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Momentum growing for DH in NL
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Post by Oregon Norm on Jan 18, 2016 11:54:24 GMT -5
Can you say hidebound? The notion that "captains of industry" have tapped into some well of superior analytical knowledge needs to be pushed aside. Often times, they make the same sort of bone-headed decisions everyone can stumble into. The fact that it's taken 30+ years to even rethink the idea also leaves the impression that those meetings must be like watching paint dry.
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Post by Guidas on Jan 18, 2016 12:07:34 GMT -5
Can you say hidebound? The notion that "captains of industry" have tapped into some well of superior analytical knowledge needs to be pushed aside. Often times, they make the same sort of bone-headed decisions everyone can stumble into. The fact that it's taken 40+ years to even rethink the idea also leaves the impression that those meetings must be like watching paint dry. Agree with this 100%. I've met several people worth hundreds of millions of dollars and even a few billionaires. Money gives you access to a lot of things and opportunities, but it doesn't make you any smarter.
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Post by tonyc on Jan 18, 2016 13:20:26 GMT -5
Glad to hear about NL DH- Sox risked Ortiz injury, and pitchers injuries hitting. Still remember in early 70's Jim Kaat off to a career year- was something like 14-2, out for the year on a base running injury. Of course an NL DH would have taken the controls away from a nitwit Darell Johnson who pinch hit for a hot throwing Jim Wiloughby in the '75 series (with Cecile Cooper who was 1-19, with two outs and none on), and my favorite Sox team ever may have won the best series ever. I am one of the exceptions, enjoy inter league only because I live in Colorado, and get to see the Sox every five years or so.
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Post by jimed14 on Jan 18, 2016 14:03:48 GMT -5
Both for now. It's hard enough to develop any kind of rivalry with 14 other AL teams, let alone 29 total. I have zero interest in seeing the Red Sox playing pretty much any NL team. It's obviously not for my benefit, but for the benefit of a team like the Marlins who draw 30,000 Red Sox fans living in Miami when they play each other. But who gives a damn about the Marlins coming to Boston? And it's really screwed up how lopsided the divisions are. An AL team that played the NL East more (with three 90 loss teams) and the NL Central (with three 97 win teams) less than another AL team had a huge advantage in the standings last year. There is no possible way to make the schedule balanced when you have interleague play.I also realize that it's going nowhere. I don't know anyone who likes it unless they're living in a city that has the opposite league play in it than their favorite team is in. To the first point: people who want to watch Jose Fernandez or Giancarlo Stanton instead of seeing the Orioles for the 63rd time that year? To the second, playing a wider variety of teams would seem to lead to a more balanced schedule, no? What's so balanced about the NL East now? Any halfway decent team in that division has a tremendous advantage. The Mets were a .500 team last year when playing outside the NL East. I find it ridiculous that the Red Sox played the Indians as many times as they played the Phillies last year. I wasn't trying to solve the problem of the NL East sucking. I'm trying to point out the problem that an AL East team that gets to play the Phillies and Marlins and Braves more than another AL East team has an easier shot of winning the AL East.
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Post by humanbeingbean on Jan 18, 2016 14:27:30 GMT -5
We could always add a team to each league for 32 teams. Montreal and another location? Nashville, Portland, maybe even a non-Canadian international team (or Puerto Rico)?
Just fun to think about, but that'd create an unequal amount of teams per division in each league.
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Post by ray88h66 on Jan 18, 2016 14:31:20 GMT -5
I'd rather see pitches hit, we just called it baseball. But the rules should be the same for both AL and NL, the AL is never going back , so bring on the DH. I think it happens in the next CBA.
I love interleague play. I grew up in Boston but Moved to the mid-west when my kids were young. They and I got to see, Maddox, Bonds, Sosa, and others thanks to interleague. My favorite player was Mays, only got to see him on TV. Would have liked to see him play in person.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 18, 2016 14:43:28 GMT -5
To the first point: people who want to watch Jose Fernandez or Giancarlo Stanton instead of seeing the Orioles for the 63rd time that year? To the second, playing a wider variety of teams would seem to lead to a more balanced schedule, no? What's so balanced about the NL East now? Any halfway decent team in that division has a tremendous advantage. The Mets were a .500 team last year when playing outside the NL East. I find it ridiculous that the Red Sox played the Indians as many times as they played the Phillies last year. I wasn't trying to solve the problem of the NL East sucking. I'm trying to point out the problem that an AL East team that gets to play the Phillies and Marlins and Braves more than another AL East team has an easier shot of winning the AL East.Ok, so don't make the schedule that way. Have each AL East team play one series against each NL East team. You make it sound like baseball doesn't have a ridiculously unbalanced schedule already. More interleague games represents a chance to make it more balanced, not less.
