New first baseman Prince Fielder was welcomed to his first of many Detroit Tiger training camps on Monday morning. 2011 MVP Miguel Cabrera, will move to third base and Justin Verlander will experience nightmares about having Cabrera and Fielder as two of his infielders. But don’t expect Big Prince to stay at first forever–his weak defensive ability will eventually cause the Tigers to stick him at one of the strangest positions in American sports: the designated hitter.
I don’t understand Major League Baseball’s reluctance to get rid of the designated hitter. Because of the DH, rules are different between the American and National leagues, which means they’re essentially playing two different games. Does that not sound absurd? What if the NFL decided not to allow punting in the AFC? Everyone would flip out because it’s ridiculous to hold two different standards.
It also kills much of the strategy at play in the American League. One of the hardest decisions for a manager in the National League involves how to use a pinch hitter for a pitcher. It affects when the pitcher is pulled, and how to manage the bench for when a pinch hitter is needed to relieve the guy on the mound. AL managers have nothing to worry about; they just wait until their pitcher is gassed and simply put another one in the next inning. Not to mention that NL managers can pitch around the batters who hit in front of the pitcher.
DH-lovers will try to explain how the position increases offense and runs. While true, what makes that better? In the AL the final score may be, what, two runs higher? I’d much rather see a similar run production tally while managers decide how to exploit the other team’s pitcher coming up to bat.
To top it all off, this problem comes into play during the grandest stage of professional baseball: the World Series. The NL representative fights their way through about 170 games of baseball only to have to adjust to the rules of the AL in the World Series. The NL representative’s bench probably isn’t the reason the team got to that point, but nevertheless they need a 9th hitter to bat three or four times a game. Yeah…that sounds fair. Plus, whoever owns home-field advantage (decided by the All-Star game, don’t get me started) basically gets to play its game while the other team gets shafted. Who’s going to have a better designated hitter, the team who’s had to use it for 150 games or the team who’s used it for 20 during interleague play?
And who is given the prestigious role of DH? Washed up players and guys who field like Little Leaguers. I’m not sure that’s something that is essential to the game of baseball.
Anyways, enjoy Prince; I hope we don’t see you in that role too much in the next nine years. By the way, you could have owned first base all to yourself in Milwaukee big guy. Just sayin’.
