Failed experiment of the designated hitter

(Warning:  This blogpost contains massive amounts of Sports Crappola)

Recently I read another article arguing that the designated hitter should be applied to all teams in Major League Baseball.  The arguments were all the same:  The need for uniformity, the horror of seeing pitchers hit, wanting to see more offense, blah, blah, blah.  In fact, the time to end the designated hitter has come.

The designated hitter was supposed to be an experiment.  Like tolls on Illinois highways, the designated hitter rule has overstayed its welcome.  Somewhere, Ron Blomberg and Edgar Martínez are smiling, because one was able to extend his career and the other was able to have one because of this rule -- and a mighty fine, albeit incomplete, career it was.

The basic premise is that pitchers can't hit.  Tell that to Carlos Zambrano, Jason Marquis, John Smoltz and a few other pitchers who revel in the underestimation.  Sure, most pitchers hit below the Mendoza Line, but when one of them unexpectedly gets a key hit, it adds excitement to the game.

Another argument is that by eliminating hitting duties, it keeps pitchers fresher.  I'm not about to cull through records to prove or disprove this.  But an argument can be made that by having pitchers face nine and not eight major league hitters, it wears them down more than the occasional trip to the plate.  What's more, given the emphasis on pitch counts and the fact that bullpens these days are well-stocked, the number of complete games continues to dwindle.

Of the ninety-two no-hitters thrown in the era of the designated hitter, forty-nine of them happened in the American League.  What happened to more offense?  The argument will be made, of course, that by not having the pitchers hit, they were fresher and therefore more capable of throwing a no-no.  Well, if pitchers are so horrible in the batter's box, how much effort does it take to watch three pitches down the middle or swing a bat three times and walk back to the dugout?  The argument cuts both ways.

Supporters of the rule scoff at the argument that by not having the pitcher hit, it takes the double switch and therefore strategy off the table.  Well, frankly, it does.  And what's more, teams can't always sit around waiting for the longball.  They need to play small ball once in awhile, and even pitchers can do that at the plate, notably with sacrifices.

There's also the practical part of keeping pitchers at the plate.  Without their turns hitting, pitchers can throw with impunity at the other team confident in the knowledge that they won't face retribution when their turn comes around.  Having the pitcher hit may make a pitcher think twice about aiming a heater at an opponent's head.

The final point I'll make is that baseball was invented with the idea that the nine in the field all take their turns at the plate.  This isn't like basketball, which introduced the three point line and the twenty-four second clock.  The changes baseball's made in that vein were reducing artificial turf and domed stadiums, which necessarily affected the play on the field.  But the basic integrity of the sport has been affected by the DH, and it needs to go.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles