Taking Sides: American League vs. National League

On a different note, the leagues have probably never been more similar than they are now. For players, wwitching leagues isn't seen as the major adjustment that it once was. We now have interleague play, and separate AL/NL umpires are a thing of the past. NL ballparks were typically larger, pitchers ballparks, and the AL parks were smaller, hitters parks. With the rash of new parks that opened in the last decade or so, this is no longer true either. The AL is no longer the "hitters" league -- look at the OPS leaders in each league over the last 5-6 years.

On the subject of the DH, it's a no brainer. Sending pitchers up to bat is stupid. I hate the insistence that not having the DH "adds" strategy, as if you need to be a rocket scientist to understand the double switch. I think it's the opposite -- without a DH, many pitching decisions are essentially made for you.

For instance : tie game, top of the seventh inning, two on, two out, pitcher's coming up. Obviously you pinch-hit. In the AL, you actually have to decide whether or not to send your pitcher out there in the bottom of the seventh in a (possibly) tie game, and if so, what will have to happen to necessitate pulling him.

as for the DH: in theory, dud, in practice...classic? nah, but not awful.

Most of the AL is filled with teams I really only know from box scores until the 90s when ESPN started showing baseball.

The only AL team that I ever saw on any regular basis was the White Sox, as they were sometimes on WGN. Carlton Fisk made them hard to really like to watch, as often times games he caught slowed to a freakin' crawl.

Bob Costas has a good line on why the DH should be abolished, something that it was created to raise offensive production in the early 70s, which is something the game definitely doesn't lack today.

Similar to Earl, I saw a lot more of the AL when growing up because of the Jays, so I'm inclined to it mainly because I'm better acquainted with those teams.

so Barry you'd have preferred Babe Ruth NOT to bat when he pitched?

Plus, there's no rule that says the pitcher can't hit. If I had Babe Ruth on my team then he'd be pitching and hitting third and we'd go without the DH.

if the babe were on, say, the modern day bosox and i were managing he would pitch 3rd in the rotation and bat 3rd. i'd use ortiz as the dh and have mientkiewicz play the field.

I dunno, broken down to its essence, the DH is such a clumsy rule. It makes no logical sense to me that a team can substitute a better hitter in their lineup just because another hitter is historically not that great. It just reminds me of a playground rule, tacked on and reactionary.

Not to mention the first rule of baseball, "1.01 Baseball is a game between two teams of nine players each."

But in general, I'd rather see the best hitters face the best pitchers, always.

Then why have pinch hitters?

In turn, the other manager can then say "OK, the guy I have on the mound isn't the best guy to face Jones, so I'm going to make a change because out of all the pitchers I have left, I think Allen has the best chance of retiring Jones".

And NONE of these decisions are compromised by when the pitcher is due up, or who can take the field when they do the double switch, and so on. Instead, managers get to choose the most desirable hitter-pitcher matchup, everytime.

play the whole game. if you can't do one thing well, then do well enough at the rest to make up for it.

(go NL!)

The top 13 position players in 2008 VORP right now are in the NL (of course, that's at least partly cuz they've hit against NL pitchers).

Manny is 14th.

so by that (poor) logic, the fact that 11 of the top 15 pitchers in 2008 VORP are NL is only because they have to face pitchers 3 times a game (like Owings, Zambrano, Marquis, etc.)?

are NL pitchers generally regarded as worse than AL pitchers? what about NL fielders?

It was not meant as a serious piece of analysis, SS.

For this kind of analysis you need to look to a more robust stat. Only three of the top 20 leaders in batting average are from the AL.

When Cy Young jumped from the National League to the Boston American League club [in 1901, at age 34], many National League players thought he was through.

"What," said Fred Clarke, the manager of the Pittsburg club, "you American Leaguers letting that old boy make good in your set? Why, he was done when he jumped the National. He's lost his speed."

"But you ought to see his curve ball," answered "Bill" Dineen, then pitching for the Boston Americans.

"Curve ball," echoed Clarke. "He never had any curve that it didn't take a microscope to find. He depended on his speed."

"Well he's got one now," replied Dineen.

When Cy Young came back to the National League in 1911 [age 44], the American Leaguers said:

"What, going to let that old man in your show again? He's done."

The only difference I know between the two leagues besides the DH is that NL games are apparently allowed to continue after 1:00 a.m.

Is it just the Owings Effect, or are pitchers hitting better this season?

http://www.platoonadvantage.com/2010/11/no-american-league-just-really-has-been.html

"It only cemented my opinion that the AL is Mickey Mouse and the National League is real baseball."

