LOCKOUT '22: When will we see baseball again?

[Tiger337]

10 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

I'm glad you don't make the rules. Baseball can be very boring at times, watching a pitcher try to hit is the best time to use the bathroom. 😆

If fans don't want to watch the pitcher bat, don't have him bat.  Just have the other eight guys bat.  Why do we need a bunch of old, fat and slow DH's?  DHs are boring.  

[oblong]

I’m not a fan of the permanent DH. The VMart papi types.  I do like it as rehab tool.  But I don’t know how you regulate that. Maybe nobody can appear as DH more than 40 games a season. 

[casimir]

11 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

If fans don't want to watch the pitcher bat, don't have him bat.  Just have the other eight guys bat.  Why do we need a bunch of old, fat and slow DH's?  DHs are boring.  

Does a DH have to be old, fat, slow, and boring?  (Why do I feel like Lee is picking on me?)

3 minutes ago, oblong said:

I’m not a fan of the permanent DH. The VMart papi types.  I do like it as rehab tool.  But I don’t know how you regulate that. Maybe nobody can appear as DH more than 40 games a season. 

If I had my druthers on roster construction, I'd use the DH spot in the lineup to give every day players a half day off by keeping them off of the field on defense but keep their bat in the lineup.  I'd try to stay away from signing a permanent DH.

[Tiger337]

10 minutes ago, oblong said:

I’m not a fan of the permanent DH. The VMart papi types.  I do like it as rehab tool.  But I don’t know how you regulate that. Maybe nobody can appear as DH more than 40 games a season. 

I like it when a team has to decide what do with its poor fielding slugger.  Do they put him in the field every day potentially hurting the pitcher or do they go with the weak fielding defensive specialist at times?  I think that kind of roster management is interesting.  I would be in favor of a limit on DH appearances.     

[1776]

50 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

I'm glad you don't make the rules. Baseball can be very boring at times, watching a pitcher try to hit is the best time to use the bathroom. 😆

I’ll not say pitchers were ever equal to everyday players as hitters in MLB. The introduction of the DH into the game is nearly 50 years old now. Pitchers don’t bat in college ball or any level of minor league ball to my knowledge. I’m not aware of high school baseball rules regarding pitchers batting.      
My point is that pitchers’ skills at the plate, by the time they arrive at the major league level have been diminished as a result of never being a part of the offense through their progression up the chain. So today, pitchers are viewed as a wasted at bat. Well, that’s what  the system has created over the years.

I prefer having pitchers bat-in both leagues. Hated the DH the day the idea was hatched. 
It seems that the more the game changes, the more problems surface. 

[1984Echoes]

2 hours ago, casimir said:

... If I had my druthers on roster construction, I'd use the DH spot in the lineup to give every day players a half day off by keeping them off of the field on defense but keep their bat in the lineup.  I'd try to stay away from signing a permanent DH.

And pitchers hitting a cumulative .050 is a waste of time.

Gimme the DH. And rotate position players into the DH for a half day off per casimir's plan...

[Sports_Freak]

1 hour ago, 1776 said:

I’ll not say pitchers were ever equal to everyday players as hitters in MLB. The introduction of the DH into the game is nearly 50 years old now. Pitchers don’t bat in college ball or any level of minor league ball to my knowledge. I’m not aware of high school baseball rules regarding pitchers batting.      
My point is that pitchers’ skills at the plate, by the time they arrive at the major league level have been diminished as a result of never being a part of the offense through their progression up the chain. So today, pitchers are viewed as a wasted at bat. Well, that’s what  the system has created over the years.

I prefer having pitchers bat-in both leagues. Hated the DH the day the idea was hatched. 
It seems that the more the game changes, the more problems surface. 

