Quote:
Originally Posted by chazzycat
The penalty doesn't have anything to do with aging or defense. The research looks at the same players, hitting both as DH and non-DH during the same years.
Here is a slide from this year's SABR conference using real numbers from the 2020 season. The research has been re-examined several times since "the Book" came out and they keep finding the penalty every time.
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That's aggregate and it only shows players that played as a DH and a non-DH in the same season. Can't really trust 2020 data but I'm assuming findings would be similar for prior years as you say. That said, full-time DHs wouldn't play in the field enough to qualify in that situation. Ortiz, Edgar and Nellie would not hit better if they were playing the field every day. In our game most people have full-time DHs set even if platooned. I guess there's no way to separate that though from a rotation type in the game.
We also know that players DH when they can't play the field effectively due to injury which would bring down those averages if they're not 100%. Definitely read that in there somewhere too.