NL DH
It seems the only thing MLB and the MLBPA could agree upon is the universal DH. Of course the one thing they can agree upon is the one thing which does nothing to help baseball.
The DH will not increase fan interest. It will not correlate with higher ratings or ticket sales. We know that because the AL regularly trails the NL in ratings and attendance.
We will see no appreciable increase in offense. It was the case in 2019, and it was the case again in 2021. The NL averaged 4.46 runs/game, and the AL averaged 4.60. That’s 4-5 runs per game with or without a DH.
Pitchers also got injured pitching because that’s how pitchers get hurt. Sure, someone will bring up the extraordinarily rare example and make it out to be the case across every pitcher for every team.
In the end, the universal DH will not increase fan interest, runs/game, or limit pitcher injuries. However, it will anger and annoy a core of diehard fans who love baseball the way it should be played.
That makes this a typical Rob Manfred decision.
If you see the reaction, almost no one likes the All-Star Game jerseys. Most of compared them to soccer jerseys, but the main gist is they’re just awful.
The Mets' All-Star Game jerseys and hats have been released. pic.twitter.com/5tvGjZrx0o
— SNY (@SNYtv) June 24, 2021
Generally speaking, who cares? After all, it’s just a workout jersey. It’s just something players wear during workouts, prospects wear during the Future’s Game, and the celebrities and legends wear during the softball game. Beyond that, it’s just another jersey purchased by a limited portion of fans.
Except, it’s not that this year. No, this year, the players are going to wear these jerseys in the field breaking an 86 year tradition of players wearing their team jerseys. Much like the swoosh on the jerseys, it’s another instance of MLB eliminating sacred tradition for a little extra money from Nike.
We could walk through the arguments how it makes players less recognizable on the field thereby making it more difficult to market the game. There are other arguments related to the impact it must have on first time players who don’t get to fulfill a lifelong dream of wearing their team’s jersey in an All-Star Game.
In the end, none of it really matters. The game will be played, and the fans will watch. That said, it’s going to come at a cost.
It may not be significant enough at first to matter, but some fans will be turned off by this. They’re not going to like it, and their interest in the game is just that much less.
It’s just like the universal DH. In the end, it accomplishes nothing. It doesn’t increase runs per game, it reduces strategy, and in the end, despite all the narratives, there’s actually less interest in the DH style of baseball.
More than that, the universal DH only serves to strike a blow at the interest and love of the game of the hardcore fans. These are the fans who the sport relies upon not only to watch everyday and buy merchandise, but they also need them to pass the game down to their children and grandchildren. Baseball seemingly needs this more than any other sport.
It’s the same with the All-Star Game jerseys. You can add three pitcher minimums, no intentional walks, seven inning doubleheaders, runners on second, and whatever cockamamie rule they come up with next.
If MLB keeps pushing the envelope, the hardcore fans aren’t going to care nearly as much. They’re going to watch and follow but not with the same intensity. They’re also not going to be as interested in passing the game onto the next generation.
In the end, Rob Manfred will get the complete opposite of what he wanted. He’ll get less interest in the game. Considering all he’s done, that seems fitting, and those ugly All-Star Game jerseys can be symbol for all he’s done wrong to this game.
Zac Gallen suffered a hairline stress fracture, and he is going to miss Opening Day. According to reports, Gallen first had discomfort when getting jammed during batting practice. That discomfort did not prevent him from making his next start when he felt discomfort only when he threw his curveball. Naturally, this led many to use that as a reason to push for a universal DH.
This happened because there is no universal DH yet. MLB should get out of its own way and make that happen yesterday. A classic case of cutting off your nose to spite your face. https://t.co/sqxC5dgUyY
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) March 24, 2021
First off, you have to love reporters and fans playing Twitter doctors in making the case stress fractures happen because of batting. Naturally, this shows complete ignorance of what a stress fracture actually is.
According to the Mayo Clinic and just about any doctor, a stress fracture is “caused by repetitive force, often from overuse.” It can also be caused by “normal use of a bone that’s weakened by a condition such as osteoporosis.” It’s also noteworthy an injured person or player “might barely notice the pain associated with a stress fracture, but it tends to worsen with time.”
