DH Rule Change Idea

The universal DH is here to stay. As a fan of baseball in the National League, I always liked the strategy of working around a pitcher in the batting order, but as times have changed and the regular season schedule has moved towards more interleague play I understand that playing with two separate rule books isn’t feasible in MLB. There are some modifications to the universal DH though, that I believe could improve the quality of position players and make managing a team a more strategic endeavor.

I love seeing good hitting and I love seeing the full range of skills that position players in this game possess. This rule change idea tries to emphasize the importance of players being more well-rounded while providing managers with some strategy for selecting their DH and keeping it part of the game to provide fans a good offensive product. This hasn’t been brought up anywhere else to my knowledge, this is just an idea to improve MLB baseball.

Modifying the Universal DH

The idea behind the designated hitter has been around for over a century. Some of baseball’s pioneering voices were clamoring for it as early as 1906, with icon Connie Mack supporting its implementation in the American League while he was managing. While Mack would never see it in his lifetime, the idea came to fruition in 1973. The combination of sinking fan interest, low attendance and plummeting batting averages motivated the American League to break away from the National League and take the bat away the pitcher. The NL would adopt the idea almost 50 years later.

In the wake of COVID, the NL adopted the DH on a temporary basis in 2020, making it a permanent rule change in 2022. The craziness of the pandemic along with the changing nature of the MLB schedule made it necessary for the NL to acquiesce and eliminate the pitcher’s at-bat in baseball for good. Now that the entirety of MLB is using the DH, it’s time to look at it under the microscope and see if we can make it a better rule for the sport moving forward. The concerns that brought about the DH are still lurking in baseball’s conscious, but making these changes could help create a better product and fan experience.

In addition to the current rules and regulations around the DH, I would like to propose adding one. A player is only eligible to be the DH if they have either played in the field in their previous 3-5 starts, were recently on the injured list, or are moved into the role throughout the course of the game. The reasoning behind this is to make the utilization of the DH more aligned with the original intent of the rule and stop the use of players as regular DH’s who never see the field.

David Ortiz was a great player and one of baseball’s most iconic hitters. Robbing fans of more exposure to Ortiz and players like him, giving them an excuse to not cultivate their entire skill set is an example of what is wrong with the current state of the universal DH. If you’re on a baseball team as an everyday player, you should be able to field. The DH can still be a useful tool to give players a break while still providing a better offensive product for the fans, but baseball needs a course correction on what the DH has turned into for most teams in MLB.