Bailor scores, and now it's 2-1 Mets, with 2 out, a man on 1B and Mike Torrez coming up. Still pretty workable, for the 4th inning, after all.

But what actually happened was that Lasorda walked Oquendo, Torrez singled to break his 0-fer, and now it was 2-1, two men on, and Mookie Wilson coming up, not Torrez. In putting all his effort into cutting off that one run, Tommy opened the door for a big inning. And to make it worse, you know how all the top pitchers have a guy they just can't get out? Like Tommy Hutton hit over .400 against Tom Seaver? Well, Fernando's "Tommy Hutton" was…yup, Mookie Wilson.

Three-run homer, Mets lead 5-1, Mets win 7-1. Inexcusable loss to a bad team while the Dodgers were in a pennant race because Lasorda wouldn't pitch to Jose-freaking-Oquendo since the pitcher was a "sure out" behind him. But again, Tommy had a strategic decision to make that no AL manager would ever have; does he "play his card" (the likelihood that Fernando can retire Torrez) and risk a big inning to get to him by walking Oquendo, or does he risk pitching to Oquendo and save the (presumptive) out he can get with Torrez to start off the 5th? What would you rather have, an increased likelihood of ending the inning by getting to the pitcher, or keep the pitcher's spot as insurance if Oquendo hits and an easy start to the next inning if he doesn't? That's strategy.

Not that Tommy learned anything from this; he intentionally walked the #8 hitter constantly, for years. One year, Garry Templeton, of all people, led the NL in IBB, simply because he hit 8th for the team Tommy was most worried about.

And yet, when you remember Tommy these days, what game decision comes to mind? His call to NOT give Jack Clark an intentional pass in Game 6 of the 1985 NLCS, and Clark's famous homer off of Tom Niedenfuer. The "right" decision [walk Clark and all it takes for Andy Van Slyke to beat you is a double, and Van Slyke had more XBH than Clark had HR], but the wrong result.

That's what happens sometimes, what makes decision-making so difficult. Which is why it adds to the game, rather than the "preset lineups, give the umpire the card, and then take a nap" baseball they play in the AL. JMO.