Good reasons for getting past the divided leagues era

In fact, some people will tell you, “I kind of like that there are two different types of baseball games.”

That would describe me.

I’ve learned that you do not talk to these fans about logic. About scientific method.

I should hope my presence reading, posting on and once writing for this site is evidence that I hope you talk to me about logic and that I embrace the scientific method.

I don’t necessarily think it’s perfect, but for me, personally, just me, I enjoy getting to see two different forms of baseball. It makes me happy.

About how, if you allow yourself to think about it long enough, you’ll realize that the World Series is a flawed championship by virtue of it matching teams whose rosters have been constructed to play two distinctly different styles of the game—so different that fans of both leagues say that they cannot stand to watch the other league’s games.

I agree with this.

And ironically enough, both contend that the other league’s game is boring—fans complain that either too many pitchers are batting or that there is far too little managerial strategy and use of the bench.

Not this. I like both games. I lean towards the NL style, but like that I don’t have to make up my mind. I do not like what it does to the World Series. Maybe I don’t care as much as I should because the league my team is in has the advantage here, I dunno. But this doesn’t mean you can’t talk to me logically.

First off, as a fan, I don’t enjoy watching some truly awful hitting if I’m watching the best players in the world. Secondly, It puts unnecessary risk on pitchers, who have enough problems staying healthy without batting.

philkid, I meant not personal offense, but your post, perhaps unwittingly, illustrates my point: that is, in spite of the fact that a person might “like” having two different games, there is an acknowledgement here that the championship system is, indeed, flawed—yet, because you say you “like” it this way, you are disinterested in modifying the system to be more rational.

That’s why it’s pointless to enter into this dialogue with some—if you “like” it, then that’s a matter of personal choice that probably isn’t going to be changed. I would not presume to try to change a person’s preference on such grounds—your likes are your likes and who’s to say whose “likes” are “better than” another person’s likes. To the contrary, I’m only interested in attempting to appeal to those who place a higher priority on the validity of the system.

I hope that’s well-taken..

Satchel, the short answer is that (a) it is an inherent trade-off that pitchers batting adds to the “strategery” of the game and (b) as a sport, injuries are just part of it—try translating this idea of protecting pitchers to any other game… even in football, where the quarterback is arguably even more critical to the team’s success, we do not go so far as to eliminate the potential for non-throwing injuries. Steinbrenner is entitled to his opinion, but it’s clear to most of us I believe that he’s only trying to protect his personal financial interests in pushing that point.

An online friend of mine, Bob Hulsey, does a particularly entlightening job in answering your contentions, if you have a couple of minutes to consider his points:

http://www.astrosdaily.com/column/11002250223fan.html

I probably shouldn’t admit this but I don’t keep up with the American League all that much. As a fan of the Astros, I really only have to be concerned with the Junior Circuit during interleague play, something worthy of another rant for another time.

On the whole, I just don’t find A.L. ball as interesting as I do the National League. In fact, if you gave me the choice between watching a Yankees-Red Sox game on MLB Extra Innings or a Padres-Nationals game, I’ll choose the latter. I admit, when it gets to the final week of the regular season and then the post-season, I’ll watch the A.L. if something’s on the line because that’s when baseball history is made and the A.L. games become compelling but, the rest of the time, it is hard to keep my attention.

Part of the reason for that is the Designated Hitter (DH) rule, a gimmick the A.L. tried in the 1970s that, like a computer virus, has now spread itself to most of organized baseball all over the world. Smug A.L. fans openly question when the N.L. will catch up and join the 21st Century. N.L. fans try to explain that they’d rather watch the managerial chess match that happens when pitchers are forced to bat.

Personally, I like to see the pitcher who can handle a bat well. It can be demoralizing for the opponents when the pitcher delivers a clutch hit and guys like Micah Owings, even Carlos Zambrano, are fun to see taking their hacks. Some pitchers even today have hitting incentives written into their contracts. Astros pitchers have been known to have contests among themselves as to who can deliver the most hits or successful bunts during a season. I’ve never liked the argument that “people don’t want to see the pitchers hit”. I do. They’re often the most entertaining at bats because they aren’t expected to do well so there’s a certain surprise when they actually succeed, sort of like watching Michael Bourn go deep.

In the N.L., managers have to decide whether to pull the pitcher early because they need a big hit or leave the pitcher in and chance he’ll tire and give up more runs. Games are won or lost sometimes by button-pushing managers who do double-switches with the batting order or who resist the temptation and are rewarded when the starter blanks the opposition another inning or two.

In the A.L., such decisions are not at issue – at least not because of their spot in the batting order. The DH stands in for the pitcher and takes over that place in the order all game long. All too often, the nine who started in the lineup finish there too. No point in bothering the guys on the bench at all. It’s rarely true of an N.L. game, forcing teams to carry deeper benches with more versatile skills.

