Quote:Your mention of heightened offense leads me to a question: would you rather see a game where two pitchers have dueling shutouts, or a game where two teams are smacking homeruns and the score is tied 10-10? I'm guessing you'd rather have the offensive game, which is fine, but my preference is to see a great pitched game, which seems to have become rarer nowadays.
Both are good. I certainly like a good pitcher's duel. And that happens in the AL too... it's not like just because there's a DH you never have pitcher's duels, after all.
Quote:Anyway, I don't see the strategy argument going anywhere. If you don't appreciate the little nuances in baseball that are caused by the lack of a DH then I can't force you to appreciate them. Most pitchers actually weren't bad hitters when they were in Little League. In fact, most of them were probably the best hitters on their teams. The fact that college ball and the minor leagues use the DH, though, means that pitchers don't have a chance to bat on a regular basis after Little League so a lot of them lose their hitting talent. If there was no DH at any level we'd see a lot more good hitting pitchers. I'll leave you with Crash Davis' (Kevin Costner's) speech to Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham:
Maybe it is true that pitchers would be better hitters if they hit at all levels, but they'd never be great as they only play one in every five days. This inherently limits their possible success. Yes, the effect is to add offense, but you also could see it as equalizing offense... so that all the spots can be people who can hit, as opposed to one being someone who doesn't have to and doesn't very often.
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