Put another way, it’s extremely unlikely Gallen suffered a repetitive motion injury because he swung that bat during Spring Training. Like most pitchers, his repetitive use injury was likely due to some combination of how he trains or pitching. While proponents of the universal DH pretend otherwise, pitchers injure themselves when pitching, not when they’re batting.
This is just like when Chien-Ming Wang suffered an injury because he was running and stepped on a base. Put another way, Wang hurt himself doing what he would’ve done while covering first base on a ball hit to the first baseman. Really, Wang injured himself playing baseball.
That’s also part of the issue here. If you want to look towards a pitcher injured because of the lack of a universal DH, you really have to go back to Wang in 2008. That is over a decade ago. Again, it needs to be reiterated, he hurt himself running and stepping on a base just like he would do covering first base.
Really, pitcher injuries are a ridiculous reason to argue for a universal DH. Simply put, pitchers do not injure themselves batting or running the bases. Remember, these are athletes, they really aren’t going to hurt themselves swinging a bat or running. Pitchers hurt themselves because of the stress a shoulder and elbow undergoes when pitching.
Keep in mind, there are far more dangers to pitching than batting. Aside from the act of pitching itself, there are comebackers coming at the pitcher at speeds at excess of 100 MPH. It’s dangerous, and we have seen pitchers get severely injured. Instead of trying to find ways to lessen the potential injures a pitcher faces whether through rule changes or protective gear, people shrug and throw their arms up.
However, when it comes to injuries related to swinging a bat or running the bases, which never really happens, people are up in arms screaming about the universal DH. Make no mistake, it has nothing to do with pitcher health. It is just people who love a failed gimmick looking to make a disingenuous argument.
When you looked at the Wild Card Series between the Braves and Reds, you were left to wonder if a series with six total runs over 22 innings could push the NL to add the DH. After all, one of the purported reasons for the NL DH was to increase offense.
It was just one series, but it showed just how the universal DH yet again failed to do what the DH purports to do.
That series wasn’t an anomaly either. This is exactly what we saw play out over the course of the 2020 season.
In 2019, NL batters, inclusive of pitchers, hit .251/.323/.431. They would walk 8.6% of the time and strike out 23.0% of the time. Ultimately, they would score 4.78 runs per game.
This year, NL batters without pitchers batting hit .246/.325/.421. They would walk 9.3% of the time and strike out 23.1% of the time. Ultimately, they would score 4.76 runs per game.
Looking over those and all numbers, we see the NL DH had zero impact upon the league. That’s not surprising when you see there’s very little difference over the last five years between NL and AL offensive production.
Part of the reason for that is pitchers revive on average little over two PA per game. After that, there are PH who hit roughly on par with AL ninth placed batters.
Really, when you look at it the only thing MLB accomplished by instituting an NL DH was making the AL fans happy. That’s a bizarre decision to make.
After all, we’re not going to see a flood of New York Yankees fans suddenly become New York Mets fans because of the DH. Really, if that fanbase sat through vastly inferior broadcasts and still continued to watch Yankee games, you can’t imagine seeing pitchers two ABs per game go away being the straw which broke the camels back.
No, in the end, such thinking is nonsense, which is exactly what the NL DH was – nonsense.
Rob Manfred got to have his shtick for a year, and it failed miserably. There wasn’t an increase in offense. Pitchers still got hurt. Fan interest didn’t increase. Taking all of that into account, we again see the DH has zero impact on the game and has no place in the National League.
Fortunately, it is set to go away in 2021. For the few fans bemoaning that fact, please console them when NL teams have effectively the same batting line and runs per game as they had in 2019 and 2020.
With the universal DH coming in 2020 (to the extent there even is a 2020), the common refrain is the Mets are one of the few NL teams well situated for this. After all, J.D. Davis is a positionless player who was terrible at third and LF last yearRo, Yoenis Cespedes is coming off double heel surgery and a broken ankle,and Robinson Cano is 37 years old. They also have a player like Dominic Smith who may well be an everyday first baseman for many Major League teams.