Yeah, it's true. Take the bat out of a kids hands for several years and then have him get drafted by a NL team. Several years later, after he becomes a top pitcher, give him a $500 million contract. Then watch him bat and break a leg tripping over 1st base. But hey...the rules are from the 1800's. We would never try to improve the product. 😁😁

[Sports_Freak]

Just now, 1984Echoes said:

And pitchers hitting a cumulative .050 is a waste of time.

Gimme the DH. And rotate position players into the DH for a half day off per casimir's plan...

Agreed. And I'm sure the players union would agree. More major league jobs. Extend careers. More runs scored. It all adds up to a win win situation.

[Jim Cowan]

2 hours ago, Sports_Freak said:

I'm glad you don't make the rules. Baseball can be very boring at times, watching a pitcher try to hit is the best time to use the bathroom. 😆

It wasn't always as bad as it is now though, today these guys have not consistently practiced hitting since they were kids.  They were always bad, but not this bad, and you could get an entertaining outlier like Earl Wilson every now and then.  Some other damage that the DH did was that it eliminated pinch-hitting, so people like Gates Brown, Jim Dwyer and Smoky Burgess would never have had so much success, and some high-tension entertainment moments in the game completely disappeared. Without it the bench would be longer by a player or two, and the pitching staff would be shorter by a least one max-effort, one-inning reliever.

The American League did it at a time when there was a ridiculous imbalance in talent between the National League and the American League, the American League wanted more scoring, and created a spot that could be filled by fading National League power hitters like Orlando Cepeda and Rico Carty.  The '73 Tigers would have loved it, they had a whole team of designated hitters.  Did the change make watching the games more enjoyable?  Not for me it didn't.  Did it make playing in an amateur league more enjoyable?  Not for me it didn't.

[IdahoBert]

3 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

If fans don't want to watch the pitcher bat, don't have him bat.  Just have the other eight guys bat.  Why do we need a bunch of old, fat and slow DH's?  DHs are boring.  

Chicks dig the big sticks. 

[chasfh]

The DH is no longer an experiment. It is the state of the game. Every league above high school uses it. Only two leagues in the world do not.

Pitchers will never get any better at hitting for a simple reason: they never work on it. Why should they? They never hit in college, they never hit in wood bat leagues, they never hit in foreign rookie leagues, and they never hit in the minor leagues. Most pitchers hardly step to the plate even in the major leagues. Of the 901 current active pitchers who have played in the majors, 242 of them haven't logged even a single plate appearance, and exactly have of them have three or fewer career plate appearances. Why bother working on your hitting if you're basically never going to hit? Every moment a pitcher works on his hitting is a moment spent not working on his pitcher. It would be a waste of his time.

The only pitchers who have the luxury of working on their hitting are those who receive guaranteed multi-year contracts with National League teams. Sure, it was fun to watch Jon Lester work hard so he could get his first big league hit and home run, but he still ended up hitting .115 for his career. And that's what a good-hitting pitcher hits.

Too often, too many pitchers try to make outs, on purpose and sometimes under manager's orders, to preserve his health for his pitching. They'll swing half-heartedly at pitches not intending to hit them (which would be a disaster because they might accidentally get a hit and have to risk injury on base), or more likely, just watch three strikes go right down the pipe. Some people might find that charming, but I think trying to make out makes for a dishonest at-bat, and I don't find it charming to watch the guy at the plate try to make out on purpose.

Bring on the universal DH.

[IdahoBert]

I have never had a problem with the DH. I’m neither a nostalgic purist nor do I want baseball to be more like football. 2023 will be the DH’s 50th season. We live in an age of specialization. Subjecting pitchers to any greater possibility of injury is a bad idea. And they suck as hitters. 

If there’s one thing I would like to see it’s what Chuck has talked about in terms of making the baseball less lively. It’s also something that could possibly happen whereas getting rid of the DH is not.  

[IdahoBert]

Home runs are fascist.

[Tiger337]

24 minutes ago, chasfh said:

The DH is no longer an experiment. It is the state of the game. Every league above high school uses it. Only two leagues in the world do not.

