DH, Eh, Meh
Maybe I’ve just gotten numb to all the changes in mlb (and you KNOW a shift rule is coming at some point) but it’s hard for me to get too worked up about the DH in the NL. I’m not particularly fond of watching pitchers hit though when they do get a hit it’s exciting. Maybe it cuts down on some of the pitching changes and double switches, too. Tired of those.
Either way, baseball has got about 50 problems greater than the DH coming to the NL…..
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Why do I lack enthusiasm about the fate of myriad 108-stitch, animal-skin covered orbs (mala beads and rosary beads also add up to 108, it is said) ping-ponging, zooming (no, not that Zoom), arcing, dfribbling, and popping as playthings for young males? Why is my interest AWOL? It’s not (un)fueled by critiques of commercialism, capitalism, corona-ism, cronyism, or curmudgeonism (that last may be a lie). I can’t put my finger on it. Lack of pussy? Sports fatigue? Fatalism? Nostalgia? Old age? Solipsism? One wonders.
add a hyphen after “skin”
fix spelling of “dribbling”
IMO, MLB biggest problem is MLB. They keep creating their own problems by shooting themselves in the foot.
Back in the 70s when they came up with the DH rule it was mainly to have older star hitters continue getting paid and for teams to put butts in the seats, without having to embarrass the player by them taking the field. This also created higher scoring games which some fans found more entertaining but it also created longer games. Since then the DH has been adopted by pretty much everyone else playing baseball but the NL. Since the games got longer, MLB is trying to figure out ways to shorten the game but also keep the DH and throw in juiced baseballs as well. Bang. And those old star hitters?
Today teams don’t want to keep the old guys, they want young stud DHs, you know there are probably kids today who play ball at the college level that don’t even own a mitt. Bang, bang.
The excitement of baseball is different for everyone, I like the low scoring well pitched games, having the pitchers batting also adds to the flow of the game that fits me better. Others love the long ball, so the pitchers not hitting is cool. You also have others who are mostly into the fantasy scores they play in Draft Kings, Fan Duels or whatever, the pitcher’s hitting stats are basically just throwaways. None of these reasons are wrong, just different. What’s wrong is when MLB tries to “fix” one area of the game by blowing up another. Then they scratch their collective heads by adding yet another fix which ends up having it’s own cause and effect and them wishing they had another foot.
Outstanding analysis
Ditto.
agree
Going to be a pissed off Bumgarner this year unless Dbacks throw him a bone and let him DH in his starts..
I was thinking that myself, wondering if AZ would let him hit now and then.
At the Stick I had lower reserved seats, twenty or twenty five game packages (got me in to opening day and a chance for playoff tickets if the team went). Some times on my non ticket days I would just head out and grab a ticket there, many days I just went by myself to kill an afternoon at the yard. One of those days, was this beautiful day out there so I decided on an upper box seat, first base side. Walked into the park, got a dog and a beer, watched the game, checked out the ladies, chatted with the folks around me a bit and just got into the flow almost like a trance or something. Billy Swift was pitching that day and the game was moving along, well, swiftly. Finished my beer and realized it was already the 7th inning, so I ran and got another beer and continued to watch him throw a complete game shutout. The game was around two hours long, I don’t remember who we played, how we scored or really any details other than the feeling of being in the flow of the game. To this day, it still ranks high on my most favorite games list.
and it was over before the afternoon wind roared in, right?
Yep, but I bet my normal seats in the lower reserved were still getting blasted.
You’re on fire today. 🔥
Hah, it’s gotta be the fermented Wheaties.
Great post Clown. I agree.
Curious what the other 50 more important issues with baseball are that are greater than instituting the DH in the NL. For me, this is one of the main issues. I am old school and love the game as played in the NL. And it IS a different brand of the same game.
I like the strategy that comes with having the pitcher hit. For example, you have a pitcher who is pitching a kick-ass game. You are down by a run late in the game with a runner on 2nd. Your bullpen is worn-out from previous games. The manager must decide to if he wants to pinch-hit the pitcher and try to tie the game, and hand the ball to a tired bullpen, or not.
