The DH - Where I get NL fans mad at me again

National League fans are adamant, and I get it. We baseball people do not like people messing with our game. Even though replay worked great (IMHO) this past year, many still hate it because it takes away the "charm" of human error. But that human error cost teams World Series titles in the past. NL fans, pitchers batting has got to go. It doesn't cost games, but it sure costs enjoyment.

Let's break this down a bit into numbers. NL pitchers when batting as a group did not have as high an OPS as what is borderline acceptable as an on-base percentage. The group OPS of all NL pitchers last season was .312. OPS combines on-base percentage with slugging percentage. This is a terrible number.

How terrible? The league as a whole had an average OPS of .694. Therefore, collectively, pitchers' offense was 45% as good as league batters as a whole. NL pitchers when batting struck out 36.4% of their plate appearances. Pitchers walked only 3% of the time. And here is the part that gets me the most: Pitchers sacrificed bunted (successfully) 10.2% of their plate appearances.

Let's put some of this in perspective. NL pitchers came to the plate 5,141 times last year. They actually reached base a grand total of 722 times. That works out to an on-base percentage of .140. Let me clarify that point briefly. NL pitchers' official on-base percentage was .156. Why am I getting a different number? Sacrifice bunts.

An OBP and an OPS do not penalize a player for successful sacrifice bunts (or for sac flies for that matter). I have never agreed with this statistical anomaly. Whether a sacrifice is successful or not, the batter made an out. Yes, a runner got to second or third, but an out was still recorded.

Those numbers are bad enough. But there are other consequences. Pitchers having to bat means a greater reliance on pinch hitters. National League pinch hitters put up this unlovely triple slash line in 2014: .210/ .286/.319. That .605 OPS is second to only pitchers in futility among "positions." Their help only brought up the ninth spot in the lineup up to a grand total of a .444 OPS. Pinch hitters struck out 27% of the time. Heck, the pitcher could have done that!

It doesn't stop there.  The eighth place batter in a National League lineup becomes a moot point. The National League had a combined .625 OPS from the eighth spot in the batting order. Compare that with the American League which had a .680 OPS from their eighth position in the batting order.

Oh, and get this: That OPS is deceptive too. With the pitchers batting ninth, the eighth place batter often gets intentionally walked even if it is a weak hitter. The eighth place batters had fifty more intentional walks than any other lineup position, even the big boys in the third spot.

We are not really talking apples to apples here, but the National League scored 561 runs less than the American League in 2014.

If the commissioner is interested in improving offense and is concerned about the current run scoring climate, making the DH universal is a good place to start and is much better than outlawing shifts.

The long-term trends of pitcher batting have shown a gradual decline. Sacrifice bunts are up four percentage points from where they were in the early 1960s. OPS figures have stayed fairly static since 1961, but again, with sacrifice bunts trending up, the OPS is deceptive. The strikeout rate has always been high, but has spiked the last two seasons. The chart below starts with the 1961 season on the left and tracks the percentages to the present as you move right.

This decline makes a lot of sense really. In the old days, a pitcher would bat consistently through high school, college and the minor leagues. Today, most colleges use the DH and if a pitcher is drafted by an American League team, then the pitcher never hits. If that same pitcher gets traded to a National League organization, suddenly he has to hit and it might have been a few years since high school.

Plus, pitchers are much more valued (read "babied") than in the past. Most pitchers are encouraged to protect themselves when batting and not to run at full strength.

The weekly reality of interleague games also puts new wrinkles into the entire argument. National League teams are not constructed to have an offensive player available as the DH and suffers in AL parks. And if you think NL pitchers are terrible at batting, they are all Mike Trout compared to AL pitchers who have to hit in NL parks.

American League pitchers put together this triple slash line when batting last year: .090/.110/.109. In 154 such games, AL pitchers got on base a grand total of 35 times. It is a joke and a travesty to baseball. Making AL pitchers hit is like asking an NFL punter to play one game a year at offensive tackle. AL pitchers have a strikeout rate of over 40% when batting. Pathetic.

If you make the DH the norm for all interleague games, you are punishing NL teams that do not plan roster spots for DH types. So that doesn't make for an easy solution.

I know there is a lot of passion in this area of conversation. I'm sure two of my friends who cover the St. Louis Cardinals are glaring at me as they read this. But times have changed. Tickets cost too much to have to watch a woefully skilled batter being sent up to the plate. Times have also changed in college and in the minor leagues. Pitchers had a chance at the plate sixty years ago. They do not now. It is time to make things universal instead of the two leagues playing with different rules.

The National League and the DH

There isn't a more passionate topic for fans of National League baseball than the fact that in the National League, the pitchers hit when the American League has the DH. For those fans of National League baseball, it's akin to a right of passage. It's a mark of heroism. This writer has to admit to growing up watching American League baseball. As such, the entire notion seems quaint and antiquated. But there is fear and trembling in writing this post because of the passion National League fans have of their purity. Purity is good in a world that is diluted with preservatives. But is it entertaining?

