Posted on 02/11/2022 11:16:10 PM PST by Impy
"No more pitchers on the bases wearing jackets. No more surprise dingers. No more epic bunts. No more awkward batting stances and related injury scares.
It’s the end of an era, but at least we’ll always have Bartolo Colon’s legendary home run.
Major League Baseball has agreed to the universal designated hitter, commissioner Rob Manfred announced on Thursday. The move ends the National League’s 48-year run that forced pitchers to take at-bats. In addition, Manfred said MLB has agreed to eliminate draft-pick compensation for signing free agents.
While nothing is official until an agreement with the players union is reached, the universal DH was always expected to be included in the new CBA. In 2020′s pandemic-shortened season, MLB deployed a trial run of what will soon become the norm. NL pitchers did the job they were hired to do, and sluggers filled their absence in the lineup. It certainly made for a more entertaining product, but NL purists lamented the departure of increased strategy in the game when a pitcher was at the dish."
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Definitely the end of an era for the NL. Big Sexy, BA .089, hit that HR, caught by a Mets fan. Took him forever to lumber around the bases. A legendary baseball memory.
I'm all for a pitch clock. It has worked well in minor league ball.
I'm not for a runner starting at 2nd base in extra innings. Thankfully that got killed.
20 years ago I might have cared about this but those days are long gone. Reading about it here is a sideshow amusement. Worth a passing glance so if I somehow stumble across a NL game in the future I won’t be shocked at seeing the DH. The free agent compensation thingy is less than nothing to me. That’s inside baseball stuff I again stopped wondering about long ago.
Are they still kneeling?
48 year run for pitchers having to bat? Thought it was always the rule. The dh was the aberration.
Think I’ll go exercise and work on my health instead of caring about mlb.
Exactly. Only a few high powered managers call the shots in the dugout. The rest pick up the dugout phone and are instructed what to do.
I’m bummed. Max Fried is one of the best hitting pitchers in baseball, even had a walkoff win as a DH
“The move ends the National League’s 48-year run that forced pitchers to take at-bats.”
Funny, it was 48 years ago that I stopped watching baseball.
And by the way, why even have a DH if you are going to do that crap. Just go to an 8-man batting rotation.
Player’s union demands DH. Fifteen more jobs for mostly veteran players.
MLBPA dues in 2021 were $85 per day.
There was a time 20+ years ago that Pitchers could actually hit. They are absolutely horrible now and don’t even try.It’s so painful to watch even I changed my mind now and welcome the DH now.
Very few Max Frieds in baseball now. Very few
Why have a DH? If you don’t want the pitcher to hit, remove him from the lineup. Just use 8 hitters. The big guys would come up more often.
The move ends the National League’s 48-year run that forced pitchers to take at-bats.
A. No one forced the pitchers to hit.
B. Prior to 1973 neither the American nor the National league allowed a designated hitter. I think to the concept was totally foreign to baseball. Further research notes that “The designated hitter idea was raised by Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack in 1906 though he was not the first to propose it”. Nothing happened about it until the late 1960s
There are nine players on a baseball team not ten. There I said it.
Oh, and some pitchers can hit.
From wiki
On April 4, 2021, an American League team voluntarily declined to use a designated hitter in their starting lineup for the first time since 1976, when the Los Angeles Angels placed their starting pitcher Shohei Ohtani second in the batting order. This was also the first time since 1903 that a pitcher had been listed as the second hitter in the starting lineup.
On June 23, 2021, Ohtani made history again when for the first time ever an AL team did not use the designated hitter and an NL team did. His Los Angeles Angels declined the DH privilege, while the visiting San Francisco Giants opted to use it, starting Alex Dickerson at DH.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designated_hitter
That would probably be a good compromise. But the original game, you had 9 players so all had to bat. No exceptions. Even with the DH rule, or 8 hitters, old timers like USA know that this is not baseball like it's meant to be played.
Why not exempt the catcher too? Or use a designated hitter in place of the catcher?
Jose Altuve of the Astros is a great player but he steps out and re-fastens his batting gloves after every pitch. Drives me nuts.
Amen, brother!
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