So much strategy in the NL game goes away with the DH. It is blasphemy, IMO. Fuck the DH.
Lol 50 is a lot you’re right!
Almost lost for words (moi?), first Bozo and now Chipower. Traditional, NL-style baseball is ALL about strategy. As I remarked years ago, THE sport is an interesting conglomeration of chess, ballet and Hermann Hesse’s “Glass Bead Game”. It ensorcels thinkers, poets, artists and all who favor synoptical interplay. The field geometry is pure. Squarely hitting a round object hurled by an M.L. pitcher with a cylindrical bat has been described as the most difficult of all athletic endeavors. The balance between batter and pitcher/defense is exquisite. Baseball can be understood by different people at many different levels of apprehension and understanding. If a grunting coal-miner and an Albert Einstein could ever be on the same wavelength it would transpire through the magic of THE game.
Your damm right Chi!! Old schoolers unite! Fuck the DH!!
And even the free 4 finger walk to 1st is BS! Seen to many times where a
Pitcher will fuckup and throw one to the backstop allowing a run to score, as Bob Ueker would say :Just alittle bit outside.This isn’t normal baseball anymore, and the thought of putting a runner at 2nd base to start in extra innings? Seriously 😳
Agree, Kat. Putting a runner at 2nd is bush league…little league bullshit. Manfred is totally fucking up a game that has endured for over 100 years, and was beautiful just the way it was. Quit fucking with the game, assholes!
So, you’re telling me that no one is going to miss “must see” moments like Bum watching his bomb off of Kershaw? Uhh huh, right.
Chi and I were at that game together, if I remember correctly.
In the Club Level, down the leftfield line. Great view of the HR.
Giants won 2-1, if I remember correctly.
Yep.
One other thing, who will benefit in the NL? One guess and here’s a hint, the team is located south of us. Need more hints? Which team has to platoon Enrique Hernández, Chris Taylor, Max Muncy, Joc Pederson, Matt Beaty, A.J. Pollock and more players because they are stacked?
Conversely, as Sports Illustrated suggested, “Perhaps it would be kinder to the Giants to remove one of their hitters instead.”
One of the 50 problems is Manfred Mann’s Shit band of idiots is going to expand the playoffs to 16 teams. So I guess that the World Series will conclude somewhere around Thanksgiving. Fits right in wth global warming so there’s that, but 6 MORE playoff teams? Baseball is turning into hockey.
there is no fucking way we see those playoff games. I predict the country shuts down right before the election. Trump will see the writing on the wall and try to postpone it and blame it on the second wave. The problem is, it’ll be a legitimate excuse
Problem is, once it is agreed on, it is the rule going forward. So next year, 16 team playoffs.
i think you guys will get used to the DH in like 2 seconds. Let’s get some actually games before we start frettin’ it
Me on the dink hitter rule–never. But agree on let’s see some MLBaseball.
mm think so too. Felipe’s take from what I read in his book (not saying i agree with all of it) was as a mgr. he could do so many more things with a real hitter and athlete instead of a pitcher, who are pretty much useless when not on the mound.
Hit behind a runner and advance him, or set down a bunt without being embarrassing. Get a runner in from 3b with sac fly or ground out. On the bases he had a chance to steal a bag and run bases intelligently.
Plus think of times pitcher was due up in an inning and he was struggling on mound–leave him in or take him out and waste another pitcher or have new guy take the AB instead. Removing anyone doesn’t have to do with where they hit.
And finally, it does allow another union guy hitter in the LU and roster–gives teams a chance to add versatility to both.
None of that shit applies to today’s baseball.
Never. If forced upon us/the NL, then I will tolerate it. I fucking HATE the DH. It is NOT REAL BASEBALL. Fuck the DH. I have tried to be really clear on my thoughts re: the DH. 😉
you know you’re back for real when you take down a POTD
Fuck the DH. Most pitchers don’t know how to field and/or throw to a base, but they have to do that anyhow.
