MLB

Of Strategy and Tradition

16 Comments

The designated hitter came into being in 1973.  That means we have now had forty-six seasons of the DH in baseball.  Yet, you will still find people who hate the designated hitter and consider it an abomination.  The reason they give, as I'm sure you've heard, is always the same.  "The DH takes all the strategy out of the game."

Well, we're all entitled to our opinion.  But it's interesting to me that the people who hate the DH because "it takes all the strategy out of the game" are quite often the same people who hate defensive shifts, openers, pitching changes to create favorable matchups, and every other recent innovation with which the "stat nerds" with their "analytics" are "ruining the game".

Again, we're all entitled to our opinion.  But if what you really love about baseball is strategy, rather than just tradition, you should love the modern game of baseball.  We've seen more new strategies in the last few years than I've seen in my entire life as a baseball fan.  I'm not totally sold on all of them, but that's not the point.  The point is that if what you love about baseball is strategy, you should be having the time of your life.  Every night you're seeing all kinds of innovative strategies being played out right before your eyes.  It's incredible.  I don't think it's going too far at all to say that what we're seeing now is a golden age of baseball strategy.

I love the baseball I grew up with in the sixties and seventies.  It was a great game.  But it's a great game now, too.  I feel sorry for people who claim to love baseball but are so wedded to the past that they can't see that.  They're not hurting me, but they are hurting themselves.  There's a great game of baseball going on, and they're missing out on it.

16 thoughts on “Of Strategy and Tradition”

  3. I agree on the strategy side of things but it feels like all of the new strategies have reduced the number of balls in play. We need some counter-strategies to bring back equilibrium.

    1. I think the ball needs to be deadened ever so slightly. We don't exactly need to bring back the 1930s, but I think it would be a lot of fun for there to need to be a strategy to beat "the shift" beyond "hit it over the outfielders' heads."

      1. I think hitters simply need to adjust. Hitting it to a place is a skill. Heck, it was a skill I was taught growing up. So the issue for me is that the group of coaches, etc., we have right now simply aren't teaching those strategies. The first ones who do will be successful.

        1. I think that process takes a lot longer than moving some people on the field and it's going to be a decade or more for batters to properly adjust.

          1. That could very well be. And I'd suspect that at the professional level pitchers could adjust better to hitters trying to place the ball too. That said, I don't feel like we've seen a lot of effort at placing the ball since the shift came around.

          2. I think it takes time, but I don't think it will take that long. I think we already saw some adjustments toward the end of this season. We'll see more next year. In fact, I sometimes wonder if the next market inefficiency "moneyball" strategy will be to find a lot of speedy line drive hitters and basically emulate the 1985 Cardinals.

            1. I was going to say five years or more but opted for a decade because I think the process already started a few years ago. I believe you're right we'll see more adjustments next year but I think it's going to take more time for those hitters to develop and make it to the majors.

            2. I was thinking that too but I think the grass and modern turf limits that. The Cardinals played 100+ games on super fast turf.

  4. Good points Padre.

    Parker Hageman had a good thread today about Ryan Pressley and his success with the Astros. If I can paraphrase, basically he was saying that both Twins and Astros could see that RP's best pitch was his curveball but the Astros could get through to RP because not only did they have the analytics, but they had the personnel in both a pitching coach and manager to explain the data to RP and make it stick. In fact there's a WashPo article about it. Link below. Parker believes that one reason Molitor was fired was that although Mollie was buying into some analytics, he was unable to then present the data to his players in a way that they would take advantage.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2018/10/15/magic-dust-spin-rates-buy-in-how-astros-make-good-pitchers-even-better/?utm_term=.a81aaa1d0266

    Here's the killer quote from the article.

    “Every team has an analytics department, and this is no knock on the Twins, but seeing the time [the Astros] put in and the scouting reports you’re given, it’s like, ‘Whoa.’ It’s a different level,” Pressly said. “You kind of see, ‘Wow, if I just pitch a little more to this percentage instead of that percentage I can have some better results.’ When I came over here, they were like, ‘Look, your curveball is your best pitch. Everyone tells you your best pitch should be your fastball. But with the amount of spin you have on the ball, you need to throw that more, and it will set up your fastball even more.’ ”

    1. one reason Molitor was fired was that although Mollie was buying into some analytics, he was unable to then present the data to his players in a way that they would take advantage.

      Not that I had a big problem with it anyway, but if this is the main reason he was let go, I'm even more fine with it. SSS, but this would be a great case in point why it's justified. If the Twins can build as good of a spying scouting apparatus as the `Stros, I'm all for it.

      1. I recall the front office emphasizing communication rather than managerial ability for why he was let go. This makes a lot more sense. They want him part of the organization but not as the manager.

  5. I don't really mind having the DH in one league and not the DH in the other. It creates some amusing pitchers hitting anecdotes (and some of the pitchers enjoy it), but the strategy of double-switching and when to pinch-hit is such a drop in the bucket when it comes to strategy. I wouldn't mind if the DH became universal, though.

Comments are closed.