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Originally Posted by CBL-Commish
For the reason I mentioned before: there's an absolutely clear demarcation between the hitting ability of pitchers and the hitting ability of everyone else. Every single other position has an average OPS between 90% and 110% of the overall league average. Pitchers are at about 40%, and have been under 50% for many decades.
Every other position has stars who are .900 or 1.000 OPS players. Catchers have Mike Piazza. Many second basemen and shortstops are great hitters. In the past 50 years it's been extremely rare for a pitcher to be a good enough with the bat to even qualify as a poor hitter at any other position. The highest career OPS for a pitcher since 1980 is .673, by Dan Schatzeder.
Pitchers' futility at the plate was unique in baseball before the DH, so it's not that odd to have a unique solution to deal with their ineptness.
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I guess then the question becomes is it a problem that pitchers are bad hitters?