Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

Why do so many people prefer to play in a non-DH league?

There seems to be a consensus in earlier threads that the game engine doesn't use pitcher's hitting cards correctly, and all pitchers end up hitting off of the same card.
Further, allowing the pitcher to hit injects more HAL randomness into the because the manager has little control over when to pinch hit, bunt, etc.
Admittedly, the National League game can be more exciting because it has more strategy elements, but I would much prefer a manager like HAL in the American League.

To me, the DH is the way to go. I can only think of one argument in support of the pitcher hitting, and that's because it is more true to the way baseball was played for most of the past 100 years. Are there other advantages I'm missing?

Well, of course a BIG advantage is that you only have to spread your available $$ over 8 key players instead of nine. So you can get more of the "superstars" that you like!

I think most DH leagues are 100 mill, which offsets this disadvantage.. :)

I imagine that it's because this is ATG, which naturally attracts the more traditionally minded baseball fans. I think there are many more DH leagues in the 200X game, for example.

For me, DH baseball isn't baseball. :D

(_)ß

That too MM.... :wink:

I agree that DH isn't baseball.
However, HAL really isn't SOM, either. Give me a handfull of dice and pitcher's hitting cards, and the equation changes.

What's the deal? I'm about to play my 1st 1969 league (haven't decided on DH - no DH yet), but are you saying the pitchers all hit off the same card? I believe Strat has rated ATG/HOF pitchers, and does so for their entire season sets.

What gives?

When you look at the cards, they all have been rated for pitcher's hitting. However, when examining the statistics, all pitchers hit about the same (~.120) regardless of what their pitcher hitting rating. In "real life" a 5 or 8 hitting pitcher should get 30+ more hits in every 216 at bats for a batting average improvement of around .140 on top of the hits from the pitcher's card. Therefore, they should average around a .260 BAV with some higher and some lower. If pitcher's were using their correct hitting cards, there's no way that the record book would show that only 2 pitchers have ever batted above .265 for a full season, and they were rated 1 and 2 for hitting.


I bumped the previous thread. It also has a link to another more detailed thread.