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.

Is Pinch Hitting worth it?

As a baseball writer and a baseball Fan, box scores are a major source of entertainment. And a lot of baseball games and highlights are watched with avid interest. Like many writers who slowly are indoctrinated with the new truths about baseball such as sacrifice bunting stinks and there are no such things as productive outs, these truths call in to question a lot of what is culled over each day. So a thought occurred the other day after watching Brandon Allen pinch hit for the Tampa Bay Rays. He struck out on three pitches. Yes, he hit a walk-off, pinch hit homer a few games before, but isn't that more of a fluke than the norm? To answer that question, six hours were spent compiling pinch hitting statistics yesterday. The trouble with that is the abject fear that there isn't enough talent or smarts sitting in this chair to interpret them correctly. But here are some conclusions about pinch hitting the work seems to indicate.

First, pinch hitting makes sense in the National League. Of course in the senior circuit, they cutely hold on to the notion that pitchers should hit. While watching every pitcher bunt with a man on base or else strikeout may be the cup of tea to some, it is imminently boring on this end of the observation deck. Pitchers this season have the amazingly low OPS of .300 while batting. This follows last season when those same humans batted to an OPS of .357. So yes, in the National League, pinch hitting a pony league player would be an improvement on a pitcher hitting. Last year, National League pinch hitters had an OPS of .603. While that is still in the dungeon range of production, it is certainly better than pitchers.

But what of the American League that has had the DH since 1973? Does pinch hitting seem worth it when there are no pitchers to hit for? The conclusions here are no, it does not seem worth it. For just one example, a pinch hitter is usually sent to the plate to pinch hit for a lefty batter facing a lefty pitcher. Such a lefty to lefty split last season added up to a .656 OPS. Yes, that's not very good. But pinch hitters in the American League last season had an OPS of .618. That is worse, isn't it? Of course, the missing piece of the puzzle here is what happens in subsequent at bats and this writer doesn't have that data, so that is a hole in the logic for sure. But at least in the initial at bat, pinch hitting doesn't work.

By nature, a guy is a bench player or a role player and thus, a pinch hitter, because he's not good enough to play every day. Wouldn't that be a fair statement? And yet managers "play the percentages" and pinch hit for match ups that seem to backfire. A spreadsheet was created that compared pinch hitting in the majors, NL and AL since 1961 and compared those numbers to each of those entities' OPS average. In every one of those seasons, pinch hitting has an OPS below the league average OPS. Some years it came close, but it hasn't for years.

And there might be a reason for that. Teams are keeping more pitchers on their 25-man rosters now. The specialization of relief pitching has made it so managers need plenty of options. Since only four or so bench players are now the norm and a catcher has to be one of them, there are only a pool of three or so bench players to form the pool of pinch hitters. Most of those bench players are filled by versatility these days rather than offensive ability. And pinch hitting has lagged way behind league OPS averages. Hopefully it was done right since Google Docs are new here. But here is a link to the spreadsheet created.

Look at Column K. American League pinch hitting is over a hundred points lower in OPS than that league's average for seven of the last eight seasons. That looks like an epic fail to these eyes. Corrections are certainly welcomed.

Even worse is pinch hitting for designated hitters. Again, the hole here is what happens in subsequent at bats. But at least in the initial pinch hitting experience, is it not amazing that pinch hitters batting for the designated hitter last season had an OPS of .411 last season? The numbers go up and down, but they have been historically bad on average since 2005. For those of you who like charts to show such things, here it is:

2012 may be a record year according to the data collected for the National League. Not counting yesterday's games, National League pinch hitters had a collective OPS of .711. The National League's overall OPS is .702. If this were to continue for the entire season, it would be the first time in the 51 years studied that pinch hitting OPS in a league outperformed that league's OPS. That would be amazing. We'll see where it ends up after the season.

So in conclusion, pinch hitting for pitchers makes sense. Pitchers cannot hit in general and even lowly pinch hitting OPS is far better even though pretty paltry (except for this season). But pinch hitting in the American League makes little sense and pinch hitting for designated hitters makes even less sense. Here is one more chart to show the American League OPS plus or minus for pinch hitters to MLB OPS over the years. Your comments are most welcome.

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?