Jul 20 2009
I Call ‘Em as I See ‘Em: The DH (Pt. 2)
Welcome to Part Two of my case against the Designated Hitter (you can find Part One here). Convinced yet? If you are, continue reading to get plenty of arguments to use against those heretics trying to defend the DH. If you aren’t, we’re going to get past the gut-feeling, emotional arguments used in Pt. 1 and move onto some statistical arguments.
The DH allows players to inflate their offensive statistics.
Stats and records are very important to baseball players and, perhaps even more so, baseball fans. It was decided to place an asterisk (*) next to Roger Maris’s single season home run record because the season was seven games longer than when the Babe set the record. Numerous people want an asterisk (some want a syringe) next to Barry Bonds’ career home run record.
In light of this, it’s surprising that more people aren’t upset about the DH. 20 players (out of 53) have made it into the top ten all time in offensive categories have spent time as a DH. 6 of these 20 players have spent 324 games as a DH. Why 324? Because that’s the equivalent of 2 full seasons. This eliminates people who have DH’d only in inter-league play or just a few games a season.
So there are 6 players who probably wouldn’t have made it to these plateaus as an everyday player, either because they physically can’t play everyday or because their defense makes them too much of a liability to start. This number is likely to grow, as the DH has only been used by the American League for 26 years (counting 2009).
Why should players who really weren’t an everyday player be able to pass the greats who played the game every day in the field, the way it was meant to be played?
Note: The offensive categories I looked at were: Hits, Doubles, Triples, Home Runs, Batting Average, Slugging Percentage, Walks, Runs, RBI, and Stolen Bases.
