Do you have DH in both leagues - interesting blog and points

[kq76]

Originally Posted by jpeters1734

I vote for a DH compromise.

Tango: Four hybrid DH solutions (vote) - Stats & Info Blog - ESPN

I personally love Solution 3: My Bodyguard

"An offshoot to Solution 2: As long as the starting pitcher remains in the game, so does his DH. Once the starter comes out of the game, so does the DH. In short, the DH becomes a pitcher's personal batter. If the starter is pulled for a reliever, the manager can pair a new DH for that reliever. But since relievers rarely come to bat more than once, this DH would become a de facto pinch hitter."


Compromise on the Designated Hitter - Beyond the Box Score

I'm a fan of these compromise solutions too. My predicton is come 2023 (the DH's 50 year anniversary), MLB will adopt a hybrid compromise solution:

the SP-only DH.

With it the DH is in effect for the SP, just like the AL now, but once the SP is taken out the DH must be either double-switched or taken out as well. After that, the relievers can bat for themselves (which likely won't happen, but can if you don't want to deplete your bench) or you can have pinch hitters bat for them, just like the NL now. This way fans of the DH don't have to watch bad pitchers hit yet anti-DH fans still get their increase in late inning moves. And maybe more importantly, you get the increased offense that drive ratings/revenue while you lessen the risk of those precious SPs from injuring themselves. Yes, it doesn't solve everyone's problems with the DH like the "nine men field, the same nine men should hit" argument, but it's a compromise that in the end will I think be palatable to both camps.

EDIT: You can read more about this solution at BeyondTheBoxscore.

[Bluenoser]

I don't care for it irl at all, but in OOTP I like to use 4 man rotations.

So, with longer schedules I enable the DH.

With shorter schedules though (less than 100 games) I won't use DH.

[chucksabr]

OOTP is a managers game. In this game, the players aren't the focus—the manager is. So of course people don't want the DH, because that gives the manager less to do. No one is paying forty bucks to sit around and watch games unfold without putting their big ol' thumbprint all over the thing.

In real life, though, I prefer the DH to pitchers hitting, because I think the DH game makes for a better and more honest game.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by chucksabr

OOTP is a managers game. In this game, the players aren't the focus—the manager is. So of course people don't want the DH, because that gives the manager less to do. No one is paying forty bucks to sit around and watch games unfold without putting their big ol' thumbprint all over the thing.

In real life, though, I prefer the DH to pitchers hitting, because I think the DH game makes for a better and more honest game.

I play in spectator mode all the time, so count me as someone that shelled out the bucks to sit around and watch games unfold.

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by chucksabr

OOTP is a managers game. In this game, the players aren't the focus—the manager is. So of course people don't want the DH, because that gives the manager less to do. No one is paying forty bucks to sit around and watch games unfold without putting their big ol' thumbprint all over the thing.

In real life, though, I prefer the DH to pitchers hitting, because I think the DH game makes for a better and more honest game.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

[jbaumgardt1]

I play through spring training and the first half of the season without a DH, until the all-star break. The All-Star game is the first game to use a DH and the DH's join all the line-ups for the rest of the season thru the World Series.

[chucksabr]

The laughy face was meant to suggest that I was joking, but in case it wasn't clear:

I was joking.

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by chucksabr

The laughy face was meant to suggest that I was joking, but in case it wasn't clear:

I was joking.

Which was kinda why I used an emoticon too.

[The Game]

Originally Posted by pgjocki

Is it time to add the designated hitter to the National League?

I ran across this blog over on Yardbarker and while it is interesting I still personally play with no DH in my leagues at all. I like managing each game and getting to use my entire bench as pinch hitters instead of just letting the same 9 guys go up and hit everyday. Sure the pitchers bat in the first few innings but I usually bunt, try and take a walk or use hit and run when they are at the plate to spice things up.

To me an interesting stat from the blog was the batting lines for the AL and NL this year:

"This year, the American League has a .254/.317/.392 line with 1,958 home runs and a 99 wRC+. The National League is hitting just .249/.312/.384 with 1,835 home runs and a 93 wRC+"

That doesn't seem like an absolute earth shattering disparity between the two leagues that would call for changing the rules in my opinion.

What do you guys think? Should MLB put the DH in both leagues and do you use it for your own OOTP leagues?

I play with the DH in both leagues in my EBL league thru 2025, after that neither league will have it.Ii started the DH in the AL in 2015 and added it to the NL in 2020. I prefer to play without it but it depends on the league. IRL I am a fan of it, but i like the fact that one league has it and the other does not.

[Lazy Horse]

Originally Posted by madJ

Disregarding any preferences: that linked blog article felt like a rant against the lack of the DH in the NL. I didn't have the impression that the author wanted to spark a reasonable discussion rather than just trash the NL's decision to not adopt the DH rule (yet).

I agree. I don't think the guy had any other point than "more offense".

And then there's this quote (emphasis mine):

"Of course, there are other factors to include in total offense, such as the parks teams play in, the money each has to spend, and the quality of pitching staffs, but those are all pretty well balanced." ...

I'm totally for the pitcher batting for many reasons. It might make parts of the game "more boring", but that's baseball. Baseball is sometimes boring. Besides, I'd rather the pitcher strike out in a big spot than watch a guy who gets paid $10M a year just to hit in big spots strike out in the same situation. At least the pitcher is going to be doing something until his spot in the lineup comes up again.

[chucksabr]

Originally Posted by rpriske

I prefer the AL with the DH.

BUT

My VAST preference is to have the two leagues DIFFERENT and the DH is the way that happens.

