Should the National League adopt the DH?

On April 25, the St. Louis Cardinals ace pitcher and perennial Cy Young contender Adam Wainwright suffered a torn left achilles.  Wainwright was running out of the batter’s box after hitting a pop up.  A couple steps in and he stopped, obviously injured. Wainwright had to be helped walk off the field by his manager and the team trainer.  He had surgery on the 30^th to repair the achilles and will miss the rest of the 2015 season.

The injury to Wainwright has kindled the evergoing debate of whether the National League should adopt the designated hitter rule, where a certain player will bat in place of the pitcher.  Currently only the American League uses the DH.  This is one of the hottest debates in baseball, with people entrenched on either side.  Max Scherzer, a pitcher for the Washington Nationals, injured his thumb batting on April 23, and missed his next start as a result.  Scherzer says that he is “not opposed” to the National League adopting the DH.  According the Scherzer, people “don't want to see me hit. No one wants to see a pitcher hit. No one pays money for that.”  Scherzer spent the previous 5 seasons playing for the American League Detroit Tigers who use a DH, so he has experience in both settings. 

On the other hand, there are players such as the San Francisco Giants’ Madison Bumgarner.  Bumgarner offered this view of Wainwright’s injury and the DH debate: “"What if he got hurt pitching? Should we say we can't pitch anymore?...I hate what happened to him. He works his butt off out there. But I don't think it was because he was hitting. What if he gets hurt getting out of his truck? You tell him not to drive anymore?” Bumgarner continued his thoughts with, “"It's a beautiful game to me the way it is…That's obviously the way baseball started and I'm a traditional guy. I'm not much for change. I know people argue both sides, but for me, from what I see, it's a more challenging game. It's more challenging for managers. There's so much more that goes into it in the National League than, 'let 'em pitch until they can't get outs anymore.” Last year Bumgarner hit .258 with 4 homeruns and 15 RBIs, and has hit 6 total homeruns in his career.

In my opinion, I would have to side with Bumgarner in this debate.  This is the way baseball has always been played.  Since the National League was founded in 1876, the pitcher has always batted for himself.  It was not until 1973, almost 100 years later, that the American League officially adopted the DH rule.  Plus Bumgarner presents a valid point that Wainwright could have injured himself some other way, such as pitching, working out or just by accident.  One freak injury should not merit a drastic rule change. For the record, Wainwright agrees with this sentiment, saying, “"It was a fluke thing and baseball needs to stay exactly where it is”.

However, I am a realist.  And I do think unfortunately that the National League will move to adopt the DH.  Baseball is the only sport which has different rules for different leagues.  And there is no way the AL will give up the DH. They make way too much money from players simply being a DH.  Second, while I don’t think one freak injury should spur a rule change, there is precedent for this.  Giants catcher Buster Posey was injured in 2011 after a collision at home plate, which spurred the new rule about catcher’s blocking home plate.  Finally, as I mentioned in a previous blog, run scoring in baseball has been down the past few years.  Having another solid hitter in place of a pitcher would easily help to produce more runs.

We will see what comes of this injury.  I really would not like to see the DH come to the National League, but I do think it is inevitable now.  What do you think? Should the National League adopt the designated hitter rule?  Do you think they will? Let me know! 

2015 St. Louis Cardinals Predictions

I'm a couple weeks late getting this one out, but I enjoyed thinking about the topics so I wanted to make sure I still published this. I always have fun discussing predictions.  So I decided to write about 5 of my predictions for the Cardinals this year.

1. Kolten Wong will steal 30+ bases.

I think this one will be pretty easy.   Wong stole 20 bases last year, showing he has the ability.  I think with another year under his belt, he will hit for a higher average and become a smarter base runner.  30 bases should be a piece of cake for Wong this year.

2. Trevor Rosenthal will have a sub 2.00 ERA.

Last year Rosenthal had an ERA of 3.20, so that would be over a 1 point drop.  But I think Rosenthal could do it.  He has another year of experience under his belt, which always helps.  He should be smarter and more skilled.  But I think a big factor in this will be that Rosenthal is pitching exclusively from the stretch this year.  Last year when the bases were empty, when he was in the windup, batters hit .248 against him.  When there were men on base, from the stretch, batters hit .198 against him. That is a 50 point drop in average.  All this combined, I could definitely see Rosenthal posting a sub 2.00 ERA.