While we hear those names in the mix, one name we don’t hear as a DH possibility in 2020 is Pete Alonso. While the possibility is ignored, it shouldn’t.
Looking at Alonso’s rookie season, he was much better than he had been advertised in some circles. Before his rookie season, some gave the impression Alonso could little more than just stand a first base. Truth be told, Alonso put in a lot of work on his defense, and he made very clear strides. As a result, we saw him make many highlight defensive plays in 2020:
This caused many to question those scouting reports and just how much those scouts knew. However, when you peel back the highlights, while Alonso is FAR from the inept defensive player he was portrayed in some circles, he was still not a good defensive player.
On the year, he was a -3 DRS and a -7 OAA. That had Alonso ranked as the third worst defensive first baseman in the game by DRS and the worst defensive first baseman by OAA. In the end, even with the defensive gems, Alonso was just not good at first base in 2019.
On the other hand, Smith was very good at first base. In his limited attempts there, Smith had a 1 DRS and 1 OAA. Both marks put Smith in the top 20 out of the 84 players who played first base in the majors last year. With Smith, his defensive reputation in the minors proved true as he played a good defensive first base.
Just looking at Alonso and Smith, if you are going to put one in the field and one at DH, wouldn’t it make sense to put the far superior player in the field? There really isn’t an argument on how playing Alonso at first base with Smith at DH helps the team win more than by putting the vastly superior defender in the field.
Admittedly, there are caveats to this.
With the Mets selecting Alonso as their first baseman of now and the future, you can understand the impetus to keep Alonso at first. After all, why would you sacrifice one year of development for Alonso at first for the sake of trying to win in 2020?
There is also the Cespedes factor. At the moment, no one knows if he can play at all in 2020. If he can play, no one is quite sure what he can contribute. However, if he can hit, we have seen they type of dynamic game changing bat he can be, and it is going to be difficult to keep him out of the lineup, especially when you can certainly play Alonso at first.
Even if Cespedes can play the field and play it at a near facsimile to how well he played it in his career, he is still likely going to need his days off. In the end, if Cespedes can play and hit, he is the obvious and probably the best choice for DH.
If he can’t the Mets are likely juggling between a group of first basemen and designated hitters on their team. While many see this as a possibility to load the Mets lineup with bats, the reality is this should be a way for the Mets to be able to put a very good defensive team on the field and surround them with very good bats.
With that being the case, the Mets ideally should have Alonso at DH, Jake Marisnick in CF, and Smith at first base. They can certainly move that around as needed based on match-ups and to give players like Cano a day off here and there. Certainly, injuries are going to play a factor. However, in the end this is the Mets best lineup to try to win the 2020 World Series . . . assuming the 2020 season ever gets played.
Major League Baseball is embroiled in the sign stealing scandal, so it was time for baseball to dust off the old universal DH alarm. Many will have you believe there’s an air of inevitability to it, and from a Mets perspective, we hear this is the best case scenario with Robinson Cano, J.D. Davis, and Dominic Smith (as if you can DH three players).
Whenever we hear about this, proponents of the universal DH rush to make arguments which don’t hold up to scrutiny. Let’s look at them:
No One Wants To See Pitcher’s Hit
This is usually the biggest rejoinder as if fans enjoy seeing defensive geniuses like Rey Ordonez (59 OPS+) or Juan Lagares (83 OPS+) hit.
Looking at attendance figures, the last time an AL team had the highest attendance was 2010. This year, three of the top five and six of the top 10 teams in attendance were NL teams. By the same token, nine of the worst 11 teams in attendance were AL teams.
This is something which holds true year-in and year-out. If the DH is really a drawing point for fans, it’s not showing up in attendance figures.
Pitchers Kill Rallies
The scenario always painted is based loaded, two outs, your team down one, and you lose because the pitcher comes up to the plate. Frankly, this doesn’t happen.