Bum last year hit .127 with .458 OPS 2 HRs 4 rbis 8-63 with 40 Ks.
giants best BA was D rod at .172 with .345 OPS 5-29 all singles 17 Ks.
Nope on the DH. Didn’t like it in 1973. Haven’t liked it since. Longer more boring games. One more fucking guy swinging for the fences or striking out.
Oh goody.
They should start every game with the bases loaded.
I have 2 friends who are diehard A’s and Yankees fans respectively. They think pitchers hitting is totally stupid. We’ll get used to the DH
You may. I won’t. Big whoop. Just one more way to fuck the game I love up. It’s already sliding down to Hockey-town, but this just greases the pole. Fuck Manfred, and fuck these owners. they WILL kill the game next year anyway, so who gives a rat’s ass?
Next, the shift will be banned because god forbid hitters learn how to hit the other way. Will it ruin the game? In and of itself, no. No, but it’ll be another chip off the block. No pitching changes? 3 batter minimum? Shit, they’ll probably outlaw the opener pitcher idea that just sprang up.
I know, let’s have each team get TWO DHs. One lefty and one righty. And they move in the fences in for that AB. Oh, and we can have 6 outfielders, but they need to be tied together so they can’t cover ground as fast. It’ll be great! Giants win 34-28!!
Don’t forget the one where each team gets to start their half of the inning with some guy on second in extra inning games.
Also, Manfred has brought up the subject of 7 inning games.
Agree with Unca. You may get used to the DH…not me. It fucks up a perfectly good game. Your friends are fucking Junior Circuit team fans. Of course they like the DH. They have been watching watered-down baseball….
Spot on Unca. Open the gate to more stupid shit. I know 4 DHs that were worth a roster spot – Big Papi, Edgar Martinez, Harold Baines, and Frank Thomas (whom played just as many or more games at 1st base). The rest are mediocre or just plain suck.
Going back to the 1973 season, I can name at least 20-30 players for each of the other offensive positions that are BETTER and that’s NOT even considering they were studs on defense too.
Yeah, let’s just load the bases for each team at the beginning of each game. lulz.
Where have you gone Joe Charboneau?
The game was better before you tried to be a DH
What’s that you say Mrs.Robinson?
Joltin Joe ruined baseball when he became a DH
Hey,hey,hey, hey hey hey
We’re fortunate the Giants took the 3 in 5 before the game started in earnest this slide towards oblivion. 20 years from now, baseball could be somewhere down towards, but not quite like hockey, a niche sport in the US. It’s already regional. Butts in seats are declining every year. I don’t see how young people will become enamored enough of it to support the sport to previous levels. The old fogies like me then will either be too old to go, or gone entirely. Perhaps the only way to get new people interested is radical surgery to the game, making it near unrecognizable to life-time fans like us. Sorry to be dystopian about it, but I think it is reality…
fucking great news just keeps on coming
Maybe it won’t matter.
Fauci says he doesn’t see how the NFL will operate under current, or second wave conditions in the fall.
He’s lost most of my admiration by being mealy mouthed about Drumpf’s lies, but I think he’s right in this case. How will games continue when a bunch of them on different squads test positive for Covid? Just slog on like nothing’s wrong? What about the refs and coaches and support staff? Lots of those dudes are not spring chickens, although young people are dying form this crap. If even one NFL person goes onto a ventilator, what then?…
Now the Drumpf campaign is officially using Nazi symbolism to further its aims to divide us.
What’s next — Brown Shirts handed out at the upcoming Tulsa die-in?https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/18/trump-campaign-runs-ads-with-marking-once-used-by-nazis-designate-political-prisoners/
the daily emails I get from the Trump campaign begging for money are amazing. It’s like they’re written by the KKK grand wizard or some shit
Not surprising.
It will get worse in the coming months before this election.
