@anotherparent posted:I don't understand what is the point of this argument, anyway? Is it that it is more fun for players if they get to hit when they aren't pitching? Is it that hitting talent is being hidden/wasted at the higher levels because pitchers are made to be POs? Is it about college, or about professional baseball?
It’s about why most pitchers don’t hit from HS/college on, except the 50% in the MLB who do, which is a jarring juxtaposition.
So what besides historical precedent prevents pitchers from hitting, esp between HS and AA, when they start to pick up the bat again? And wouldn’t it be a huge advantage for those HS, club. college, MiLB teams with pitchers who can swing it? Why throttle them back?
So far, people have mentioned
- HS teams that want to open more roster spots
- Club teams that want to collect more fees
- College-based teams where players don’t have enough time to practice both
- owners, managers, coaches who want to protect their most important/valuable asset
I can think of a few other reasons: minuscule number of HS/ college pitchers who make it to AA, lack of resources at lower levels to train well in both, NL owners who don’t want to pay DHs, AL owners who don’t want a 100% increase in the size of the market for their DHs.
But all these reasons are structural, not talent-based. Indeed, we see occasional glimpses of pitchers who have big league hitting skills. But we don’t know how many there are.
So I guess what I’m asking is how many American Ohtanis might have been missed in say the last several decades. And why we continue to go down that route when we’ve seen what’s possible.
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FWIW - this isn’t about DDson. He’s happy to PO, or not. And I don’t care.