In 2019, Stephen Strasburg led all pitchers in plate appearances. He averaged 2.3 plate appearances per game. Frankly, he and all pitchers are out of the game for a pinch hitter when the game is on the line.
On that front, from the seventh inning on, NL punch hitters have a 78 wRC+. That’s slightly higher than AL ninth place hitters with their 77 wRC+. Fact is, when the game is on the line, NL and AL teams are sending the same caliber of hitter to the plate.
As for the pitchers being rally killers, it’s hard to argue they’re not even if the case is grossly overstated. In 2019, there were 2,079 PA by batters with two outs and runners in scoring position. Only 97 of those PA (4.7%) were from pitchers.
Really, when you break it down, pitchers aren’t getting the plate appearances in high leverage situations proponents of the DH want you to believe.
DH Means More Offense
Now, there’s no doubting a DH is a better hitter than a pitcher. After all, in 2019, DHs had a 104 wRC+ as compared to the pitchers -18 wRC+. That’s an astronomical difference.
Even with the difference between the two, it’s not making the difference in run scoring and offense as people will have you believe.
In 2019, NL teams hit .251/323/.431, and AL teams hit .253/.323/.439. On average, NL teams scored 4.8 runs per game, and AL teams scored 4.9 runs per game. That is not remotely close to being a significant difference. In fact, on a game-to-game basis, it’s not remotely discernible.
This may come as a surprise when you look at the difference between a pitcher and DH hitting. However, as noted above, most pitchers get two PA per game. As the game moves towards increased bullpen use, that number will drop. Between that and pitchers not batting in high leverage situations, there shouldn’t be much of a surprise there’s no real difference in run scoring between the leagues.
The DH Adds Jobs
One argument for the DH is it adds jobs. It doesn’t. If you look, both AL and NL teams have 26 man rosters. The DH isn’t adding a roster spot, but rather, another spot in the lineup. As shown above, that spot alone isn’t driving attendance or run scoring.
DH Keeps Veterans Around Longer
This has always been a curious argument. At its core, this argument is saying fans would want to see older players with severely diminished skills over exciting young players.
Putting that aside, that’s not how teams utilize the DH. Last year, the 10 batters who had the most PA as a DH were:
- Nelson Cruz (39)
- Khris Davis (32)
- J.D. Martinez (32)
- Renato Nunez (25)
- Jorge Soler (27)
- Miguel Cabrera (36)
- Shohei Ohtani (25)
- Daniel Vogelbach (27)
- Yordan Alvarez (22)
- Shin-Soo Choo (37)
If you’re looking to discern a pattern here, it is these are players teams have decided they don’t want in the field. That applies to the 22 year old reigning AL Rookie of the Year to the 2013 AL MVP.
Looking at Cabrera, he is a DH not because teams want to see him finish up his Hall of Fame career and give him a chance to put more numbers. Rather, it is because he has a long-term deal, and the Tigers have to play him somewhere.
Cabrera and players like Cruz are a dying breed in the AL. Teams are increasingly using the DH for poor fielders or as a way to keep players fresh. We’re not seeing it as a place where Vladimir Guerrero or other Hall of Famers try to hang on for a few more years.
Pitcher Injury Concerns
Whenever this issue comes up, we undoubtedly hear about Chien-Ming Wang‘s season ending injury. It was unfortunate, but let’s revisit it.
Wang injured himself running. No, not sliding into a base. Not a collision with a fielder. He injured himself running. Want to throw in it was from his stepping on a base, fine, go ahead.
Realistically speaking, this is no different, than pitchers running to cover first. They run full speed and step on the base. In the end, Wang injured himself on a non-contact baseball play.
If the issue is we don’t want to see pitchers running and stepping on bases, we’re going to have to find out a new way to handle plays were first basemen have to stray too far off first to field the ball.
Another point on Wang’s unfortunate injury was this occurred over a decade ago, and we haven’t seen another pitcher suffer a similar injury since that time. We also don’t see pitchers suffer injuries batting.
In essence, this is an overreaction to an isolated event, which as we have seen, happens maybe once a decade.
