Lack of a DH probably fucked Jimmy Nelson’s career. Hurt himself a couple years ago on the basepaths and has only pitched a few innings since.
I was actually surprised to just now learn that the DH must hit for the pitcher. Like I said, high school rules do not work this way. I would be all for this rule change. 99.9% of the time there will likely be no difference, but anything that adds more firepower to the lineup is a good rule in my book.
Fuck yeah. They should get rid of the (so-called) leagues.
If they stick with six divisions/4 wildcards, do it this way: 18x in division, 6x one of the other divisions (which rotates around every five years), 3x all other teams. Best non-1st place records are wildcards. Single seeding bracket for the playoffs. That way the two top teams always have a chance of meeting in the finals.
Of course, I’ve been saying the same thing about the NFL since the merger.
ETA: as long as I’m playing Commissioner for a Day…
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This season as now scheduled actually is this… three separate ‘leagues proper’ (groups of teams that play no others): The West, Central, and East leagues. Each of these three leagues play an unbalanced schedule between two ‘divisions proper’: American and National divisions. Then we have a farcical playoff system which (a) is pretty much randomly sorted into two seeding brackets, and (b) does an apples-vs-oranges W-L comparison between ‘leagues proper’ to determine the wildcards.
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This is the first time since 1915 and the Federal League that there have been three ‘leagues proper’ in the majors.
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This means you, as a certain kind of “purist”, have the option of having three favorite teams this season, and then have the option to “grandfather” those new favorite(s) going forward.
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A better playoff for this season would be (a) the three ‘leagues proper’ have a championship series between their two division winners (these would count as traditional “pennants”), (b) the four teams with the apples-vs-oranges best records play a two-round single elimination mini-tourney. (c ) the four remaining teams from a&b play semi-final series, then the best-of-7 finals (still called the World Series).
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We’re now ten days out from Opening Day. Maybe this is actually going to happen? Disney World opening floored me so I now figure anything is possible.
https://twitter.com/Chandler_Rome/status/1282400844311191552
I think the season will start and ~10 games in they’ll shut it down.
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Yep and it will be ridiculous. Some scrub will win the triple crown because he has a hot week and bats .790 with 5 HR and 12 RBI’s.
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Fuckin’ Tuffy Rhodes.
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This would rule.
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But a pitcher that can go yard like Bumgartner or Grienke is more fun to watch than a shitty DH. But they are rare .
I played baseball til I was 18 and the best pitcher was usually an excellent all around athlete and a good hitter . When did they get programmed not to hit?
I think the culture in elite college or minor leagues is that you pick one and stick to it. My hypothesis is that if there wasn’t an expectation that good pitchers shouldn’t bother to develop their hitter then there would be more Shohei Ohtanis. This hypothesis is pure conjecture, but look at what happened to Rick Ankiel when he lost his pitching touch. Could he have done both early on? My guess is yes.
Why can’t anyone bunt?
The Marlins have practiced social distancing for years.
I watched a couple games on tv from Camden w no fans when they had civil unrest. Weird .
Joe West, who sux already,is a 300lb shitty ump who is a hoaxer. Him catching Covid at Chilis might burn it all down.
I’m a life long die hard Red Sox fan and I recognize more posters names Itt than I did trying to figure there starting rotation .
There will be tons of early betting opportunities. Watch the games. See who is there and who is collecting a paycheck. Hopefully props will be available.
It’s a whole factor of things, but early specialization in hitting vs. pitching is a big part of it. Pitchers also don’t get the PA reps that hitters do. A position player may get 1000 or more PA’s in the minors before his call up, but that’s an entire career for a pitcher. A lot of good hitters in high school and college end up struggling with pro level pitching and the transition to wood bats. There’s a pretty high bust rate for hitting prospects in baseball. The physical training required to crush dingers looks different than what pitchers go through to throw 100+ pitches at high velocity every 5th day.
I pitched in high school. I was a good hitter, too, though I was pretty much just a line drive singles hitter. High average, no power. When I got to varsity, my coach stopped letting me hit because he wanted me to “concentrate on pitching.” Of course, he let pitchers hit if they could jack dingers.
I never got to take batting practice after that. As a result, my bat speed/reaction time plummeted. I got to hit in split-squad scrimmage once and could not catch up to the pitches. I literally decided after missing one that I would just start swinging when he released the ball, hoping to adjust. I was lucky that it worked, as I hit a double down the right field line.
I got literally ONE at-bat when I played varsity. We were beating the shit out of the opponent, so the coach let all the pitchers pinch hit. Fortunately, the opposing pitcher didn’t throw hard, so I was able to hit line drive single to right (still late on it, though).
Long story short, pitchers are asked to specialize, don’t get batting practice reps like the other players do, and their skills deteriorate. Just like how position players can’t pitch.
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I have no doubt that your experience is very representative. What I can’t get my head around is what happened to Ohtani? Does he not have to practice/develop both pitching and hitting?
Maybe he’s just a freak.
Maybe. Or maybe baseball, which had a long history of doing suboptimal things because that’s the way they’ve always been done, is stunting the development of numerous Shohei-lite players that could be competent hitters while sacrificing negligible pitching skill.
Maybe. There’s probably a rational fear of not wanting to risk the skill set the guy was drafted for. Let’s say I’m in charge of player development, and we drafted a top tier pitcher who also hit well in college or HS. If I have him focus 100% on pitching and it doesn’t work out, well, that’s on him. But if I try to develop his hitting as well and he doesn’t work out, well was any of the two-way training he got the reason he never made it as a pitcher? It’s hard to tell.
Ohtani is a freak. Imo, there’s only a handful of current MLBers who could do what he’s doing(if they had been training for both pitching and hitting since HS)
Baseball is actually a one-on-one battle between opponents with specialized skill sets that masquerades as a team sport. The raw talent and training necessary to be world class at both is an anomaly.
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Yeah it is very chicken v. egg in nature. It would take a big experiment in player development to see if it could work. But it would be amazing to see.