"although the National League sometimes reminds me of an auto industry where the automatic transmission was never invented."

I would have no problem with this.

i grew up on the AL, but now have become a huge NL fan. While pitchers in the early innings aren't exciting to watch hit, having the pitcher bat makes management of the game entirely more interesting, especially in later innings. Do you double-switch? Should I let him go another inning knowing his spot is coming up next inning? It also makes the bench players more critical to the success of a team, which to me makes baseball even more of a team game.

If the DH is such a good thing, (I don't agree that it is) why not go the next step and copy football. Have 9 on defense and 9 on offense?

Of course, this is a stupid idea, as is the DH. There is nothing worse than watching a fat, slow, broken down player (Jim Thome?). At one time baseball players were athletes. Someone that can't run, throw or field is basically a slow-pitch softball player. Get them out of the game.

I disagree, the anti-DH ideology is not about anti-specialization, it is about the strategy added to the game when a pitcher is part of the lineup, such as: leave the pitcher because he is up third, double switches, don't bean a guy in the back because you have to step in the box next inning. To me, it has far more to do with the pitcher than the extra batter in the lineup.

It would be a sad day if the NL ever switched to the DH. "Not all change is progress."

So far all the comments are Fractional (excuse me, National Leaguers. I am so sick of hearing of all the "stragety involved in the double switch...takes all the IQ of about 70 to figure that out.

Also forget the Red Sox/Yankee argument. Check the interleague stats. The AL has kicked NL butt for several years and that is 50/50 as to home park.

Most National League games are as exciting as watching grass grow.

To hell with small Balls....long live the long ball.

If you don't like American League Baseball don't watch it.......
the same goes for the National League. Need some cheese for the WHINE ?

So, you're saying it's more "aesthetically pleasing" to watch any pitcher hit than watching Matsui, Ortiz, or Guerrero hit?

There were 360 more intentional walks in the NL than the AL last year, are those "aesthetically pleasing?"

Evolution will prevail. pitchers hitting = gills, DH = lungs.
(sorry, I couldn't think of a better evolution metaphor)

"They do say," Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, "that over in the north village they're talking of giving up the lottery."

Old Man Warner snorted. "Pack of crazy fools," he said.

h/t Shirley Jackson

ok the dh has the appeal of a root canal only weak and nitwitted fans should support it . The experiment is a quality check which anyone who supports it has no idea of what baseball is, lets all get behind a motion to ban this absurd baseball pimple.

Lets restore "balance" by abolishing the DH. Not all pitchers can't hit...a pitcher hitting a HR is one of the most exciting things in the game

A DH is just like the other 8 hitters...more of the same. Having the pitcher hit is something different, an entire dimension to the game that the AL lacks. Why strip the game of it's interesting aspects?

If all we want is long balls, lets let ARod hit in all 9 spots in the order

I've heard the "why not just have 9 on defense and 9 on offense?" argument. Here's the problem, nobody's saying we should do that.

What's being said is that after over 100 years of statistical evidence, most pitchers literally cannot hit their weight. (alright, maybe literally doesn't actually work here, but you know what I mean.)

Did you know that 4 of the starters on the NL champ Phillies had negative OPS+s?

Did you know that Greg Maddux had a lifetime 5 OPS+?

"a pitcher hitting a HR is one of the most exciting things in the game"

Answer "why?" to this question and you have the answer as to why there is a DH in the first place.

A DH is just like the other 8 hitters...more of the same.

Meaning they can actually hit. Which is the escence of being in a batting order.

Having the pitcher hit is something different, an entire dimension to the game that the AL lacks

It's a dimension that is a proven failure for over 100 years.

No David, you're a towel.

So there are a few different issues here:

1. What does one league or another being better even mean?
2. Does that translate to World Series victories?

1. is always going to be subjective at best and religion at worst. A lot of people have been using the All Star game as a metric for that. I think by just about any measure the good AL teams RIGHT NOW have fewer weaknesses and the AL has fewer laughers, e.g. Pittsburgh, San Diego. AL style of play? More money for free agents? Aging DHs aging more gracefully? I don't know.

