Baseball Musings: Down on People Who Support the DH

February 21, 2008

Down on People Who Support the DH

Randall Lompe does a poor job of attacking the people who don't agree with him on the DH, and shows he doesn't understand the dynamics of player selection:

And there's a simple solution to the pitcher being a sure out: make him take batting practice. Several people pointed out that at the Little League and High School levels, superior hitting and pitching skills are often found in the same athlete. Why is this lost at the higher levels?

Might not a sharp manager push his pitchers to perform a little bit better at the plate, just as pitchers are required to hustle to first on a ball hit to the right side of the infield? Aren't they all drilled on that? Perhaps greater expectations would improve the breed.

No. Pitchers hit well at low levels of competition because they are the best athletes on the team. When millions of 12 to 18 year olds are playing, it's tough to concentrate 25 good ones on one team. So the best athlete is the best pitcher/fielder/hitter. But when you go up to the minor leagues, you're talking about a few thousand players, all pulled from the extreme right end of the bell curve. Now there's real competition. Some hit better, some field better, some pitch better, so in order to survive they specialize. And pitching takes so much work and is so important, hitting becomes secondary to those players.

Hitting takes hours of practice. Five more minutes in the batting cage won't make a difference. Hitters need to train their pattern recognizers to tell a changeup from a fastball, and the only way they do that is to see thousands of examples. Meanwhile, pitching takes just as much practice, creating a motion that screws with the hitter's pattern recognizers. Pitchers as a group are never going to hit well!

There's nothing wrong with liking the DH. My only problem with the position is that it's a waste of money, because the older hitters who occupy the slot don't produce enough to justify their contracts. Saying the answer to the DH is better hitting pitchers, however, is the worst argument I've ever heard.

Posted by David Pinto at 08:56 AM | Rules | TrackBack (0)

Comments

I agree that the argument put forward here that simply taking some more BP would somehow improve the performance of hitting pitchers any significant amount, is simplistic at best.

Pitchers should certainly be required to put their time in the change, particularly to just be able to lay down a decent bunt. To expect much more than this is wishful thinking. There are certainly some good hitting pitchers out there (see D-back's Micah Owings), but they are quite rare, and generally aren't at the high end of the pitching spectrum either. To your point that they must specialize at some point to truly be great at their chosen position.

Posted by: dbacksbuzz at February 21, 2008 10:57 AM

I think the more interesting question is how MLB is going to reconcile the DH rule and the fact that it is clearly causing a growing gap between the quality of competition between the AL and NL.

While it's true that we have limped along with two separate sets of rules for more than 40 years, the trend seems to be toward consolidation/uniformity (making the DH rule more balanced in World Series and interleague play, and the general move toward wiping out distinctions between the leagues, such as no league offices and unified umpiring crews).

While I personally don't like the DH, I think something needs to be done to eliminate the way it is seriously skewing competitive balance. And since the DH clearly robs the game of some strategic impact, I would hope that the solution would partly address that strategic loss.

My solution, admittedly less than perfect, would be to make the first game of all series in both leagues a "DH game," with the second game a "pitcher hits game." Then, to add some strategic flavor to things, in series that run longer than two games (most), I would allow the home team manager to determine if the third and subsequent games are DH or pitcher games. There would likely need to be some sort of deadline for making this determination, but I'd think it would be best to do that in a way that allows for a reasonable level of gamesmanship.

As noted, there would likely be some problems with this solution, the most obvious one being that teams would play a variable number of DH games and that some undoubtedly see this as an unfair balance. That might be, but I think it better than the current and widening imbalance developing between the leagues.

And there would be several advantages to this sort of an approach, including exposing more fans to both flavors of the game. I think it also has the benefit of being more or less neutral in terms of the player association (job security) concerns.

No doubt there's someone out there smarter than me with a better solution. But my point is it's time to stop complaining about the DH and do something to recognize that it is part of the game and is a bell that isn't going to be un-rung...

Posted by: Doug Weil at February 21, 2008 11:44 AM

Doh -- the DH has NOT been around for 40 years (more like 35), but it's clearly going to be...

My bad.

Posted by: Doug Weil at February 21, 2008 11:49 AM

If your only problem with the position is the poor value of the older DHs, then you really don't have much of a problem with the DH. Firstly, senior players have value beyond their numbers, vis fan appeal (VOUP - Value Over Unknown Player) and as team leaders. Secondly, if teams are in fact overpaying for the position, that is their own problem and not one I see as inherent to the role.

Posted by: John Bourke at February 21, 2008 05:10 PM

"Saying the answer to the DH is better hitting pitchers, however, is the worst argument I've ever heard."

That would be a poor argument. Only it's not the argument I made. Try reading the whole article. There's no reason "the best athletes" (your term) can't be proficient at the plate. That doesn't mean a ..270/.350/.430 line. It just means a superb athlete shouldn't embarass himself at the plate. And that whole line of reasoning was just a response to the whiners who don't want to watch a pitcher hit. I don't give two @%$#s whether the pitcher can hit or not. Part of the inherent charm of the game is that you've got to put up with some great hitters who might cost you in the field, as well as a lot of pitchers who can only wave weakly at three strikes.
I've got no problem with people who think the DH is a great innovation, other than feeling sorry for them. I just think it was a solution, a poor one at that, in search of a problem. The game was better off without it, especially at lower levels of play where some kids lose the chance to become at least adequate with the glove.

Posted by: Rand at February 22, 2008 01:42 AM

Rand, if you are so passionate about players playing both offense and defence, then remove the pinch-hitters.

Posted by: Radiohead at February 22, 2008 02:32 AM

The difference in competition between the two leagues is mostly money. You have two super-powers in the AL - the Red Sox and the Yankees. The other teams there have to be very smart to keep up with their gigantic payrolls. In the NL, where no one has a huge payroll advantage, mediocrity rules.

Posted by: JeremyR at February 22, 2008 05:04 PM

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