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Post by jmei on Jan 18, 2016 14:43:44 GMT -5
I love interleague play. I grew up in Boston but Moved to the mid-west when my kids were young. They and I got to see, Maddox, Bonds, Sosa, and others thanks to interleague. My favorite player was Mays, only got to see him on TV. Would have liked to see him play in person. This. I care way more about seeing the stars from the NL than I do about playing extra games against the Indians.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 18, 2016 14:52:34 GMT -5
I love interleague play. I grew up in Boston but Moved to the mid-west when my kids were young. They and I got to see, Maddox, Bonds, Sosa, and others thanks to interleague. My favorite player was Mays, only got to see him on TV. Would have liked to see him play in person. This. I care way more about seeing the stars from the NL than I do about playing extra games against the Indians. I'm surprised I don't hear more fans complain about the repetition in the schedule as it currently exists. Especially if you happen to be a fan of a bad team in a bad division... oh boy, Braves versus Phillies AGAIN. Everyone's looking forward to that, right? Of course, the complication here is that more interleague and/or a more balanced schedule makes travel and makeup games much harder. It's relatively easy to deal with Red Sox/Orioles game getting rained out in April. If it's a Sox/Giants game, that's considerably more difficult to make up, and increases the likelihood that teams lose off days, have ridiculous travel schedules late in the year, or just play games in awful weather.
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Post by jimed14 on Jan 18, 2016 14:56:19 GMT -5
I love interleague play. I grew up in Boston but Moved to the mid-west when my kids were young. They and I got to see, Maddox, Bonds, Sosa, and others thanks to interleague. My favorite player was Mays, only got to see him on TV. Would have liked to see him play in person. This. I care way more about seeing the stars from the NL than I do about playing extra games against the Indians. Unless the Indians have all the stars?
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Post by jmei on Jan 18, 2016 15:14:37 GMT -5
Games one through three matter more than games six through nine.
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Post by 29sonski on Jan 18, 2016 15:53:05 GMT -5
Aside from Commissioner Rob Manfred’s expressed satisfaction in watching Bartolo Colon at the plate, there seems little value in pitchers batting. Given that MiLB uses the DH so as to evaluate more position players, pitchers just don’t have the opportunity to develop any hitting skills professionally. I’m not on a mission to implement the DH in the National League, but it makes sense for the overall benefit of the game at the pro level.
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ericmvan
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Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,931
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Post by ericmvan on Jan 19, 2016 1:45:25 GMT -5
The worst thing about pitchers hitting isn't even pitchers hitting. It's having the #7 hitter come up with a slow runner on 1B, and knowing that if he doubles, they walk the #8 hitter, retire the pitcher, and you don't score. And then watching that happen. Every time the inning starts with the 4 or 5 hitter, there's a solid chance that a rally will end that way.
An idea of mine that goes back to 1983, and which I know will never be implemented because it makes managers think too much, is to play by AL rules for 6 1/2 innings and then switch to something much closer to NL rules (the "Best of Both Worlds DH rule"). Which is to say, beginning in the bottom of the 7th, if the DH hits in that inning, you have to change pitchers for the next half-inning. (It's the bottom of the 7th, because that gives both pitchers an opportunity to go a full 7 before being lifted because of this rule. If you want to give the home team even more of an advantage, start the rule in the top of the 8th.) Or, you can have the pitcher hit for the DH and stay in the game (after which you are essentially in the NL game, with double switches and the like).
This wouldn't actually affect the game much, because in the modern game, we tend to change pitchers between every inning at that point in the game anyway. But it would create the occasional very interesting situation, which I think is quite desirable. There are situations where you'd let Madison Bumgarner go 8, or even 9, because he's not terrible at the plate, which is to say, being a good-hitting pitcher doesn't lose all value. Relief stints that cross between innings would have to be managed more carefully. There would be times when you wouldn't want to bring in a pitcher to get the last out of the 7th and the first of the 8th, because the DH was due up next inning. Ditto for closers getting saves of more than one inning; sometimes the manager would have to judge the desirability of that versus having him hit in the bottom of the 8th or top of the 9th.
You would want to expand rosters to make this work, because with a deep enough roster, you could have a dominant pitcher hit in the 7th, and then have plenty of pinch-hitters to use the rest of the game. But roster expansion is long overdue anyway. Benches use to be 7 guys, typically C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, CF, corner OF, or two corner OFs with 3B covered by the backup 1B and/or 2B. Now it's C, SS/2B/3B, 1B/OF, CF/OF. Your backup 2B, 3B, and corner OFers are usually overqualified defensively.
With the DH, you don't a 7 man bench, but with 12 man staffs instead of 10 being the norm, you need 27 men on the roster. Two extra guys will add platoon jobs, improve offense, and make late-game strategy more interesting.