Lance Berkman on his brief stint with the Yankees in 2010

i like whenever someone claims allegiance to a league like in the old days. berkman seems too young for that, and it does seem archaic. i hate that the NL puts pitchers in the lineup, it's very stupid, but i don't automatically root for the AL to win.

like it's just a thought process that is completely foreign to me

For those few years that Disney owned the Angels, I think it was fair to say the AL was a Mickey Mouse league. Clearly that all came to an end in 2003.

had this debate with a casual baseball-fan friend the other night!
he thinks watching a pitcher hit is the dullest thing ever. he was pounding the table hollering that he tunes in to see *hits*… no strategy or finesse – just hit after hit getting mashed out of the park. basically he wants his baseball to be like a Nickelback album. he shut up after I pointed this out.

yeah otoh people claiming that NL is all ~strategy~ are wrong and watching pitchers hit is like watching someone who isn't qualified to do something try to do that thing

DH is the wrongest thing in the game, NL for life.

but it's fun when the pitchers do that thing anyway. xp

I don't root in WS by league allegiance, esp since there is less to distinguish btwn them than ever now.

watching pitchers hit is like watching someone who isn't qualified to do something try to do that thing

this seems like an argument *for* the NL?!

i hate that argument so much xp

watching someone succeed when they are five times worse than the worst shortstop in the league only serves to remind me how pathetic it all is!

and all that fun fun is canceled out by the amazing strategy of walking the eighth batter to pitch to the pitcher for out 3, killing all those unfun rallies that allow teams to score

this seems like an argument *for* the NL?!

yes, bc when i watch pro sports what i really want to see is the failure of someone trying to do something they have no experience or skill doing

why even have professionals, it's funner to watch celebrities do it

pitch?

NL all the way.

NL for me.

AFC quarterbacks should punt.

pitch?

― Porto for Pyros (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Wednesday, October 24, 2012 11:58 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

everything, the whole game

of course they'd suck, but we'd expect them to suck so the only things that'll stick out are the extremely rare occasions when they don't

Is the difference of failing over 80% of the time that much more discernible than failing a mere 60+% of the time?

A player who hit like a pitcher all season would be worth negative WAR, while someone getting on base 40% of the time would be worth a few wins, so yeah, it's discernible.

this may sound weird - but i feel like a lot of AL pitchers are spoiled prima donnas compared to their NL counterparts.
getting plunked hurts and is when a pitcher does it intentionally they're willfully endangering the career of the hitter. when an AL pitchers does it he will face no personal repercussions (aside from possible ejection) - when a NL pitcher does it, they do it knowing full well they will likely have to face the opposing pitcher after what they've done. *that* i can respect.

secondly, DHs are they most useless of athletes. they're like a race car driver when it comes to athletic ability but they're shaped more like a rig driver. some are shaped more like the rigs. at least someone like Prince Fielder is out there in the field between hitting and sitting on his ass (granted, he may not be pretty out there). i cringe when i hear talk of moving player X to DH because we've watched them slowly get fatter and out of shape to the point where they can't even be expected to run down the occasional ball. it's embarrassing!

What's a war.

someone trying to do something they have no experience or skill doing

they're baseball players! maybe they should work harder at it! they can only throw so many pitches in practice.

anyway, the idea of guys who only hit and do not play the field is more offensive to me than the idea of pitchers not hitting.

xxxxp
absolutely. when an entire position is that much worse than every other position -- and it's isn't near the same scale between say, 1B and SS -- then there is something wrong with having that position come to bat. it's universally terrible, it's pathetic, it's obnoxious. you can't say it isn't a huge difference when only a tiny smattering of pitchers in the league at any given time aren't expected to provide negative value. no one in the league expects them to hit, they never really work on it, they don't waste time practicing, they don't do it in the minors (or any other professional league anywhere) and no one seems to consider it a problem when they go half a year without getting on base. so why does the league still make them? it's ridiculous

Anyway, I still can't understand why anybody would prefer baseball without the DH. Trying to cover up the inadequacies of a completely unqualified hitter isn't "strategy". Suppose they made a rule where every player had to swing from the opposite side of the plate once every game. You could say there was strategy in that, because you'd have to decide when to "waste" your wrong sided at-bat at a time when it would cause minimal damage. But mainly it would just be shitty baseball.

(actually, pitchers do hit in triple-a when national league affiliates play each other, but yeah that's not a whole lot)

because we enjoy watching them fail?

xxpost

they're baseball players! maybe they should work harder at it! they can only throw so many pitches in practice.

they aren't hitters. it doesn't matter how hard they work on it. it's not what they do. it's not what they spent their lives trying to do.

why expect pitchers to hit if we don't expect hitters to pitch? because they're entirely different functions

waiting for j0rd to compare one side or the other to tea party baseball

sorry B, it's strategy either way.

xp to myself

like, yeah, they're all on the field and they all have to play defense when the ball is in play

but no one else on the field does what the pitcher does, no one has that level of control over that much of the game. hitting and pitching are two functions in opposition, and pitchers simply aren't hitters. the fact that every other position, on average, is perfectly capable of hitting at a decent clip should show you that pitching is the outlier, it's not what they should be wasting time on.

i don't like managers having to avoid the decision on when to hit for an effective starting pitcher.

at the very least - it's much, much, MUCH, *MUCH* more strategic then simply filling out a line-up card with the 9 biggest bats at your disposal, then going to sleep for 8.5 innings!

xxpost

anyway, the idea of guys who only hit and do not play the field is more offensive to me than the idea of pitchers not hitting.