But the DH has been around for 3+ decades and during that time there have been periods of NL dominance of the All Star game and overall quality, just as the AL takes it now. The astroturf era was definitely better for the NL. Probably not a matter of the NL style, just more teams built around astroturf.

I still prefer the NL since switching teams is for douchebags.

ANd I don't think 1. has much of anything to do with 2.

There is nothing worse than watching a fat, slow, broken down player

Really? It's worse than watching a pitcher wave helplessly at three fastballs or struggle to lay down a bunt? It's worse than watching a "I'm not good enough to hit higher than #8" hitter get an intentional walk?

the reason that the AL team has an inherent advantage in the world series over the NL is that the NL can't get a good hitter to sign to them. matsui would never sign a contract to get 150AB's in the NL when he can get 600+ in the AL.

so they say that both teams are playing a DH. the NL DH will never be the kind of hitter the AL will have. add on the fact that the AL has an average team salary of around 10 million more. that right there makes up for the DH.

There's no reason a pitcher can't be a good hitter. It's my understanding that most players who pitch in high school play other positions some of the time, and there learn to hit. We've seen pitchers converted to hitters in mid-career (see under Ankiel, Rick). And the greatest (white pre-WWII) player of all time began as a pitcher.

The DH is just not necessary.

Too bad there's no way to get rid of it anymore. But I don't like it and I never will.

"There's no reason a pitcher can't be a good hitter"

Other than than the ability to be a good hitter (as well as a good pitcher) at the major league level requires a considerable amount of time, effort, and dedication on its own?

Face it; the entire game of baseball is an exercise in specialization. The concept of a DH is no more asinine than the concept of a closer or pinch runner.

I'm with Scott. If players shouldn't have to play both offense and defense, let's specialize some more. DHs tend to become that because their only skill is hitting - they can't run, and they can't field.
Why not have Designated Runners, instead of pinch runners, and Designated Fielders. Omar Quintinilla is a great middle infielder. He's a pretty fair runner, too. But he can't hit to save his life. Why not convert him to a DF and free up a bat in the lineup?

@Will

You're not nearly imaginative enough. We should pare each team down to their best 3. Bat them 3 times over for a lineup of 9 and use ghosties to cover all the running. Wouldn't want to wear out those millionaire calves!

On defense, clone 4 copies of Jose Offerman for the infield, 3 copies of Manny Ramirez for the outfield and have David Wells toss softballs to is battery-mate Tim McCarver, Jr.

Wouldn't want those fans to get bored watching a pitcher's duel.

"There's no reason a pitcher can't be a good hitter"

I don't know where you're going with this. You do realize there is over 100 years of evidence showing how poorly pitchers hit, right?

It seems not so long ago when the NL was competing better in the World Series, that the pundits said the NL teams had the advantage because their teams were built without a DH and the AL had more trouble adjusting to the NL game because of their reliance on the DH. I guess whoever wins has the advantage.

Personally, I don't like the DH, but the anti-DH faction is fighting a losing battle. I absolutely could have lived without the extra years of Reggie, Frank Thomas, Thome, etc., etc.,

You mean like the pitchers duels in game 1 and 2 ANA vs NYY?

Or maybe you missed that there were 51 runs scored in the NLCS in 5 games while there were 52 runs scored in 6 games of the ALCS.

I think you need to talk to Prof. Frink and grab one of his sarcasm detectors.

Can anyone actually demonstrate that the AL has been systematically better since the introduction of the DH?

I think the fairest sense of better would be World Series victories since that's what fans care about.

AL: 21
NL: 15

Personally I would put the Yankees separately which would then be:

AL: 15
NL: 15
NYY: 6

Both of those results are statistically consistent with the premise the leagues are equally likely of winning the World Series.

Which means we can argue about this forever.