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

This is kind of how I feel, as well. I like the lack of DH in the NL, not so much because I dislike the DH, but because I like the uniqueness that having it/not having it creates for the two leagues.

Originally Posted by The Game

I play with the DH in both leagues in my EBL league thru 2025, after that neither league will have it.Ii started the DH in the AL in 2015 and added it to the NL in 2020. I prefer to play without it but it depends on the league. IRL I am a fan of it, but i like the fact that one league has it and the other does not.

I used to like this aspect of it as well, but after having been a Cubs season ticket holder for 16 seasons, I have come around to the idea that the National League should have the DH, too. I have evolved to prefer seeing every at bat contested fairly and honestly, rather than watching a hitter actively try to make an out, sometimes without there even being a runner on base, just to maintain his energy for pitching or to keep from hurting himself at bat or on the bases. (Yeah, that happens, and more than you'd wish.)

Except for the NL and the Central League in Japan, every other league above high school uses the DH, and high school teams themselves frequently use the DH themselves in place of their weakest hitter (which, at that level, is not always the pitcher). So by employing a DH, it's not as though the American League is uniquely sinful by perverting the very essence of baseball, and more to the point, it's not as though it's still an experiment and not "real baseball". It's been around for over 40 years, and it's used in probably over 90% percent of all consequential games. So if anything, the DH game has become "real baseball", and the alternative is a hoary relic of a dim and distant past.

Ban the "Hitting" Pitcher!

[chucksabr]

Here's a data point to consider: the batting averages of pitchers in the National League only, covering the modern era 1901-2014:



Source: National League Total Stats » 2014 » Pitchers » Standard Statistics | FanGraphs Baseball

There is an inexorable trend downward, and 2014 is on pace to be, far and away, the worst year ever for National League pitchers' batting averages.

The implication is clear: by and large, professional pitchers do not care about becoming good, or even passable, hitters. This is because it is pitching that is their ticket to a big league income, not batting, and every moment pitchers spend working on becoming good hitters is a moment wasted not working on becoming even better pitchers. They simply did not grow up being hitters; or else, if they were good hitters when they were little kids, it got completely ironed out of them starting with the moment it became clear that they could make an actual living off their golden arms.

So, because every pitcher in the National League today grew up in the DH era, they stopped batting, and their hitting skills eroded, and by the time it became apparent that they might make a National League roster and thus needed to do any work on improving their hitting skills at all, it was already AA or AAA ball, and there is no way they are ever going to regain any decent hitting skills at that high a level of ball, against that good a level of pitcher.

This is one more reason why, in my opinion, pitchers batting is pointless, and it should be discarded with as quickly as possible.

All that said: please feel free to ban the DH in your own OOTP league. It's your game, and you're the manager.

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by chucksabr

Here's a data point to consider: the batting averages of pitchers in the National League only, covering the modern era 1901-2014:

Attachment 358976

Source: National League Total Stats » 2014 » Pitchers » Standard Statistics | FanGraphs Baseball

There is an inexorable trend downward, and 2014 is on pace to be, far and away, the worst year ever for National League pitchers' batting averages.

The implication is clear: by and large, professional pitchers do not care about becoming good, or even passable, hitters. This is because it is pitching that is their ticket to a big league income, not batting, and every moment pitchers spend working on becoming good hitters is a moment wasted not working on becoming even better pitchers. They simply did not grow up being hitters; or else, if they were good hitters when they were little kids, it got completely ironed out of them starting with the moment it became clear that they could make an actual living off their golden arms.

So, because every pitcher in the National League today grew up in the DH era, they stopped batting, and their hitting skills eroded, and by the time it became apparent that they might make a National League roster and thus needed to do any work on improving their hitting skills at all, it was already AA or AAA ball, and there is no way they are ever going to regain any decent hitting skills at that high a level of ball, against that good a level of pitcher.

This is one more reason why, in my opinion, pitchers batting is pointless, and it should be discarded with as quickly as possible.

All that said: please feel free to ban the DH in your own OOTP league. It's your game, and you're the manager.

Do you have data for AL pitchers? DH rule only came into effect in 73.

[chucksabr]

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

Do you have data for AL pitchers? DH rule only came into effect in 73.

You can find data for AL pitchers, sure. Click the link I provided and change the league to AL.

[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.

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.

[RchW]

Keep in mind that teams often ask pitchers who bat opposite to their throwing arm to switch. So RHP who bat LH are asked to bat RH and vice versa. It's not a huge number but it makes bad batters even worse.

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by RchW

Keep in mind that teams often ask pitchers who bat opposite to their throwing arm to switch. So RHP who bat LH are asked to bat RH and vice versa. It's not a huge number but it makes bad batters even worse.

Dwight Gooden was a good example of that. He hit lefty when he got to the majors, but the Mets asked him to switch pretty quickly to protect his right arm.

[chucksabr]

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.

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?

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.

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.

[BIG17EASY]

Sorry chuck, didn't mean to give you the impression I was addressing you directly. I was only using a couple points you made to help state my point of view, rather than re-iterating them as if they were my points. Everything you say (and everyone else has said) is valid.

This entire discussion is a matter of opinion, which means there's no right or wrong.

[chucksabr]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

Sorry chuck, didn't mean to give you the impression I was addressing you directly. I was only using a couple points you made to help state my point of view, rather than re-iterating them as if they were my points. Everything you say (and everyone else has said) is valid.

This entire discussion is a matter of opinion, which means there's no right or wrong.

I do not begrudge anyone's opinion on this. No one has to explain why they want the DH or pitchers hitting. I was just addressing the points you were making.