By Jordan Long
Major League Baseball is exploring changes to the game. Some of them include a universal designated hitter, a 3-batter minimum for pitchers, and a single trade deadline before the All-Star break. These may alter the game of baseball as it is played now.
The universal designated hitter makes a lot of sense. The designated hitter is only used in the American League to add offense. In the National League, a pitcher must hit. It is used strategically as a sacrifice bunt to move a runner into scoring position. Some of the time it is an easy out by strikeouts. If they happen to make contact on the ball and it is toward an infielder, the pitchers often don’t try to run hard towards first base to beat the throw for an out. Putting it in both leagues gives teams a chance for more offense which should equal more runs scored. Pitchers would only have to worry about pitching and not running the bases unless they are called on to pitch hit or pitch run.
The downside to this is there are pitchers in the National League who can swing the bat. These include Max Scherzer, German Márquez, and Madison Bumgarner. They are not easy outs. Scherzer ended last season with a batting average of .243 with 6 RBI’s, not bad for a pitcher. Márquez’s batting average was .300 with 5 RBI’s and 1 home run. Bumgarner has shown in his 9 year MLB career he can swing the bat with an average of .183 with 17 home runs and 58 RBI’s. Adding the designated hitter would take away their ability to add runs to the scoreboard.
The 3-batter minimum doesn’t make sense. They would be speeding up the game and not having so many pitching changes. The problem with this, especially during the postseason, is MLB franchises have pitchers who can specialize facing a batter depending on if he is a left-handed or right-handed matchup. Then they are removed after throwing to that one batter to keep their team in the game. If they are required to face 3 batters, this could end this baseball strategy for MLB managers since they can’t have the correct matchup they want. This may end up hurting a team.
The trade deadline before the All-Star break is the only one that seems logical. When players hit the All-Star break this season on July 8th, they know they could still be moved by July 31st which is the non-waiver trade deadline. There is always speculation until July 31st. Players won’t know if they are staying or going until that date. Moving the trade deadline to the All-Star break is the one that should be passed. This way teams know their roster for the stretch run into a possible playoff spot for the 2nd half of the season.
MLB is going to take a hard look on how to change the game. They shouldn’t make that many adjustments, but make ones that are necessary for the game. Most of these ideas won’t be implemented until 2020. Time will only tell how these changes impact the game of baseball as we know it. t Table 1
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