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Originally Posted by kq76
What's "not true at all"? I honestly don't see all that much meaningful (as in it really matters) pinch hitting in the AL. It's almost as if managers have it in their heads, "Well, I've already got my best 9 out there". This business about all these great strategic managers? Give me a break. Nowadays all you probably need in an AL manager is somebody with psychiatrist skills to handle all the egos. With the lower scoring environment of the NL you need to make moves (not just pinch-hitting) to scrape out a run here and there. With the DH and the higher scoring run environment all they do is just line those guys up and go base by base. Yeah sure, there is some meaningful pinch-hitting going on, but attackemu said there's more strategy with the DH. How often is a DH meaningfully pinch-hit for? Not very often. How often is pitcher meaningfully pinch hit for? A whole lot more. And even when you do pinch hit for a DH, you're only considering who is a better hitter, not that you'd also be losing your starting pitcher who could be having a good game. I'm not even making the argument that there is more strategy without the DH (I do think that, but I'm not going to bother arguing it), I'm just saying it's nonsense to say there's less.
When I said get some time for a backup, I meant when it's a blow-out managers will often let a bench player get some playing time. That's certainly not meaningful pinch-hitting.
Me under-estimating? Maybe it's just you over-estimating how important it is to give a bench player some playing time in a blow-out or how difficult it is to see that one player has better match-up stats.
Ever notice how goalies contribute to offense too? Ever notice how goalies are limited by where they are on the field/ice?
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When you got a lineup with a pitcher, it's obvious who your better pinch hitters would be replacing.
When you got a lineup with a DH, you'd have to actually use your pinch hitters under the right situation. One thing you didn't talk about at all is the reliever/pinch hitter match ups. That's one of the few chances for managers to have huge influences on the game.
In the case of NL, managers pretty much just replace hitters/pitchers by formula: whenever the pitcher is coming up to hit.
In AL, you change pitchers and hitters according to the game situation more.