Drumpf has pulled off the thin veil on his racist “platform”, it’s now blatant for all to see, wrapped up in the “law and order” flag. Bulldust, straight out of the ’60s George Wallace campaign handbook…
via tweet this a.m., trump threatened to add more justices to the Supreme Court, so he can pack it with a majority of KKKavanaughs, I guess. He better hurry. It won’t be easy to get 3/4 of the state legislatures (i.e., 38 of the states) to ratify his constitutional amendment by Nov. 3.
is it beyond Trump to put a hit out on RBG?
Trump can say whatever the fuck he wants. Gladly it won’t happen. At some point even his most ardent bootlickers will have to turn tail to save their own hides.
Moscow Mitch McTurtleface, I’m looking at you.
Stephen Miller would do it for him — but Miller’s too busy trying to ruin the lives of the DACA people who relied on the 2012 law and built lives here. (There’s another more significant lawsuit rising from Texas.) Bill Barr might take on the job.
Changing the # of justices on the SCOTUS is under Congressional purview. Doesn’t require an amendment, just a federal law, though Drumpf knows it couldn’t happen with a Dem controlled House right now. The number has been changed several times over the history of the Court. I would love to see a Dem controlled congress and a president go ahead and add 4 seats to the SCOTUS. The fewer there are, the more artificially precious they are to fill a vacancy. That’s gotten to the point of crazy to confirm one, and even to cynically withhold the process (Garland). Also, a larger number, down the road, it would stop a lot of these 5-4 decisions which are seen as nakedly political, and therefore illegitimate. I think CJ Roberts voted with the liberal minority in this week’s employment sex discrimination case and today’s DACA case to purposefully try to move the court away from earning a disastrous Drumpfian reputation; or else offset a coming decision that denies state and Congressional access to his tax returns…
So trump can waste time trying to advance his idea through the house and senate. Ok. Nov. 3, baby.
lol
This guy is uncannily prescient.
Sad but true.
Of all changes coming, the ads on uniforms is to me the least objectionable. It might even make some look better, like the DBacks…
I guess we know where the tampon ads would go
I wonder how much batting practice NL pitchers do on average. I know in HS baseball the best pitchers were usually pretty good hitters too. It was like that in the little league also. I would also like the DH to be eliminated or at least stuck in the AL.
I think they do, or at least did.
allowing the DH for this season and next let’s not forget is part of the UNION proposal. in other words the players are OK with it. I don’t care much for it either, but I’m sure mgrs and the guys potentially doing it (or not in case of pitchers) definitely are.
If the Giants snuck into the playoffs in this truncated “season”, and won the whole thing, I’d celebrate it. Hell, yeah. They’re not going to make the title trophy out of tin especially for this one; I think…
Trump shot down by SCOTUS (again!) in his effort to end DACA today.
Bad week for Orange Julius Caesar.
As to commercial ads on the unis, if Manfred had any balls he’d order the astros to make a deal with Houston based Waste Management.
Along with 70 games regular season, Clark also said expanded playoffs (8 teams in each league) are part of the players proposal.
mlb tv currently has 2007 ALCS with boston vs. cleveland.
Now batting for Tribe #25 Ryan Garko!
getting “garkoed” is one of the funniest things I read here.
just burned Javier Lopez too with rbi single as Tribe are winning this one, game 2 in boston in 11th with huge rally.
First it was 82 games? Then down to 50 games?
Then back to 70? Then down to 60?
WTF?? Greed on both sides to compromise has me sayin
From one of the greatest movies Cool Hand Luke…
WHAT WE HAVE HERE IS A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE!!!
Hello all, have to say nothing gets me going than the changes MLB has made over the years. When MLB decided pitchers couldn’t throw inside, knock a player off the plate, fuck put dresses on all the hitters. Then the DH in the AL. Just so old guys who could still hit could continue to collect a pay check. Now I won’t be able to talk trash to friends who are AL fans. But if you look at baseball to day a lot has changed. I can remember speed guys getting a bunt hit. I truly doubt that any player today can lay down a good bunt. Managers want hitters. Sad to see but the DH will be common in the NL. But like Chi it will be a bitter pill to swallow
Love the CHL reference!!! Fantastic movie.Re DH…We will get used to it. Just like we got used t the WC, then 2 WC. cahnging the game isn’t bad. maybe it will stop the REALLY stupid shit like the pitch clock!