MLB Is Only League Where Pitchers Hit
This is just flat out false. In fact, the NPL Central League also has pitchers batting. When you look at it that way, the two very best professional baseball leagues have pitchers batting.
In the minors, we also will see pitchers batting when NL affiliates square off against one another.
Looking at it this way, why should baseball lower its standards to what semi-professional and amateur leagues do? Aren’t these supposed to be the absolute best players playing at the highest level?
Really, it doesn’t make sense to lower baseball’s standards to comply with what far lesser professional leagues do.
Overall, this is much like the argument for the universal DH. It’s mostly largely unsubstantiated rhetoric which comports to what people think the DH should do, but doesn’t.
In the end, there are a substantial number of baseball fans who love the National League style of baseball. They should be permitted to enjoy that baseball, which as we have seen, generates higher attendance and larger revenues while having a game with more strategy and substantially speaking, the same amount of offense.
If you still can’t handle those roughly two PA per game from pitchers, there’s a whole league you can enjoy while you leave the traditional and better baseball for the rest of us, who based on the numbers, outnumber the DH or bust fans.
At the end of the day, baseball is an entertainment product. If it does not deliver what its fans want, they risk losing them.
Much like presidential election time, there doesn’t seem to be just one poll that provides a definitive answer. So instead, we’re going to look at a number of polls to try to find some sort of consensus. Admittedly, each and every single one of these polls has some issues. These issues stem from sample sizes, inability to control people from voting multiple times (on their phone, tablet, or computer), and lastly, we don’t know how the polling question was necessarily presented.
With that said, looking at a number of polls can be informative. Here’s a look at some polls taken on the issue:
- Public Policy Polling found that 55% of people want to see pitcher’s hit
- NJ.com reported 59.41% of people do not want the DH in the National League
- CBS Boston poll results were 52.14% wanted no DH, 30.35% thought both leagues should have the same rules, and 17.51% wanted to leave the current rules in place
- ESPN Radio Cincinnati poll indicates 57% of people do not want the DH in the National League
- A Reddit poll essentially determine AL fans love the DH and NL fans hate it.
I’m sure there are polls that I missed that may prove fans feel differently. I also don’t think that five different polls is definitive. However, it is informative. As the last Reddit poll shows, people seem to like their brand of baseball.
Depending on whether you buy the Abner Doubleday story or not, the game of baseball has been played since 1839. In those 176 years of baseball, somewhere there was a pitcher hitting for himself. It’s apparent not just from these limited poll results, but also from the strong opinions everywhere on the topic, people like the idea of the National League having the pitcher hit.
For those fans who don’t like it, who will not watch a game without a DH, there is the American League. As we see, people seem to care less about the DH, and more about seeing good baseball. If you put two, good, talented, and interesting teams on the field people will watch regardless of whether or not the pitcher is batting for himself.
This is a big game that lasted a lot of years. It lasted through scandals like the Black Sox and steroids in the 90’s. It survived with pitchers hitting. Generally speaking, people like baseball. Many of those people like it with the pitcher hitting. There’s no need to add the DH to the National League.
The fans just don’t want it.
One of the reasons offered for the institution of the DH is to protect pitchers. Pitchers are expensive, and you don’t want them getting injured at the plate or on the basepaths. The theory is the DH would prevent these pitcher injuries.
On the surface, it seems like a reasonable argument. Last year, pitchers made 243 trips to the DL. That’s 213 times more than any other position. Of those 243 trips to the DL, guess how many of them were batter or basepath injuries? There was only one pitcher. Adam Wainwright suffered a torn Achillies tendon while swinging the bat. It’s true that Wainwright was injured while batting, but was he injured because he was batting?
Achillies tendon injuries are due to overuse or tightness in the muscles and tendons. Achillies tendon injuries are common in people who play sports, including baseball players. People who are in their thirties or forties, like Wainwright, are more susceptible to an Achillies injury. Overall, unless you’re involved in a serious accident, an Achillies tendon tear is not caused by any one event.