3. Matt Adams will lead the team in home runs.

Last year Adams was third on the team with 15 homeruns, behind Matt Holliday (20) and Jhonny Peralta (21).  Personally I don’t see Peralta hitting more than that.  I feel he is a 15-20 home run guy.  Holliday at this point will probably max out at 25.  The addition of Jason Heyward is interesting as he has hit as many as 27 homeruns in his young career, so he definitely has the potential to hit many.  But I feel Matt Adams will lead the team this year, with 25-30. Last year he was trying to figure out how to adjust to the shift, hitting for a strong average, but sacrificing power.  Late in the year he started not focusing as much on beating the shift and simply hit.  If that mindset carries over to this year, I think Adams will hit for more consistent power.

4. Yadier Molina will not win the platinum glove this year.

Each year the platinum glove goes to the best defensive player in each league.  The award has been given out for the past three years.  Molina has won the award twice.  The other time the award was given to Atlanta Braves shortstop Andrelton Simmons.  Personally, I believe Simmons will win the award again this year.  No discredit to Molina’s talent. I think he’s the best defensive catcher in the game.  Just credit to Simmons.  That man is incredibly gifted. If you have never seen him play, I encourage you to check out some of his highlights here.  

5. Lance Lynn will throw a no-hitter.

There is no way to really prove this one, as no hitters are well…unpredictable.  They can be thrown by the most random pitchers if they are in the right groove.  The last two no hitters thrown by Cardinals have been by rookies who never really amounted to much as starters, Jose Jimenez in 1999 and Bud Smith in 2001.  More of my point with this prediction is that Lynn has grown so much as a pitcher.  He is more consistent and more in control of his emotions.  He seems to have gotten over the “Lynning” he struggled with so much.  Lynn is one of the more underrated pitchers in my opinion.  Lynn has averaged 16 wins the past 3 years, and more importantly lowered his ERA to 2.74 last year, from the high 3’s the two previous years.  There is no telling when a no hitter will happen, but I really do believe Lynn has much more potential to be able to do it now. 

Baseball Should Eliminate the Intentional Walk

Run scoring has been down recently in baseball.  There are many reasons for this.  There has been a resurgence of high quality pitching.  Pitching specialization has become very common (righties vs. righties, lefties vs. lefties).  The past few years the number of defensive shifts has increased exponentially, taking away the areas towards which batters most commonly hit.  As a result, hitting is down all across baseball.  Now I’m the type of person who loves watching pitching duels (call me crazy).  But I do also enjoy good hitting.  There have been a lot of ideas to aid hitters.  So I thought I would introduce an idea of my own.  Baseball should eliminate the intentional walk.  

Now hear me out on this.  I’m not saying pitchers couldn’t pitch around batters they don’t want to face.  There is no realistic way of doing that.  But the catcher putting his hand out and sidestepping out from behind the plate would not be allowed.  If pitchers wanted to, they could still just not throw strikes to the batter and put him on base.  However, they would have to execute those pitches, with the catcher behind the plate.  These pitches would be much closer to the zone and therefore, there would be much less margin for error.  And as intentional walks are typically given to the better hitters in the lineup, these hitters would be more adept at hitting any mistakes from the pitchers.  Another factor to consider is that intentional walks are given when there is at least one runner in scoring position.  So if pitchers are forced to throw closer to the zone, where mistakes will be more common, to batters who are better at hitting mistake pitches, logic would dictate there should be at least a small increase in runs scored.  And also intentional walks are usually given in crucial moments of the game, often when the game is very close.  So this could potentially lead to big impacts in games.

One counterpoint that comes to mind to this argument is that if pitchers are doing well, shouldn’t they be able effectively pitch around batters, even without an intentional walk?  Maybe.  “Unintentional intentional walks” generally get the job done.  However, I have two responses to that.  First, pitchers are still human and they will make mistakes, especially with a much smaller margin for error.  Second, if pitchers are able to just pitch around batters, then doesn’t that leave the intentional walk pointless?  Pitchers can just throw balls without having to go through the whole routine.   Either way, I think it would be better if the intentional walk were simply eliminated.  I honestly do not think it serves a purpose.  

Do you think I have a point?  Do you have any other arguments against my idea? Let me know what you think!