But it must be said that the popularity of the DH means it won’t go away anytime soon. Two generations of pitchers have come and gone without having much need to grab a bat and their benches contain one or two guys who rarely have to wear a glove.

There’s a continuum between specialization and enjoying the athlete who excels at multiple facets of a game. Each sport draws that line differently. The NFL would be quite different if Peyton Manning were forced to play linebacker as well as play quarterback. Conversely, it would minimize an NBA talent like Michael Jordan if he never had to play defense. He would simply enter the court when his team had the ball, make his shot and then go sit down until his team got the ball back.

Those known as “traditionalists” and “purists” hate the DH, sometimes with the passion of a Tea Party rally. Proponents of the DH sneer at the purists and imply that such backwards thinking shows an unwillingness to accept change and what they see as an improvement to the sport, sort of like how we might feel if one league insisted on playing without batting helmets because past generations did.

Commissioner Bud Selig is against the DH and went so far as to have his beloved Milwaukee Brewers switch leagues in 1998 so he could watch his old club play without it……..

I agree the World Series is a flawed championship for this reason. However, I don’t agree that the only way to deal with that is to unify the systems. The logic of which system is correct is secondary to which way the public likes their baseball. After all, people watch baseball because they like it, not because they enjoy logical systems. So, by changing the current system, you are guaranteed to make around 60% of people unhappy about it.

Why not allow the NL team to sign a DH just for the WS? Maybe allow them a special exemption to make a trade for that purpose.

Why should I care about NL match-ups when they have little effect on the AL West standings? I don’t think adding the DH to the NL would make me appreciate the NL anymore than I do now.

As for the World Series being a flawed championship, it’s not all that flawed. Both teams play by the same rules every game. Yeah, the AL has teams built with a DH, but they can’t take advantage when playing by NL rules. Vice-versa, the NL team can replace a poor defending fielder while still utilizing his bat when playing by AL rules, which can negate the AL advantage. A run saved is as good as a run produced. I don’t have any numbers to prove this, but I would imagine the trade off in styles of play isn’t significant during a 7-game series. The real travesty is the All-Star Game outcome deciding which league gets home field advantage during the World Series.

So, you would be just fine with it if your team made it to the WS and played all of the games with the opposite league’s rule regarding the DH?

MLB abandoned that situation years ago, perhaps even under the Uerreboth admin. And why? Because it was… correctly by any account I’ve ever read… regarded as unfair to the team who happened to win their League pennant in the wrong year (i.e., the year that the DH did or did not apply).

The DH issue is consequential, as the Unify Baseball site argues persuasively.

And with regard to “fans likes” in comparison to fans’ desire for “logical systems,” I’d respond first that the integrity of the game, any game for that matter, is what fans expect. The DH dilemma has been underplayed, largely, for the reasons addressed at the Unify Baseball site.

And second, I’d respond that it is your presumption that fans would not “like” for the leagues to play the same game under a new rule that addressed the primary concerns of the stakeholders.

I simply and completely disagree, and encourage readers who have previously limited their field of view to only the DH or No-DH options to open up and consider soberly the options listed at Unify Baseball. There are seven listed, plus there’s a new page just added this weekend that allows people to post their own ideas.

Personally, I’d like to see the Club Decision option activated immediately as a temporary solution, with the potential for it to become permanent after some period of time, say 5 years.

During that period, I’d want to use minor leagues to test out some of the other options in order to see which ones seemed to rise above the others. And again, if none did, it would be perfectly fine to just continue with the Club Decision as far as I’m concerned. It would be a relatively easy rule to enact, since there would be no appreciable increase or decrease in actual games played with the DH and without it.

(click on the title to go to the site)

(for those who want an explanation, here’s a direct link)

I obviously am misunderstanding how to work the controls here… pardon my ignorance. Let me try one more time…

Unify Baseball Movement

The Club Decision

…Let’s illustrate it this way.

If, next season, the NFL were to enact a rule that allowed, say, right tackles to be pass-eligible under the premise that the league wanted more scoring, would you be comfortable with that? Probably not, but maybe so.

The kicker (no pun intended), though, is this:

Would you be OK with it if the AFC teams wanted the rule, the NFC teams didn’t want the rule, and if Roger Goodell and the rules committee said, "OK, let’s just let each conference choose for itself whether it wants to play under that rule or not"?

To the contrary. The vast majority of us football fans would be livid. We would VERY LOUDLY voice our displeasure… that those self-important NFL owners and the league office staff are fools to think that that would fly. We’d say something like, "Surely they had to know that fans would be universally angry that one stupid idea (right tackle eligible) had been compounded by endorsing an even stupid-er one (i.e., one conference has the rule, the other doesn’t)." Worse, many of us would be writing letters to Goodell saying, "Surely you don’t want this to become like Major League Baseball and the DH, do you?"….

Click this link to review the rest of the article: Why It Matters