Yes, Wainwright injured himself while batting, but that was not the cause of his injury. Unfortunately, as is the nature of Achillies tendon injuries, it’s not one event, it’s a multitude of events. The specific act of batting for Wainwright is the straw that broke the camel’s back. It wasn’t the reason he tore his Achillies tendon. It doesn’t work that way.
Yes, there are pitchers who are legitimately injured at the plate or on the basepaths. There are examples, which include getting hit by a pitch, swinging a bat, or running the bases. However, these injuries are few and far between.
Let’s look at it from another perspective. Next to pitchers, left fielders went to the DL more than any other position last year with 30 trips to the DL last year. Let’s assume for a minute each and every single one of the DL trips by left fielders were sustained as a result of batting or baserunning activities. Let’s further assume that regardless of position, any position on the field will have 30 trips to the DL as a result of batting or baserunning activities. Finally, let’s assume these 30 DL trips were already a part of the DL trips made by pitchers last year (this way the denominator of total DL trips isn’t increased).
With all these assumptions, batting and baserunning injuries would only comprise 12.3% of all pitcher injuries. That tells us that the real issue with pitchers is that they get injured with pitching. They rarely get injured batting or running the bases. In fact, the real percentage of pitchers getting injured at the plate or on the basepaths 0% – 0.004% of the time depending on what you believe the cause of Adam Wainwright’s injury was.
If you want to solve the problems with pitchers getting injured, find a way to protect their arms. Keeping them off the basepaths isn’t going to keep them healthy. This is not the reason to add a DH to the National League.
In 1973, the American League instituted the DH in order to increase scoring and attendance. It’s now 2016, and there is a call for the National League to adopt the DH for various reasons, including increasing offense. While we can admit a DH is a better hitter than a pitcher, what impact does a DH have upon offense.
To look at offenses, let’s look at baserunners. The best gauge for baserunners is OBP. Here’s the OBP average per team in the AL and NL the past 10 years:
- 2015: AL .318/NL .316
- 2014: AL .316/NL .312
- 2013: AL .320/NL .315
- 2012: AL .320/NL .318
- 2011: AL .322/NL .319
- 2010: AL .327/NL .324
- 2009: AL .335/NL .330
- 2008: AL .335/NL .331
- 2007: AL .338/NL .334
- 2006: AL .339/NL .334
Even with the automatic pitcher outs, there isn’t a great disparity in the OBP between the league’s. However, there are more baserunners in the AL. As a result, it is reasonable to expect that there will be the average AL team will score more runs over the same timeframe:
- 2015: AL 710/NL 666
- 2014: AL 677/NL 640
- 2013: AL 702/NL 649
- 2012: AL 721/NL 683
- 2011: AL 723/NL 668
- 2010: AL 721/NL 701
- 2009: AL 781/NL 718
- 2008: AL 775/NL 734
- 2007: AL 794/NL 763
- 2006: AL 804/NL 771
Again, it is undoubtedly true the average AL team scores more runs over the course of a season, especially in 2009. However, to determine what impact these additional runs have on a game, we need to look at what the average runs an average team scores per game
- 2015: AL 4.38/NL 4.11 Difference 0.27
- 2014: AL 4.18/NL 3.95 Difference 0.21
- 2013: AL 4.33/NL 4.01 Difference 0.32
- 2012: AL 4.45/NL 4.22 Difference 0.23
- 2011: AL 4.46/NL 4.12 Difference 0.34
- 2010: AL 4.45/NL 4.33 Difference 0.12
- 2009: AL 4.83/NL 4.43 Difference 0.40
- 2008: AL 4.78/NL 4.53 Difference 0.25
- 2007: AL 4.90/NL 4.71 Difference 0.19
- 2006: AL 4.96/NL 4.76 Difference 0.20
So overall, even with the DH, the average AL team does not even score a run more per game than the average NL team. the highest differential over the last ten years was in 2009 when it was 0.40 runs per game. There may be different reasons to explain why these numbers are so close. However, these are numbers are close each and every year over the course of a decade.
So while many will say the DH increase offense, they would be right. However, they are wrong on the extent of the impact. The impact is essentially negligible.