|
They don't care, at least not enough to swap out training to improve pitching skills for training to improve batting skills. If they did care enough to do that, then pitchers' hitting performance would not be dropping inexorably over time. It would stabilize. But it's not, and that's because everyone has decided that it makes no sense to train pitchers to hit major league pitching. The dozen or so guys who take pride in hitting .200 notwithstanding, teams just shrug and throw pitchers up towards the plate because the rules tell them they have to, and they have to accept all the outs that inevitably result, comforted only by the fact that the other team is similarly handicapped.
They are never, ever, going to suddenly reverse course and just dump the DH everywhere in the entire world, epecially in college and the minors, for a simple reason: if pitchers hit, then that removes an opportunity to develop one of your hitters for advancement. It makes no sense to sign a hitter and pay him a scholarship, or a bonus and salary, if he's just going to sit on the bench while a pitcher hits. They decided that they would rather spend those resources developing a really good hitter, even if he can't field a lick, than to train and train and train a pitcher to bat only to end up having him hit one-something at best, and to the detriment of his pitching training and, ultimately, skills and performance. That's one they figured out a long time ago. The DH is here to stay. The only fight at hand is preserving it in the only two leagues in the world that still use it.
You certainly have the right to prefer the pitchers-hitting game. Lots of people do, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just that my preference is that I would rather see a guy hit .300/.400/.500 who has no business on the field losing games for his teams playing defense rather than Bartolo Colon flailing around with his helmet flying hither and yon, looking like a clown. I'm going to go out on a limb and make the claim that there's nothing wrong with my preference, either.
As for double switching in OOTP, I believe the decision really is easy. It's just that sometimes, it doesn't work out the way you want it to because, in a strange way, it's humans who play the game and humans fail, even in OOTP. That doesn't mean th double switch decision you made with your great hitting/very poor fielding left fielder was wrong. It just means it didn't work out this particular time. No one is guaranteed success.
|