The Universal DH Is Here

MLB and the Players Union have apparently agreed on the use of a Designated Hitter for both leagues, beginning in 2022.

And with that, I am pushed another step further away from a sport I have loved watching, reading about, researching and writing about for more than 45 years.

(But now that a real hitter will bat instead of pitchers who simply take three strikes and sit down, won't games drag on for even longer now?)

Not that anyone is asking, but my choice would be for no DH anywhere. I assume I'm in the minority on that point. Yes, yes, pitchers are more or less automatic outs (they batted .110/.150/.142 in 2021) and the idea of having another hitter bat for the pitcher (or having lineups of only eight men) is not new; it was bandied about as far back as 1891. I don't fucking care.

The necessity of having a pitcher throw four intentional balls should be part of the game for many reasons, one of which is the rare occurrence of when one of those soft tosses pitches sails to the backstop or gets smacked for a hit to the opposite field. Pitchers not named Shohei Ohtani collected 92 extra-base hits last season. Besides, the rules (both old and current versions) state that a game features two teams of nine players. A DH makes that 10 players per side.

Craig Calcaterra notes (in addition to logging Rob Manfred's numerous bald-faced lies in the past day or so) that the "Both sides wanted a DH" explanation being touted by writers like Buster Olney

is misleading to the point of abject disingenuousness. It was a case of the owners wanting to take the single most valuable bargaining chip away from the players [a multi-billion dollar concession of expanded playoffs] — one that they were clearly planning to use as a means of getting substantive concessions from the owners on other, far more important matters — in exchange for something that, while possibly desirable, was relatively worthless.

That's a statement of fact many people are making in reply to Olney's tweet. And Olney must know this, of course, because he is not a moron. So you have to ask yourself (as you have to do when seasoned journalists who have covered national politics for decades make disingenuous statements about either political party), why is he choosing to misinterpret the facts in that particular way? What is the reason? Because if the writer knows better, there must be a reason.

Manfred said the possibility of missing regular-season games (because of his decision to lock out the players) would be "a disastrous outcome". How many writers will point out that it was MLB's choice to lockout the players. It did not have to. MLB could have held the exact same bargaining sessions with the Players Union without instituting a lockout — and without putting the scheduled start of spring training and the regular season in jeopardy. All of the blame for any postponed games will rest on Manfred's weak shoulders.

In yet another Manfred-Trump comparison, one would think someone who lies constantly would eventually get good at it. But it turns out, when it comes to those two asshats, that is not the case.

owners: *lock out players one-sidedly*

players: *make an offer*

players: *make another offer*

owners:

owners:

owners:

owners:

players: “they’re not calling us back”

owners: “that’s not our fault”

— Kevin Pulsifer (@imPULSEivity) February 10, 2022

Since 2002:
S&P 500 return: +308%
MLB team values: +564% (per Statista)

— Travis Sawchik (@Travis_Sawchik) February 10, 2022