That's the point this writer comes back to over and over. Pitchers hitting is an exercise in failure. National League pitchers have a combined hitting line of: .142/.177/.182. And it's worse than even that sounds. Not including last night's games, pitchers have had a combined 4,406 at bats and have struck out 1,679 times. That's a whopping 38 percent strikeout rate. That makes Mark Reynolds and Adam Dunn look like contact hitters. Pitchers have sacrificed bunted 10.8 percent of their 5,159 plate appearances. If you add the strikeouts to the sacrifice bunts, that means that 2,238 plate appearances out of the 5,159 total result in either a strikeout or a bunt. No matter how hard you argue, you can't convince this writer this is entertaining. We all enjoy watching Matt Garza, Cole Hamels and Roy Halladay pitch. But all three have struck out more than 30 times in less than 70 at bats. That's no fun.

The last time a starting pitcher walked more than fifteen times in a season was Vida Blue for the Giants way back in 1978. He hit .076 that season. The last starting pitcher to walk more than twenty times in a  season was Mickey Lolich in 1972. He batted .067. Walks aren't part of the pitching equation. Only 3.4 percent of the 5,159 plate appearances by pitchers have resulted in a walk. Only Vladimir Guerrero and Yuniesky Betancourt have a lower walk rate among batters who qualify for the batting title. Heck, even Darwin Barney walks more often than pitchers do. Instead, the walks go to the eighth place in the batting order (the position in front of the pitcher). Eighth place batters have been intentionally walked 166 times this season, the most of any batting order position. What fun is that?

And what happens if pitchers do get on base? They don't score. Batters who aren't pitchers by position score on average in a range from 42 percent (catchers) to 56 percent (center fielders) of their total hits. The pitcher only scores 38 percent of the time they get hits. Pitchers have by far the lowest BABIP of all positions. That means that only 22.2 percent of the balls pitchers put in play will fall in for a hit.

Pitchers hitting has other ramifications. To start a game, the manager puts his eight best position players on the field or at least the eight the manager feels gives him the most chance to win the game. If the manager makes a pitching change, we get the double switch, which means that one of those players will be replaced. Why? To hide the pitcher's batting spot to a batting order position that recently made out the inning before. How is losing one of your best eight players a good thing?

Then we have pinch hitters. If a team needs a run or has a rally going and the pitcher is due up to hit, the manager has to decide if he wants to lose his starting pitcher for the sake of a better chance to score. If the manager does decide to remove the starting pitcher (or any pitcher in the game for that matter) he really doesn't get that much of a bump in production. All pinch hitters this season in the NL have a combined slash hitting line of: .215/.292/.314 with a combined strikeout percentage of 24.9 percent.  Thrilling isn't it? 

Not using a DH gives the National League teams a disadvantage in interleague games and in the post season. American League designated hitters have a combined OPS of .773. When the NL has used the DH in interleague games this season, they had a combined OPS of .657. That's a huge difference. The DHs in the World Series last October went one for twelve in the post season though Aubrey Huff did have that one hit with a dramatic homer.

This writer loves low-scoring, crisply played games. They are exciting and dramatic. But having a pitcher hit is about as anti-climatic as it gets in baseball. Sure a Ross Ohlendorf will hit a homer in odd games like he did last night. Sure some teams will have a slight advantage because their pitchers can hit better than the other team's (the Brewers come to mind). Sure it's interesting that Livan Hernandez struck out only twice all season. But generally speaking, pitchers batting is a drag on the entertainment value of Major League Baseball. It would be the equivalent to having the placekicker play quarterback for a few plays a game. Perhaps that placekicker may complete a pass in ten attempts, but wouldn't you rather have a real quarterback back there?

A pitcher will succeed at the plate 177 times in 1,000 plate appearances. He will bunt in another 108 of those 1,000 plate appearances. Most now know that bunts lower the probability of scoring and not the opposite. It's a no win proposition. And while knowing that you NL fans will crucify this post, this is just one guy's opinion. The National League should adopt the DH. It's time.

The "D" in DH stands for Dinosaur

Vladamir Guerrero had to take a hit to the midsection when the Rangers told him they were going with Beltre and would no longer need Vlad's services. The Rangers, like a growing number of teams are moving away from the DH as a one-guy-with-bad-wheels-swinging-the-bat kind of thing. The Yankees haven't had a prototypical DH since Giambi left. Last year, the Yankees used the DH position as a way to rest starting fielders on a rotation basis. This year, the Yankees seem committed to using Posada as their DH, but don't be fooled by that. Posada might see action in about 110 to 120 games while they continue to use the DH as a rest stop.

