My fellow ARBA owners, I'd argue Major League Baseball is in the midst of destroying the inherent goodness of its game, and it's our responsibility...nay... DUTY... to ensure the short-sightnedness with which Mr. Manford is proceeding doesn't impact our ongoing competitions.
When Shaquille O'Neal drew a foul, the Lakers didn't get to put in a designated free throw shooter, no matter how poorly Shaq-Daddy was going to perform at the line. The big guy was forced to play both defense and offense, free-throws included. When hockey teams pull the goalie in a frantic effort to score a typing goal, they don't get to leave the goalie stick at the base of the net in case the other teams manages to shoot the puck the length of the nice... goalies carry their own wood.
When it turned out the Happy Gilmore couldn't put to save his life, he didn't go pay some local mini-golf champion to be his substitute putter... he sucked it up and tried his hardest to get better.
Yet here we are, with Rob Manford doing his best to recreate football... the only sport where guys don't play both ways... and while we've generally allowed this debauchery to go on across ARBA, I believe its time to draw a line in the sand, and stake a claim to our great game.
Of course, I'm talking about thumbing our noses at the universal DH.
I know many teams here prefer the simplicity and avoid the wrath of Super Hal... but as with Eric's suggestion to bring back injuries as a way to add a little chaos... I support the idea of home teams being able to declare, at the beginning of the season, whether they will be playing AL or NL style. Interleague play is here (and stupid), meaning American League teams regularly have to put their DH on the bench... so my proposal isn't revolutionary... it's aligned with the absurd way that baseball has been operating these last few years.
I implore you... let's keep the rules of the senior circuit alive, not only as a way to honor baseball's founding fathers and the spirit in which the game was created.... but also as a way to punish the very man who still allows MLB.TV to back out local games.
Do we have a significant number of people who prefer the non-DH? I think letting home managers opt in or out of the DH would just be too problematic- we'd all need to make both DH and non-DH computer managers, it would be harder to keep track of how many at bats you actually need, etc.
If we do have enough people who want a non-DH team, then I would support the approach of making one of the two leagues a non-DH league, and reorganizing the teams between leagues as need be to get everyone where they prefer to be.
Yeah, I choose to assume that this was one of Mike's jokes. I just don't see how ARBA could realistically force teams to go without the DH at this point as moves have already been made with that logical assumption. Also, MLB is likely to adopt the DH in both leagues soon, so the change wouldn't really be sustainable since all pitcher hitting cards would be nothing but outs. There are better ways to inject chaos, like rest-of-game injuries!
I do wonder if anyone has experience with using the Pitch Count. I've noticed that Super Hal has struggled to manage modern pitching strategies, such as openers, partly because they haven't introduced any new player or team settings. I have never used Pitch Counts and they may be nightmare, but I wonder if that would allow Super Hal to more effectively control pitcher usage. It does seem more realistic than pitchers suddenly going from fine to tired.
This was actually not a joke in any way, and mirrors the proposal I made nearly 8 years ago here. The owners who were vehement about hating it are no longer around in the league, so in the spirit of reintroducing proposals, it didn't feel crazy to bring it up.
In terms of moves that have been made, etc... We could make this a rule for the 2023 season if people can't easily adapt (though needing less PAs feels like an easy swap)
So far nobody else has said they prefer a non-DH league. If Mike and I are the only people who prefer NL-style ball then I guess there's no point in trying to flesh out the details of what a non-DH proposal could or should look like.
The next collective bargaining agreement may, as Eric notes, institute universal DH. While I prefer non-DH personally, I also think it would be silly to let pitchers hit in a replay when there's absolutely no data on how good of hitters they even are.
