(empty archived post)

 

-----signature-----

I love when inter-league games happen and the world series so I can see how well Yankee pitchers can also hit the ball. Which they usually are horrible at. Watching Mo hit I think it was 2 years ago was awesome. I guess I only like it some, I wish there was more inter-league play actually

 

-----signature-----

Teams that use the DH don't play baseball.

 

-----signature-----

This.


It needs to go.

In high school I was a starting pitcher and a designated hitter. I would bat for all the other pitchers as the DH in the cleanup slot and held the 2nd highest average on the team, right behind our #3 hitter with a considerably higher slugging percentage than anyone else on the team, but when I was pitching for some unknowable reason, the coach put someone in to bat for me... made no fkn sense!

When I got to college, I took batting practice in the fall season during the first few weeks of my freshman year and clobbered the ball with solid power and ability to make contact with breaking balls and whatnot. In fact, the previous summer when I showed up for orientation the coach took me to the indoor batting cages and spent a half hour with me showing me what a college level curve ball looked like. He knew I was a pitcher and didn't have me throw a single ball to him.

When we were done, he went to talk to my parents who were still there for the orientation weekend and told my dad how uncanny he thought my hitting was. I'm not making this up lol! After smashing 3 or 4 in a row during one BP session - easily hitting the ball as well as anyone else with slightly less power than our DH who was a junior, the coach told me "get out of there, you're a pitcher!". I never handled a bat again unless it was to hit grounders to the infielders or flies to the outfield during practice on days I wasn't pitching. This took half the game away from me.

Pitchers need to hit, if for no other reason than that it introduces an element of strategy to the game that is otherwise missed with the DH.

 

-----signature-----

i dont really like baseball, but i have always maintained that if you play in the field, you should also bat

 

-----signature-----

I used to feel the DH was an affront to baseball.


But pitchers cant hit and watching pitchers hit is boring. The game wouldnt be better if we forced players who cant pitch to throw an inning each game. The DH is good.

The only reason pitchers can't hit is because of the pervasiveness of the DH through all levels of baseball from basically 13 years old on, the DH is in every level of play I'm aware of and it's a scourge.

Further, pitchers SHOULD be able to hit, or be a threat to lay down a good bunt or a sac fly or a potential liability to hit into a double play - which is what makes it strategic to have them in the batting order.

 

-----signature-----

It is kind of similar to why QBs rarely sneak the ball.

 

-----signature-----