Pitchers will never get any better at hitting for a simple reason: they never work on it. Why should they? They never hit in college, they never hit in wood bat leagues, they never hit in foreign rookie leagues, and they never hit in the minor leagues. Most pitchers hardly step to the plate even in the major leagues. Of the 901 current active pitchers who have played in the majors, 242 of them haven't logged even a single plate appearance, and exactly have of them have three or fewer career plate appearances. Why bother working on your hitting if you're basically never going to hit? Every moment a pitcher works on his hitting is a moment spent not working on his pitcher. It would be a waste of his time.

The only pitchers who have the luxury of working on their hitting are those who receive guaranteed multi-year contracts with National League teams. Sure, it was fun to watch Jon Lester work hard so he could get his first big league hit and home run, but he still ended up hitting .115 for his career. And that's what a good-hitting pitcher hits.

Too often, too many pitchers try to make outs, on purpose and sometimes under manager's orders, to preserve his health for his pitching. They'll swing half-heartedly at pitches not intending to hit them (which would be a disaster because they might accidentally get a hit and have to risk injury on base), or more likely, just watch three strikes go right down the pipe. Some people might find that charming, but I think trying to make out makes for a dishonest at-bat, and I don't find it charming to watch the guy at the plate try to make out on purpose.

Bring on the universal DH.

How about universally just have eight batters bat?  

[Jim Cowan]

The DH will never disappear.  I liked the game better without it.

[Tigeraholic1]

5 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

How about universally just have eight batters bat?  

Wouldn’t that skew a number of MLB records? 

[Tiger337]

1 minute ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Wouldn’t that skew a number of MLB records? 

They are already skewed beyond recognition by having a game of home runs and strikeouts.  

[Tigeraholic1]

5 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

The DH will never disappear.  I liked the game better without it.

Pitchers hitting vs DH is like saying Canadian bacon is the only bacon. It is not really bacon.

[Tigeraholic1]

1 minute ago, Tiger337 said:

They are already skewed beyond recognition by having a game of home runs and strikeouts.  

ERA is based on runs per nine innings no? 

[chasfh]

15 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

How about universally just have eight batters bat?  

I prefer the way it is with nine batters. Maybe it's because baseball has a sort of symmetry of threes: three outs, nine batters, nine innings, everyone is 0-for-3 in a perfect game. That kind of thing.

[Tiger337]

11 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

ERA is based on runs per nine innings no? 

It would be calculated the same way as games would still be nine innings long.  What would change is that 8 hitters get more at bats and pile up more counting stats.  

 if they changed to 8 innings, so that players wouldn't get more at bats they might change the ERA calculation to base it on eight innings.  However, pitchers never pitch nine innings anymore anyway, so they could just leave it the same and keep it comparable across years.  

 

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by Tiger337

[Jim Cowan]

11 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Pitchers hitting vs DH is like saying Canadian bacon is the only bacon. It is not really bacon.

Just out of curiosity, what is Canadian bacon?  I don't think that there is a product like that sold in Canada.

[chasfh]

34 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

Just out of curiosity, what is Canadian bacon?  I don't think that there is a product like that sold in Canada.

Back bacon.

[wolverinefan]

I like the DH. I think it makes for a smoother game.

However...there is no replacing the magic of a random pitcher home run or getting to watch Fernando Rodney bat. 

[Jim Cowan]

17 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Back bacon.

Oh, that.  Yeah, that's not bacon.  Closer to ham, you can eat it without cooking it.  Also called peameal bacon, sometimes it is rolled on corn meal.  No one in Canada thinks it is bacon, or calls it Canadian bacon.

It reminds me of a time here that someone referred to "American cheese" and I had to ask what that is, and it turned out to be cheese slices which are the pasteurized cheese derivative you might put on a hamburger.  It seemed to me that you were being unnecessarily hard on yourselves for calling those American, no one else does.  Ironically J L Kraft was Canadian.