Quote:
Originally Posted by NoOne
He was held back by simple and dogmatic minds of the time. the man was a great pitcher too.. total waste not using him. throwing and batting are 2 significantly different motions, plus you don't have to throw the ball more than a handful of times if you are considerate of a 2-way players needs in warm-up.
1919 he started 15gs/17 pitching appearances and ~130 total games played. they probably didn't do a whole lot of doubling up of duties. must have done some though, otherwise the math adds up to a 167 game season (*154g then?) if he did not do some batting between those GS. (132-15 + (15*4) = 167g roughly and that assumes no day off after the last GS... which could add another few days, if you wanted to)
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I don't know that I buy this. Even in Ruth's time it was understood that you had to rest a starting pitcher's arm between games, and that may include the wear you get from throwing the ball in from left field. Sure, lobbing it in after a pop fly might add no strain but can the same be said for having to throw it in hard to catch a guy trying to go from first to third on a single? You can't just concede those or else teams will start playing to that and your fielder becomes a liability. But on the flip side, the day after a guy pitches especially you probably don't want him throwing much at *all* if memory serves.
Maybe first base or DH would be a better place to put a guy like (although at first you still have that issue of throwing to other bases) but Ruth, of course, played 40 years before the DH became a thing and first base was manned throughout Ruth's career by an inner circle Hall of Famer and a very good player with a reputation for good defense. On top of that, Ruth IIRC told Boston he didn't particularly want to pitch anymore.
Aside from chucking tradition down the road - and it should be pointed out that what Ruth did in 1920 was completely unprecedented except sort of by his own 1919 season, so the Yankees were already riding the wave of ignoring tradition - there's actually not nearly as good of a reason to start Ruth and pitch him every day as people might think. At best, you might use him for a spot start or two when you really needed to win a game or something, and that's more or less how the Yankees used Ruth until he was far enough removed from pitching that they didn't trust him anymore.
Ohtani is a different matter altogether because he *can* play DH on off days. The Angels are still limiting how much he's playing for them, in part because they're not sure how much of a major league hitter he is, but also, I'm sure, because they're not sure how to handle his post-SP fatigue.