One way of looking at this rule is that beginning in the 7th, the DH becomes a permanent PH, who gets to hit for whoever the current pitcher is. But the pitcher has to leave the game, just as if he had been pinch-hit for ordinarily. In fact, you might write the rule to state this explicitly: the DH is a PH who can hit for the pitcher but stay in the game, and that if the pitcher is pinch-hit for up through the top of the 7th, he doesn't have to come out of the game. Doing it this way would leave the option of putting the DH in the field at any time in the game, combined with a pitching change. Again, with a deep bench, that might make sense a few times a year.
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Post by burythehammer on Jan 19, 2016 6:40:43 GMT -5
Amazing what happens when you don't have Bud Selig in charge.
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Post by GyIantosca on Jan 20, 2016 13:02:13 GMT -5
The DH in the NL is gonna make some hitters very rich. The Sox may not need to give away Hanley or Panda if they not happy in the future. We will see.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Jan 20, 2016 19:37:46 GMT -5
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Post by grandsalami on Jan 21, 2016 14:16:23 GMT -5
“@dplennon: Manfred also said NL adopting DH is gaining momentum. Expect it to be addressed in upcoming CBA, so could be for ‘17 season. #mlb”
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Post by jimed14 on Jan 21, 2016 17:49:45 GMT -5
“@dplennon: Manfred also said NL adopting DH is gaining momentum. Expect it to be addressed in upcoming CBA, so could be for ‘17 season. #mlb” They would have to finalize the CBA before free agency started for that to work. I bet they wait a year to let teams plan more than 5 minutes for it.
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Post by pedroelgrande on Jan 21, 2016 17:52:15 GMT -5
They should be planning for it right now.
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Post by jimed14 on Jan 21, 2016 17:58:12 GMT -5
They should be planning for it right now. You can plan for it, but you're not exactly signing DHs until you know exactly what season it starts.
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,931
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Post by ericmvan on Jan 22, 2016 3:22:34 GMT -5
While we're talking about rule changes, and in the spirit of ESPN's "Baseball 2.0" series, two more proposals, neither wholly original.
1) A relief pitcher who faces a single batter, and is relieved before the end of the inning for reasons other than injury shall be known as a matchup specialist. Each team may use just one matchup specialist per game; subsequent relievers must either face two batters or finish the inning, unless they sustain an incapacitating injury before the end of their second batter faced.
Because teams have existing investments in matchup guys, you would want to initially limit matchup specialists to one per inning and two per game. And you might argue in favor of leaving it that way, rather than going to this tighter version a few years later. But I personally like the extreme restriction as the eventual goal; it speeds the game more, adds more offense, and requires more careful strategy.
2) Add the following to the definition of a balk:
-- Three successive pickoff throws to the same base -- Any pickoff throw to an unoccupied base -- Five pickoff throws (to any base) during one plate appearance
This turns repeated pickoff attempts from one of the dullest things in the game to one of the most interesting and exciting. Throwing over twice in a row unsuccessfully gives the runner a titanic jump on every subsequent pitch. So throwing over once means that, on the next pitch, the runner is guessing no throw and the pitcher is therefore guessing that the runner is going. Great cat-and-mouse, where one throw over means the next pitch is a high-stakes, tense moment. This will speed up the game and boost stolen bases, both of which are good.
If this version seems too extreme, it can be initially implemented with four and six throws rather than three and five.
I'm curious as to what people think of these.
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Post by bigpupp on Jan 22, 2016 9:20:44 GMT -5
Not really a fan of either of them myself, although you're onto something with the first.
Instead of a matchup specialist, just make it so that a pitcher can't be removed from the game until he has either completed an inning or allowed a base-runner. We don't need to identify a L/ROOGY as a specialist, we need to get rid of them.
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Post by 0ap0 on Jan 22, 2016 11:15:18 GMT -5
Personally, I hate the balk rule entirely. Throw how you want to throw. I want to scrap it and make pickoff throws count as balls. It wasn't in the strikezone and nobody swung. Analogous to fouls being strikes but not strikeouts, a walk requires ball four to the plate.
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Post by jimed14 on Jan 22, 2016 12:03:06 GMT -5
Personally, I hate the balk rule entirely. Throw how you want to throw. I want to scrap it and make pickoff throws count as balls. It wasn't in the strikezone and nobody swung. Analogous to fouls being strikes but not strikeouts, a walk requires ball four to the plate. That would be where they'd end up throwing fake pitches where they go through the entire windup without releasing the ball. That would be ridiculous. I agree that the balk rule is ridiculous, but they need some form of it so it doesn't turn baseball into the Harlem Globetrotters.
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Post by jmei on Jan 23, 2016 13:32:09 GMT -5
If the NL could get the DH as soon as the 2017 season, it significantly reduces the motivation for the Cubs to trade Kyle Schwarber. Other guys in that same boat include Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, John Jaso, etc.
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