I’m not enamored of the idea of the “closer”. It would really be interesting to see a manager just break with convention and try a different approach to bullpen use.

what, exactly, is the claim being made here. that each player pitch? what exactly does that relate to? you have 9 players, each plays a position, each hits. pitching is a position, so you specialize a guy there to pitch.

And “manning up” and just hitting them every time? thats just stupid, thats why you have to strategize and decide whether to pinch hit for a pitcher or leave him in. makes for a lot of interesting decisions. don’t really get what you mean there.

According to Wikipedia:

MLB’s National League, NPB’s Central League, and the independent Golden Baseball League are the most prominent professional leagues that have not.

At the double-A and triple-A level, when both teams are National League affiliates, they have their pitchers bat; otherwise the DH is used.

I don’t really follow the logic that the DH makes the AL better talent wise, I think that has a lot of other factors that are more logical, but thats just me.

And I dont really feel the same about the quality of the game overall, in fact I think the lack of the DH in the NL ups the quality for me. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that one, to each his own.

baseball has catchers, or first basemen, or whatever. I’d argue that they are specialized.

except for when a pitcher is up, which is kind of what this whole thread has turned into a discussion about.

I do take an interest in watching how players execute a bunt, and how the defense fields it, but that wasn’t my point.

And I agree with your last point to a degree.

The move itself is not strategic, its how you use it, what player you take out, what player you put in, when you use it. It’s not a complicated move in how it works, I’m sure just about any AL fan without much exposure to it can figure it out.

And the point of a double switch is not to bring in someone who is better (though you do see it happen, not as often but it definitely happens). The point is to work around having a pitcher hit, and how you use your bullpen. Yet your argument continues to be “someone worse comes into the game”, which was never my point in the first place. You have to wiegh who you take out, who you put in, how long you want your relief pitcher in the game, how you use your defensive replacements (often its the guys who are brought into the game because they are better defenders, which I guess means that they are in some way better than the player they are replacing). THATS the strategy. Not the quality of the player you have to watch, thats just a false way to argue your point “that its not a strategic move”.

That argument I agree with though, if your talking about why you’d rather see a DH in games. Thats a completely valid argument, and I get that. I like seeing how managers manage the pitcher batting, you like watching better players in the lineup, thats just a difference in opinion, so I won’t argue with you there, its also the reason I dont support abolishing the DH. If the AL fans like it then fine.

I consider pitching to be defending their position, but I guess thats just me, people want to separate it, fine, but I don’t see it that way. You have players on just about any ballclub where the focus is defense (SS, C), I don’t get why their specializations dont carry the same weight. My biggest issue is not the pitchers hitting really, its the DH. You have a guy who just hits, sits the bench and hits. THAT is the most asinine thing in sports in my opinion, a guy who gets an extravagant salary just to hit for someone who’s playing a defensive position on the field (not all get paid a ton I know, but you get my point). Again, I like baseball (basketball is another example) because you have to weigh how good a player is offensively and defensively. You could use a terrible pitcher for his offense, but you don’t because his defense(pitching) is more important. So in that regard, I’m pretty sure every team weighs offense and defense when using a pitcher.

I’ll apologize for the college baseball comment, that was stupid and I regretted typing it immediately after I posted it. But my point is that you see many examples of guys who come out of college with both experience pitching and hitting. guys who play both ways (play a defensive position then come in and close, play a defensive position on the days they aren’t pitching, etc.), not that they don’t use the DH in college. But your observation here of some pitchers hitting in college doesn’t line up with the statement “Why do baseball teams ask guys who basically don’t hit from the time they’re 15 years old to hit Major Leaguers?”. Perhaps I took your statement too far, fine I’ll admit that, but it also doesn’t take into account the pitchers that do bat in the minor leagues (which has been mentioned a couple of times by someone else in this thread). I, for one, have seen it a number of times.

And if you want to debate, I’m fine with that, but can the insult nonsense (i.e. the reading english BS). That’s just child sh*t, completely unnecessary.

I’m sorry you saw it as some sort of attack on you, but at no point do I make any indication that I was talking about fans of the AL, it was just a general comment, and I think more applies to the non-baseball fans who think those kinds of games are boring. And if we’re going to bring up fallacies, the hyperbole used in the high school kids is a much better example of one.

I think you need to calm down with the stupid dumb and wrong BS, it’s not needed, especially when attacking something that wasn’t even an argument against anyone.

but because it makes more sense to me. if you’re playing a position on the field, I think you should have to hit too. call that tradition if you want, but I dont support the no-DH because they used to do it, I support it because it means equality for every player on the field. not sure I follow that the DH is some sort of evolution of the game, I think things like changing the height of the mound or things like that are much better comparisons for your last point.