When we first moved to Philadelphia in 2001 we had the opportunity to see a whole new kind of ballgame. National League ball really can have a different pace, which some fans of it describe as purer, more strategic, or just plain better. Those people are all wrong.
Maybe having the pitcher take at bats is a purer, even more logical thing to do. After all, its baseball, and everyone else does it on the team, why make exceptions? And yes, there is an added layer of strategy dealing with double-switches, more pitcher/pinch hitting replacements, and such in the latter innings, but all of these arguments are just smoke and mirrors for the main issue:
Pitchers suck at hitting.
Check out these numbers. All National League pitchers, those with the most at bats at the top. Of the 43 pitchers with over 40 at bats, 4 of them are hitting over 250, one over 300. This is just wretched. All the extra strategy that is cited is needed because everybody knows that an average pitcher, and most good ones, will tend to hit like a 40 year old third string catcher with bad knees and cataracts. I don't care if its more logical or more pure, so are Vulcan virgins. I don't want to see either play baseball. I want to see guys who know how to swing a bat.
If the average major league pitcher's performance at the plate was on par with, or even within 20 on base percentage points of, say, a catcher or other primarily-defensive position, I would not have such a problem with it. This has nothing to do with my interleague objections either, which center around forcing players to do something for two weeks that they don't do the rest of the year, which is risky and unfair. I want to see guys that can hit. I want David Ortiz to wobble his rickety legs up to the plate and slap some baseballs around like unruly step-children, and take a turn around the bases that make Babe Ruth seem like Ricky Henderson without being forced to see him play a latter-day-Bucknerian first base. Each team has pitching-only specialists, and a hitting-only specialist, and thats fine by me.
6 comments:
Don't get me wrong, I love me some Big Papi..... but I also love to see the high and mighty pitchers getting off their asses to swing blindly at what they think is the most important thing in baseball, pitches. I think its good to get Pitchers at the plate to keep them honest when pitching to the other team, "I'll show you high and inside Clemins" I think hitting is fun to watch, pitching gets you to the playoffs and defense wins championships.
When I moved to Los Angeles I had a slew of Dodger fan friends. Like hard-core, go to a game every month, if there were a "Dodger Nation" they'd be front-and-center.
So of course I fell in with them.
(Because, even if their new name makes it sound as if they're in Los Angeles, the Angels are still a good forty miles away from real Los Angeles. It's a complete joke. It's as if they started calling the Sea Dogs the "Portsmouth Sea Dogs", or Manchester Airport the "Manchester-Boston Regional Airport" - oh, wait ...)
Anyway, my other friends who weren't Dodger fans were Padres fans of Giants fans, depending on geographic origin.
So no AL fans in the place, save me.
I had the hardest time convincing these otherwise bright young men that having a pitcher hit does you no good, in fact, it's boring and even can be dangerous for said pitcher. But none of them would have it.
I liken it to a midwesterner calling a soda a "pop". That's what he or she grew up with, so that's what they're going to like. There's no changing that.
I like the Little League plays, like when the pitcher "comes out" only not really out but moved to second or the outfield. That is baseball in its most pure form. A player is just that... a player. When he can play ball and not just throw it or hit it, but actually play baseball. On the other side I do enjoy the walk off homers that Papi gives us so freely.
But like with any game, when you pick a player (say in Street Fighter) there are stat differences. Honda is slow but strong. Chun Li is weak (ish) but crazy fast.
I'd like to see Papi being a huge hitter who leaves a bit of a whole on the field.
It's nice to add a bit of uncertainty. It's like watching, as Tuan said, Little League. When a pop fly goes to a little kid, who knows if he's going to catch it? It's fun as a fan when there is that element of fear in the play.
Dan: So you're saying that some of our players are too good, and there isn't enough uncertainty? Maybe this weekend, but come on...
Will the knuckle ball move in this weather?
Will Tavarez keep the game under 10 runs for the other side?
Granted sending Wily Mo out cured my high blood pressure, but I think there's plenty of uncertainty in matchups between great pitchers and hitters.
I think it was more fun watching Manny play the outfield when you weren't sure if he would run to catch a fly ball, or just wait for Damon to come and get it. That is the definition of uncertainty. On the otherhand uncertainty might be Tavarez "throwing" to first. I don't think the players are too good, just too specialized (I'll be posting on that topic in the future).
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