Should The National League Adopt The Designated Hitter?

Baseball is unique, in that it is one of the few sports where each half of a major professional league uses different rules over the course of a contest. In baseball, that divide exists over the use of the designated hitter (DH), where the American League utilizes the DH while the National League does not.

But after all these years of using different rules in one of the most important aspects of the game, is it time that the National League gets with the times and adopts the designated hitter?

The adoption of the designated hitter in the American League was done to stop pitchers from having to bat as the sport became more specialized. In the early days of baseball, players like Babe Ruth were able to both pitch and bat with proficiency as they didn't have to be as good at either discipline like players are at a professional level now.

Now that the barrier for entry in Major League Baseball is higher than ever, pitchers are too busy honing their craft to hit well, creating an argument that they shouldn't be responsible for both pitching and hitting.

Proving that argument is the fact that some of the worst hitting pitchers in the league are players in the National League, where pitchers know ahead of time that they need to hit. Even knowing that taking batting practice is vital to their success at the plate, pitchers either don't put in the time to become good hitters or lack the ability to do so entirely. Either way, it makes for a worse product on the field, as pitchers are often overmatched by opposing arms when it is their turn at bat.

Teams in the American League, meanwhile, don't have to worry about such issues. They are able to bring a designated hitter to the plate instead of a pitcher, increasing their chances of getting that spot in the order on base. In fact, having a DH bat instead of a pitcher has had a clear impact on MLB betting, as the three favorites to win the 2019 World Series are all American League teams.

World Series MLB odds on bet365 have the Boston Red Sox, Houston Astros, and New York Yankees as the three top favorites to win the World Series, with the Los Angeles Dodgers in fourth place as the first National League team on the list.

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred has stated that he is against the DH being adopted in the National League. With Manfred being responsible for overseeing the growth of the game, it is shocking to hear that he would rather see teams get easy outs against pitchers than increasing the chances of teams scoring runs with a designated hitter in the lineup.

Of course, it isn't surprising to see Major League Baseball take a stance against its own interest, as the sport has also considered banning shifts on defense to prevent defenses from lining up in ways that benefit them. But the implementation of the DH in the National League is still very much a possibility and could be a huge spark for the game as a whole.

Should The National League Adopt The Designated Hitter? to MLB Baseball Blog

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