It's About Time: National League Getting Closer To Adding DH
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- On Thursday afternoon, Newsday's David Lennon sent shock waves through the bodies of the millions upon millions of "traditionalist" baseball fans who enjoy watching hapless players participate in a crucial element of the sport every single night.
The designated hitter may be coming to the National League.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said that adding the DH to the NL is "gaining momentum" and could be a real life thing as soon as 2017.
Hold on to your hats, people. This might get ugly.
This news was, predictably, met with shock, awe, and disgust from many people who for some reason don't like seeing actual professional hitters step into the batter's box. Feel free to search Twitter with "NL," "DH" and any variation of "terrible," "awful," "disgusting" or any profanity of your liking. You'll find some angry folks.
But the reality is that the move for an MLB-wide use of the designated hitter is long overdue.
While we could argue about when the NL's adoption of the DH should have been made, there's really no way to claim it should not have happened when the Houston Astros jumped leagues prior to the 2013 season. At that point, with interleague play taking place from day one of the season until the final day of the year, it simply made no sense to have two separate sets of rules governing the game. We all kind of went along with the interleague format in previous years, but with it now taking place at all times, it was a bit silly.
Of course, the counterarguments to the adoption of the DH are fairly well-known.
"I love the strategy!"
I've said this before, I'll say it again: If you watch baseball, it is likely because you want to watch baseball. While accounting for a double switch, or deciding to pull a starting pitcher early in a key spot, does require more work for a manager, that does not make the product more exciting to watch. Until we can get some hyper slow-motion, high-definition cameras inside managers' brains, a la "Inside Out," this aspect of the game is not exciting to watch.
Plus, it's not as if strategy disappears with a DH. It just changes. Instead of calling for a double switch, a manager has to utilize his bullpen in more creative ways, because there's no longer an automatic out in the lineup. (That is, unless Stephen Drew is in the lineup HEY NOW we've got zingers).
There, you've still got your strategy, people.
Oh ... oh! There's also this strategy: Two outs, runner on second, bottom of the fourth inning, No. 8 hitter stepping to the plate and ... he's getting intentionally walked. The .237 career hitter is getting a free base. Why? Because the pitcher with a career .075 batting average is on deck. You'll never believe this but, yup, the pitcher just fecklessly grounded out to end the inning.
Strategy!
Give me "talented athletes competing" over "strategy" seven days a week.
"The DH isn't a real baseball player!"
I mean. This one's really not worth addressing. It's being shouted by people who are arguing to see pitchers try to hit baseballs.
It's being used to argue that someone like David Ortiz -- who has launched 503 home runs, who owns a career .284 batting average, and who single-handedly hit 10 more homers than all pitchers last season in 4,000 fewer at-bats -- is not a baseball player. You're saying that David Ortiz isn't a baseball player, but Jon Lester with his four career hits is a real baseball player.
That's just ... that is patently absurd.
And plus, it's always David Ortiz that gets used in these scenarios. David Ortiz is by far the exception at DH. More often than not, it's either a regular position player who's resting his legs or doesn't have a daily spot in the lineup. Sometimes it's a right-handed batter to face a left-handed starter.
Four AL teams didn't even have a DH that registered enough plate appearances to qualify for postseason awards, but when they did pencil in a DH, it was always with a better hitter than a pitcher (except for the time in 2014 when Stephen Drew was used as a DH oh NO STOP he is a nice man!).
"NL games are quicker."
Yes, no doubt. Games end sooner in the NL than in the AL ... by a whopping two minutes and 15 seconds. And upon further evaluation, FiveThirtyEight determined that difference in game time is negligible and doesn't even necessarily have anything to do with the DH.
But if the game feels quicker, that's because you see some sad-sack pitcher mope to the plate, take two strikes, then flail helplessly at a 93 mph cutter. Just to be clear, you're saying you want to keep seeing that?
"This was the way the game was meant to be played. It was the game my grandfather watched."
You know, lots of things were done differently back in your grandfather's day, and it's probably best we don't list them all here. The point is, humans evolve and improve.
Ball players used to rip butts in the dugout and worked second jobs in the offseason. Fans used to wear full suits to games. Teams used to travel without having Joe Maddon force them to dress in zany outfits.
It's not your grandfather's game anymore, and it hasn't been for a very long time.
The bottom line is this: Pitchers stink at hitting. The Nationals led the NL in pitchers' batting average at .167. In 306 at-bats, Nationals pitchers hit five (5) extra-base hits. Five. They were all only doubles. (Stephen Drew had 34 extra-base hits last year, by the way.)
Giants pitchers hit nine home runs, thanks to Madison Bumgarner's five, but no other team had more than three.
All told, NL pitchers batted .133 with a .159 on-base percentage.
They did, however, dominate when it came to laying down sacrifice bunts. If you're that attached to sacrifice bunts, surely there is another sport out there mild enough for you to enjoy. Are they televising croquet matches yet?
The fact is, for all the huffing and puffing done by NL fans and/or baseball purists and/or folks who simply fear change, watching baseball games with a designated hitter is the exact same experience as watching baseball games without a designated hitter. The only difference is you don't have to watch the equivalent of your buddy James from accounting whiff helplessly at fastballs, and you don't have to see the fifth man off the bench come up in a big spot in the ninth inning, and you get to see a real-life major league hitter play real-life Major League Baseball.
Embrace it. It's happening. The sport will be improved ... because Bartolo Colon will probably be retired by 2017. Probably.
You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
