Should MLB Use A Universal DH?

NASHVILLE, TN — With the winter meetings concluded and a significant amount of wheeling and dealing done, an interesting nugget popped up in an interview with Cardinals GM John Mozeliak, as reported by Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post Dispatch. He mentioned there was “growing momentum” for a universal Designated Hitter. The DH has been an American League staple since 1973, while the National League has not embraced it, making pitchers bat for themselves.

Mozeliak has a reason to be behind this move, as the Cardinals lost their ace starting pitcher Adam Wainwright last year to a ruptured achilles suffered while attempting to run out a pop-up. Last year’s free-agent top prize Max Scherzer suffered a thumb injury just a few weeks into that mega-deal while batting, something he did not have to do as a member  of his former American League squad, the Detroit Tigers. With teams investing more and more money into Top-of-the-Rotation starters, they must be more and more squeamish about having them stand in front of 95+ fastballs and run the bases on cold April (or October) days.

National League purists will argue that all players should be exactly that – complete players; that the pitcher batting necessitates crafty managers who can switch and double switch at opportune moments, while American League managers simply trundle out their lineup of bashers. To a certain extent, they are right. There is unique facet to National League games: when a pitcher gets a hit, the crowd will either erupt in delight or disgust. The sheepish grins, the jackets being brought out to first base, the tentative base running that sometimes follows is a part of the game for those who grew up rooting for a National League team.

American League DH backers will simply point out that watching a David Ortiz play everyday is much more entertaining than watching Bartolo Colón close his eyes and make contact once every ten-ish tries…and they’re not wrong either. It is more fun to watch good hitters hit than bad hitters swing and miss repeatedly at pitches out of the zone. And if having a DH can keep an aging superstar with leg problems in the league a decade or so longer, well, everyone wins that way.

There is not a team in the National League that wouldn’t benefit from having a DH. A quick look at the best teams the NL had (in terms of regular season record) back this up.

The Cubs could safely put Kyle Schwarber in the lineup and allow him to concentrate on bringing up his defensive skills at one position, the Cardinals could keep Matt Holliday’s bat in the lineup without risking his aging legs in the outfield, and the Pirates may have been able to justify keeping Pedro Alvarez if he didn’t have to play the field (or at least try to).

The NL defending champ New York Mets currently have a dearth of hitting, but last year’s incarnation could have rested sluggers like Yoenis Céspedes while he dealt with back issues and still kept his potent bat in play. The DH in the National League would ensure that offensive stars that age wouldn’t bolt to the American League or block an up-and-coming young player at the same position. Pitchers who can hit will still get at-bats, pitchers who can run will still pinch-run (in extra-inning games, for example). In the post-steroid era, with scoring down across the board and pitchers dominating, perhaps the time is right for the National League to also adopt the designated hitter.