Smokey Burgess glamorized pinch hitting. Should the DH be replaced with a "designated pinch hitter"?

Question

Al Lopez, the only non-Yankee to win a pennant in the AL in the 1950s (Indians and White Sox) had one of the premier pitching staff in history, but no consistent offense. He finished 2nd to the Mantle-Maris-Ford Yankees time and time again. In frustration, he proposed a "DPH" rule, which would allow him to use his one good offensive weapon, Smokey, more than once in a game, arguing that it was only fair since he had to compete with NY. Smokey could hit more than once, but each player he hit for would have to come out of the game. Doesn't THIS rule ADD strategy to game? Isn't it at least BETTER than the cyclopian DH rule that exists today? It might even be a rule the NL could cotten to. What do you think?

Ty H -- really good point

I guess the pinch runner could be the player who will replace the one the pinch hitter hit for.

Also, to limit excessive use of the DPH, he would only (I presume) be able to hit as many times at the lead-off hitter's spot bats. That way he could get the 4.1 plate appearences per game required to compete for the batting title, but would not have 750 or 800 appearences. Some of these rules would have to be worked out, I suppose.

Frizzer -- the DH SHOULD just go away. That's my point. It isn't going away. How can we make it better, since the AL obviously isn't going to ditch it. Baseball IS broke, it's got the terrible DH rule. The DPH might be a better one. Maybe not. Here is a proposal that might improve things.


Chipmaker -- if you think I mis-applied cyclopian, buy a dictionary, dude. You mis-applied (HILARIOUSLY, albeit slightly) 'troglodyte' a while back. You're as good at linguistics as you are at baseball analysis!!! -8!

Answer 1

I would have no problem with it but how would it work. Supppose the DPH is up hits a single. The next hitter is a weak hitter. Do you put a pinch runner in for him and does he hit again? Baseball would take longer than it does now. Then you could have deesiganted feilders. Be like football I guess. I do remember Smokey. Great catcher in his day too.

Answer 2

I say no on the DH and a Designated Pinch Hitter. The rule for just about everything is, "if it ain't broke don't fix it". I don't see any benefit in implementing a DPH and the DH should just go away. The game of baseball is really a simple game and many people have come to believe these types of changes are good for the game, which I don't see. I say let the pitcher hit. Since he is in the game he needs to be in the batters box when his time comes. The same people that say the DH is good because it extends the career of aging players are also the ones that would say let the golfers ride in carts because they won't be as tired when they step up to hit the ball. The best thing that can be done to improve the game of baseball is to leave the game the way it was created to be played.

Answer 3

Baseball has issues. The designated hitter rule is not one of them.

Seriously, a proposal made by a team that simply wasn't able to compete? ONE good hitter? Where were the scouts? What was the GM doing? Making a rule change based upon the influence of ONE player is bad policy (I've read that "something" (never specific, mind) should be done about intentional walks because Bonds gets so many. So what? He won't be playing forever, and then what? Bad concept.) The DH rule wasn't crafted to get Blomberg into the game; it treated pitchers as a group -- one that, throughout history, has been selected based upon skills unrelated (in fact, diametrically opposed) to hitting. We're in the 35th season of the AL using the DH and, despite the endless bleating from a certain, inconsolable section of fandom, it continues to work quite well.

I don't know about "strategy", since the popular concept of baseball strategy is the notorious double switch, a pushbutton maneuver that somehow makes NL managers brilliant as opposed to their AL, double-switch-free counterparts. That's not strategy, that's just added complexity, which isn't automatically a good thing.

Lopez managed the Indians from 1951-56; Maris made his major league debut, with the Indians, in 1957. So while Mantle and Ford might have been frustrating Al in Ohio, Roger didn't have much to do with it.

Burgess, meanwhile, played his entire career in the NL until being picked off the waiver wire by Lopez' White Sox in September 1964. Lopez left the Sox after 1965, so he managed Burgess for little more than one season. And Lopez did use Burgess almost exclusively as a PH (in 87 games under Lopez, Burgess had 96 plate appearances. He played catcher in five games, three of which were starts). Looking at the 1965 White Sox, it's accurate to say Lopez didn't have a lot of other worthwhile options available to him, but 27-year-old Al Weis was very similar, by rates, to 38-year-old Burgess, and Weis did get used more -- mostly at 2B, where Don Buford (28) was taking up most of the playing time. Lopez used Weis as a pinch-runner more than as a pinch-hitter, perhaps not seeing other options for him.

The DH is quite straightforward and simple in the rules (after the Weaver adjustment was made, at least). This concept appears to be more complex and in need of much more fine tuning. No, I would not support this nor like to see it.

"Cyclopian" -- I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Answer 4

This was the basic concept of the rule suggested by the Pirates' owner in the 20s.