― mookieproof, Wednesday, October 24, 2012 11:19 AM (5 minutes ago)

100% otm

it's not what they spent their lives trying to do.

i think you will find very few high schoolers who did nothing but pitch. it's not frequent, but there are plenty of players who did one and then the other (and went back, if they were joe savery).

greg maddux made himself a tremendous fielder -- guess he needn't have bothered.

i don't like managers having to avoid the decision on when to hit for an effective starting pitcher.

^ and ya, this. strategy!

There's also the risk of injuries with pitchers batting. I'm surprised more guys don't hurt, but then again, mostly they just strike out or hit a ground ball and don't bother running it out, so there's isn't much opportunity to get hurt. But it's a lot like home plate collisions, most people didn't have a problem with it but then Posey got bowled over and was out for the season so even the baseball purists starting thinking that maybe it wasn't worth it and the rules should be changed. What if Verlander twists an ankle running out a grounder or fouls a ball off his foot tonight? Would you rather see a pitcher try to hit or see the Giants try to win the WS vs the best pitcher in baseball?

secondly, DHs are they most useless of athletes.

this is sort of silly, seeing as hardly any teams actually employ a single DH

there's ortiz, except not this season, and, uh... encarnacion? is he at first now? oh, adam dunn. there's two.

thing is, i don't think anyone actually likes the DH in a vacuum. it shouldn't be there. it should just be there a little bit more than the pitcher.

Would you rather see a pitcher try to hit or see the Giants try to win the WS vs the best pitcher in baseball?

falsest binary of the week?

i don't like managers having to avoid the decision on when to hit for an effective starting pitcher.

― crazy uncle in the attic (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, October 24, 2012 12:26 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't like managers having their decision to switch pitchers made a million times easier because the pitcher is about to come to the plate

despite growing up watching AL baseball i think i actually prefer the NL. it has more to do with the pacing of games though, plus the larger number of teams (soon to be a non-factor!). i think the strategy and purity arguments are mostly bullshit

i would support an 8-man batting order in either/both leagues though

greg maddux made himself a tremendous fielder -- guess he needn't have bothered.

― mookieproof

No, fielding is part of pitching + defense.

anyway, the idea of guys who only hit and do not play the field is more offensive to me than the idea of pitchers not hitting.

― mookieproof

I do partly agree with this though. If you have two players, one who's a DH, and one who plays defense adequately and has exactly the same hitting stats as the DH, then WAR and basically any other metric would tell you they're equally valuable, and that can't be right. Obviously the guy who plays defense has to prepare more every day, exert more energy, etc. in putting up the same hitting numbers over the course of the season.

I don't like a baseball game played with a bunch of the roster sitting and spitting sunflower shells for 3 hours.

it seems like baseball has gone so far down the road of specialization (esp re: pitching but also in general) that it's too late to go back and expect pitchers to all of a sudden be able to hit decently

the issue is that they're completely independent skills - it's extremely unlikely that any one person would be able to both hit and pitch at a major league level even if they trained to do both. you can't hard-work yourself into being a .250/.330/.400 hitter or whatever just because you can pitch well and vice versa.

i think you will find very few high schoolers who did nothing but pitch. it's not frequent, but there are plenty of players who did one and then the other (and went back, if they were joe savery).

greg maddux made himself a tremendous fielder -- guess he needn't have bothered.

first off, if that argument worked -- if pitchers hitting in high school had any legit correlation with their hitting at higher levels -- this wouldn't be an issue, because pitchers would be able to hit. clearly there's something coming between high school hitting and major league failing-at-hitting. probably because pitchers have to work full time on their pitching in order to get and maintain a major league job, because no one in the world would give them that job for 2-3 ABs every 5-6 days. unless a massive chunk of pitchers try to collude to improve the league's pitcher hitting, the position will never improve.

second, we're not talking about fielding. pitchers aren't as bad at fielding as they are at hitting, and their skill at fielding doesn't have nearly the same impact on the game as their lack of skill at hitting.

thing is, i don't think anyone actually likes the DH in a vacuum. it shouldn't be there. it should just be there a little bit more than the pitcher.