About the only time George Will would ever sit still for a "triumph of evidence over ideology" is in baseball. Aw, well - even the most politically constipated among us need to give it a rest once in a while.

Watching the Borg triumph over the Feelies last week reminded me of how dull and brutal designatedhitterball is, and watching the Borg at work - ably abetted by those clueless umpires, especially - reminded me of nothing so much as a late Pleistocene mammoth hunt, what with all those guys carrying clubs. Who wants to watch a bunch of muscle-bound over-the-hill ballplayers dragging their careers to the plate on a pair of gimpy knees? DHs are just a bunch of upper bodies at work. That's why I love the National League - give me the whole ballplayer any day. You know, like Kirk Gibson.

If you only have 3 players bat, what are you going to do in a bases loaded sitution?

Ghost runners?

I believe I eliminated the need for running by using nothing but ghosties.

Tom, your little chart really illustrates the old saying that "figures don't lie, but liers can figure".

I think the fairest sense of better would be World Series victories since that's what fans care about.

AL: 21
NL: 15

Personally I would put the Yankees separately which would then be:

AL: 15
NL: 15
NYY: 6

Both of those results are statistically consistent with the premise the leagues are equally likely of winning the World Series.

(a) the world series, and its tiny, once-a-year sample pitting two of the better teams in each league, is a woefully inadequate way of comparing the leagues over time. (b) 21-15 =
equally likely = DOES NOT COMPUTE. (c) Separating the Yankees out? Wha?? They aren't in the AL anymore? You can separate out Boston, Toronto, Minnesota, and the ChiSox also, and it will make it appear the NL is *extremely* dominant!

Well, at least I can spell so I've got that going for me. But as long as you're making the accusation, what, precisely, am I lying about?

There's nothing about the DH that has made the AL systematically better over its 37 years. In the 70s and early 80s the NL was clearly the better league if you take World Series and All Star games as the measure of "better." But that was really just a reflection of the fact that the NL was better in the 60s.

Then toward the early 90s the AL started becoming the overall better league. I don't think the DH has much to do with it. If it does, it's a combination of modern free agency and medical/training techniques allowing players to extend their careers better than they once did. Pre-Curt Flood era Jim Thome wouldn't be in baseball anymore after he fell apart in Philadelphia.

21-15=equally likely does compute. If you pitted the exact same teams against one another 36 times you would get that result 30% of the time, which is more often than you can expect to win in Las Vegas. It doesn't have to be 18-18 for the assumption to be valid.

I recognize the fact that World Series victories is a flawed way of looking at it, but name a better one that encompasses the entire period of the DH. The question isn't "which league is better now?" The answer is the AL, obviously. The question is "is the AL better now because of the DH?" I say that there's no evidence to support that.

If you had asked people in 1980 whether the DH had solved the AL's problems of the past two decades I think the answer would have been no.

And, yes, separating out the Yankees makes perfect sense. When a team wins 1/4 of all championships they're not doing it because of what league they're in, they're in a league of their own. Murderer's row didn't need a DH. From a statistical viewpoint it also invalidates the assumption that all teams are equally likely to win the championship.

In furtherance of lying, one can defend the proposition that the AL has been better over the last 12 years based on interleague play. Overall record AL over NL 1674-1534.

This result would only happen about a few percent of the time if the leagues were evenly matched (and each game independent of the next). So, it's completely fair to say that the AL is better than the NL over the last decade. It's just not relevant to the DH question because if interleague play had existed in the 70s and 80s I think you would have seen the NL beat out the AL in similar fashion.

There are enough pitchers who can hit to make me think that there is no reason more don't, other than choosing to not have them learn to hit.

The AL is not ever going to do away with the DH. Never, never, ever. And why should it. It gives them a great competitive advantage over the NL in interleague play, the allstar game, and the World Series. AL fans have watched their teams play with the DH long enough that it seems perfectly natural to them. And it is probably more entertaining. If I wanted strategy I would watch a chess match. So not only does the AL get a competive advantage on the field they get to sell a more entertaining product.

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