The Bay Rays of Tampa didn't get anything from the DH last year and still won the American League East. The Twins rotated the postion based on need. The most telling signal of the times is that Vlad, Giambi, Thome, Branyon, Manny and others are still unemployed. Teams are not overly excited about clogging up the position with guys who can't do anything else. Branyon might be the exception because he can still play first. But how many teams need a first baseman? Not many. Johnny Damon is another exception because he can also play left and first base. But Damon isn't your typical DH nor is he much willing to take a big pay cut and partial playing time.

The only DH types signed so far this winter have been David Ortiz and Hideki Matsui. Matsui can play an occasional game in left, but he is a pretty true DH. There isn't a much truer DH than Ortiz. But the Fan fully expects 2011 to be Ortiz's last hurrah with the Red Sox. The Red Sox, like other teams, would prefer the position become a flexible one giving the team line up options depending on the opposition and the pitcher.

The DH is dying and the "D" probably stands for "Dinosaur" when it comes to that position being held down by an aging, no-field veteran.

Whither the DH?

It's been this writer's observation that the Designated Hitter in the American League isn't what it used to be. It seemed like in the early days, sluggers like Orlando Cepeda, older guys with bad wheels would man the position. Vladamir Guerrero reminds the observer of Cepeda in those old days, but it seems the DH is less of a threat as in the old days. But do the numbers match the observation? What the Fan will attempt to do is to look at the numbers for this year, last year, five years ago and ten years ago. First let's look at teams:


Baltimore Orioles:
2010 - .859 OPS; 2009 - .777; 2005 - .640; 2000 - .729
Notes: 2010's OPS by DHs is higher than any of their other positions.


Boston Red Sox:
2010 - .856 OPS; 2009 - .777: 2005 - .980; 2000 - .904
Notes: Amazing how similar Luke Scott and company for Baltimore have been to David Ortiz and company the last two years.


Chicago White Sox:
2010 - .663 OPS; 2009 - .809; 2005 - .769; 2000 - .938
Notes: Frank Thomas was one of the best ever.


Cleveland Indians:
2010 - .764 OPS; 2009 - .772; 2005 - .946; 2000 - .907
Notes: Travis Hafner was such a force. Not now.


Detroit Tigers:
2010 - .761 OPS; 2009 - .704; 2005 - .805; 2000 - .811
Notes: 1990 was Dave Bergman. Ouch.


Kansas City Royals:
2010 - .855 OPS; 2009 - .655; 2005 - .790; 2000 - .784
Notes: Mike Sweeney was very good for a long time.


Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in California in the Western Part of the United States:
2010 - .639 OPS; 2009 - .817; 2005 - .694; 2000 - .830
Notes: Remember Brain Downing?


Minnesota Twins:
2010 - .774 OPS; 2009 - .829; 2005 - .710; 2000 - .728
Notes: David Ortiz in 2000!

New York Yankees:
2010 - .758 OPS; 2009 - .858; 2005 - .818; 2000 - .810
Notes: A month of Nick Johnson didn't help these year's numbers.

Oakland Athletics:
2010 - .651 OPS; 2009 - .770; 2005 - .665; 2000 - .745
Notes: DH is a money position and the A's haven't been able to spend the money.

Seattle Mariners:
2010 - .513 OPS; 2009 - .747; 2005 - .723; 2000 - 1.002
Notes: This year is soooo bad for the Mariners.

Tampa Bay Rays:
2010 - .656 OPS; 2009 - .741; 2005 - .809; 2000 - .821
Notes: 2000 = Jose Canseco. Imagine that.

Texas Rangers:
2010 - .868 OPS; 2009 - .802; 2005 - .753; 2000 - .803
Notes: Vlad is having a great season.

Toronto Blue Jays:
2010 - .610 OPS; 2009 - .849; 2005 - .778; 2000 - .867
Notes: Hard to figure out Lind this season. Remember Brad Fullmer?

Okay, we have our figures. Next, we'll list the four years surveyed and compare them to the league OPS (in parentheses)

2010 - .730 (.740)
2009 - .779 (.764)
2005 - .777 (.755)
2000 - .834 (.792)

The year 2000 was still in the offensive (read PED) era. That meant that older stars stayed in the game longer giving a larger pool of DHs. But even 2005 and 2009, the DH out-performed the league OPS. This season, the overall league OPS is down, but the DH is down further and is below the league OPS. Without going year by year in the history of the DH, the Fan would go out on a limb and state that hasn't happened often. It did happen in 1990 where the DH accumulated an OPS of .666 or something close to that and the league OPS was .715.

So what should be made of this? It is early in the season and there is a lot of season to go and things could change. But here are a couple of theories:

1. Older players aren't staying around or are not being signed by teams as free agents.
2. Teams are more cash strapped and are not spending for DH talent.
3. More teams are using young, home grown players as DHs
4. More teams are using the DH as a rest stop for regulars.

Whatever the cause, the DH isn't what it used to be and teams like Boston and Texas that have excellent DHs have a huge advantage. Where is Edgar Martinez when you need him?