― I have done bad. I love my pj's. (zachlyon)

I disagree. The level of play in team pro sports always gets harder, and that often leads to more specialization. There aren't any two-way players in football because even if someone could cope with it physically, the complexity of offenses and defenses are too much for one player to deal with. Pitching and hitting are the same way, it's natural evolution of the game.

ciderpress otm

xposts

I have done bad. I love my pj's.

lol

I do partly agree with this though. If you have two players, one who's a DH, and one who plays defense adequately and has exactly the same hitting stats as the DH, then WAR and basically any other metric would tell you they're equally valuable, and that can't be right.

this is completely wrong, isn't it? WAR gives players a HUGE hit for DHing.

the injury risk thing is what i hear from baseball guys the most. the what-ifs... but they're not being asked to do anything out of the ordinary here. the collisions at home plate thing, sure I get it - that's a one-off thing that is allowed under the rules that we may or may not want to rethink.
the pitcher is trying to hit the ball and if they do they will have to run the bases, just like everyone else in baseball. what if they roll over their ankle? what if they get hit on the hands? what if they're struck by a fucking freight train?! they're athletes and there's a risk every time they're on the field regardless and it's part of the job.

wow xposts!

There aren't any two-way players in football because even if someone could cope with it physically, the complexity of offenses and defenses are too much for one player to deal with.

When I was playing fantasy football, there were tons of DBs who were also kickoff and punt return guys.

yeah i think DHing is like -1.5 WAR for a full season

I disagree. The level of play in team pro sports always gets harder, and that often leads to more specialization. There aren't any two-way players in football because even if someone could cope with it physically, the complexity of offenses and defenses are too much for one player to deal with. Pitching and hitting are the same way, it's natural evolution of the game.

tbh i agree with the sentiment above that an 8 player lineup would be ideal, but that would involve going back in time a hundred years and making them change it then

tbf, running the bases did kill chien-ming wang rip

lookit edgar martinez's positional negs on his WAR, if he played crappy 1B he'd probably have 90 instead of 70

WAR gives players a HUGE hit for DHing.

this is nothing to do with the topic, but wouldn't they take a worse hit for being a terrible defender? i thought DHing was essentially neutral and unless a quality defender was at the DH spot you're not nessessarily losing much in WAR with your average DH?

xpost...
yeah i think DHing is like -1.5 WAR for a full season
holy cow... really?!

(this is actually a reason i don't like WAR so much)

yeah a DH's UZR isn't really affected. but WAR includes positional adjustments separate from UZR.

I'm fine with the 2 leagues being split on the DH, frankly; there's something for everybody. Interesting that no one is discussing OTHER reasons to prefer one league, maybe they have indeed declined to the point of vanishing?

well, what other reasons would there be (aside from specific teams or players)?

i already gave one (# of teams) but it's going away soon

used to be talk abt strike zone differences (NL low strike/AL high strike iirc) but p sure that doesnt exist anymore

my dad still calls the al the 'white league' (we are an nl family)

i'm not sure if there really was a racial divide at some point, but that at least was his impression.

umps are mixed now, are they not? xp

yeah i think DHing is like -1.5 WAR for a full season

― ciderpress

OK, I had no idea! Also in my too-simple example I was assuming that the replacement level DH was equal to the replacement level fielder (at whatever position we consider in the example), which is a bit naive.

My point stands that you have one set of "full time" players who sit on the bench for most of the game, and another set who have to stand on the field for half of a three hour game. There's definitely something off-putting about that. But like zachlyon said, most teams don't have a single DH anymore, so as a rotating position to give guys a bit of a rest or to tinker with the defensive lineup against a particular opponent (or in a particular park), it retains most of its integrity.

the replacement level DH is pretty much going to be the best hitter in the minors regardless of position or defensive value, whereas replacement level for other positions has to consider defense.

Umps are mixed now, the NL was much quicker to integrate and they stayed more integrated right through the 60's and 70's, I think?

Interesting that no one is discussing OTHER reasons to prefer one league, maybe they have indeed declined to the point of vanishing?

Pretty much, yes. The AL could say it was the offense-heavy league until the 90's, when almost every NL team built a new hitter-friendly park (which did more to boost offense than steroids, IMO).

there was a point where some claimed AL pitchers were much less likely to throw offspeed pitches in 'hitters' counts' but I don't know that that's valid anymore.

whichever league possesses the blazing ruby of birgenheim is a big deal

i think it switches over with the astros

http://i.imgur.com/Lruiw.gif

i assume he means in the #POSTSEASON

OH: "The DH is a pitcher who can't throw"

@robneyer
Bob Brenly points out that managers often don't care if pitcher who's batting even takes a swing. Good argument against pitchers batting.

the new market inefficiency

the unwatchability of so many AL games is a good argument for middle-inning naps