Below The Beltway

Ask most baseball purists what they think about the idea of the National League adopting the Designated Hitter, and you’ll probably see a shocked look on their face. For people like this, even the American League’s 34 year old “experiment” (isn’t time to stop calling it that after three decades ?) with the position should be reversed.

At ESPN.com, Howard Bryant thinks its time for the National League to follow in the footsteps of its younger cousin:

If the conversation were about style and tradition, the AL should change and get rid of the DH. NL baseball is the better, faster, crisper game. With the exception of the Los Angeles Angels, few AL teams have multiple-position players on their bench because they do not need them. NL baseball is a skill game. The AL is built for plodding, bashing offense, the NL for versatility. Each player on a NL roster must be able to play.

But today’s conversation isn’t about tradition, but about money and jobs. The AL will never abandon the DH because the Major League Baseball Players Association would never allow players like Ortiz, Mike Piazza, Frank Thomas and former Mariners DH Edgar Martinez to be out of work. As Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell said Friday, “Can you imagine our lineup without David Ortiz?” Aging or injury-prone players can extend their careers by five to perhaps even 10 years.

Times are changing as well. Traditionally, the designated hitter was a lower-paid, older player than a position player because he was not playing the field. The player was often an accomplished hitter — Hank Aaron with the Brewers in 1975 and 1976, for example — who was playing out the last few years of his career.

But in the post-strike era, the DH has become a premier and lucrative power position. In an even greater break with tradition, baseball is embarking on an unprecedented era: the years where players play their entire careers as designated hitters. For 34 years, baseball executives and managers were adverse to playing a young player at DH because the position was for older players.

And, the argument goes, the NL is losing out on the power that players who play the DH provide as well as the advantage of having another hot bat in the game at a crucial moment when you might not want to lose your pitcher.

So is it a good idea or not ? Frankly, I don’t know. I grew up cheering for an American League in the DH era and I never understood the criticism. How many times do you see a National League player pull off a clutch hit ? Yea, it happens and when it does it can be fun to watch — I remember one time in the 80s when the Mets’ Dwight Gooden hit a home run to put the team a head, a rare feet for a pitcher, and thus guaranteed his own win — but, more often than not, pitchers either walk, ground out, strike out, or maybe pull of a sacrifice bunt. For fans who want to see power hitting and base running, not the most exciting thing in the world.

Not to mention the fact that the DH rule extended the careers of more than one AL player who was beyond the point of being able to field effectively — George Brett, Don Baylor, Dave Kingman, Paul Molitor, Reggie Jackson, Dave Winfield, Frank Thomas, and Jim Thome to name just a few.

So would it be the end of the world of the National League adopted the DH Rule ? Judging from the past 34 seasons in the American League, I would say the answer is clearly no.