When will the trading deadline be? With 20 games left?
You think this is going to slow the ludicrous changes, dude? No, this will only speed things along. This is the path baseball will follow. Clowns like Manfred will bow down to any ludicrous suggestion from the owners. Every inning starts with a runner at 2nd. Batters get 4 strikes. Whatever. 180 game season. 16 playoff teams. March 1 to November 30.
I thought the NFL was daffy. These guys are shitting on history. The game, in the US anyway, very well may disappear in 10 years.
Manfred is the absolute worst commish, any sport, ever. Period. Fuck him.
Interesting sub-topics on the thread today….
* DH doesn’t necessarily mean a HR or K. Haven’t some AL teams used pure hitters in that spot as well? Ichiro? Some team, some player, just can’t remember. I also always hoped the DH wouldn’t come to the NL, but I think I’ve come around to its inevitability and yes, most of us probably would get used to it, even if we didn’t like it.
* Baseball won’t get and sustain younger viewers unless baseball is part of the youngsters’ lives. At age 5, 6, whatever, I was a huge baseball fan, nothing else mattered, but that’s because I was playing it a lot, even at that young age. I don’t really know the status of youth baseball in the US at this point, but MLB would need to have better and bigger outreach programs, especially in the inner cities….
* Yeah, what’s up with high school and often college pitchers also being good hitters but then their bats turn to wet noodles in the pros? I always thought if I was a GM of a NL team, I’d be drafting only pitchers who could also hit. But I guess that won’t matter anymore if the DH comes.
* I’ve never liked the idea of a President being the ones to fill Supreme Court seats. That president will be long gone while his/her pick for a justice continues on forever. Wish THAT is what they could change. Maybe alternate by party: Dems in Congress pick one, then GOP picks the next, etc. IDK. So many things seem so fucked up these days….
* And yes, I’m going to miss MadBum. I’m still *bummed* he’s gone.
now there’s something that i’m sure has its source in the constitution. But the president has to obtain the advice and consent of the senate when appointing judges, which swings the scales. Thus, Bork; thus, Merrick Garland. One issue I have with all proposals I see to reform the supreme court is that they seem to assume that we’ll always be a dominant two-party nation. Personally, I hope my kids get to see the day when a multiplicity of political parties send reps and senators and pres’s to DC.
Yeah, I’ve long wanted a 3rd party; an independent 3rd party candidate, even if superior to the other 2 choices, will never win the presidency and also find it difficult to land a seat in Congress without a legitimate *party* behind them. The key thing is money. The Dem/Repub. parties have a lot of it. Always wished the likes of Ted Turner, Warren Buffett, etc., would pony up tens of millions to create an Independence Party (independent from lobbyists, etc.) to make independent candidates more viable. But then again, a good friend of mine from England counters by saying look at what a mess UK politics is with mulitple parties. Pluses and minuses. But truly, the 2-party system is killing America.
Good point on the SCOTUS. Paul. And good to see you here. I hope all is well. Re:the SCOTUS, make it a six or eight year term, and have them offset, so you get new blood every two years or so.
Another HUGE change would be to repeal Citizens United, and to have all elections be publicly-funded (everyone has the same budget to run their campaign). Basically get money the fuck outta politics, so we can begin the move to being a democracy, again.
I like the pitch-clock idea. I see it actually as a return to the way the major league games used to be played when we were kids. Batters and pitchers didn’t wander and meander around between pitches in those days.
No Chuck i don’t. Wishful thinking i suppose.
I am curious about details like trade deadline? Playoffs? 8 teams from each league or 16 total. Will div winners get in, then the next 5 best records from each league? Overall record only? Anybody see any details about this?
16 total. 8 NL. 8 junior circuit. Outside of that, not sure how the playoffs breakdown.