Quote:
Originally Posted by Syd Thrift
I like it because historically, especially up to around 1920, 2 way players were out there in some way, shape, or form. 19th century pitchers in particular often blew out their arms by the time they were 25 but stuck around in the majors if they could hit well. Monte Ward is the most prominent example of that I can think of. Of course at the tail end of that period you had Babe Ruth.
I think that an alternative read to "this is just a gimmick" is that it was something baseball did when it was still figuring itself out, stopped for a while, and then recently has started to rediscover the concept. I'm sure there were plenty of guys who could have gone both ways between 1920 and 2015 but didn't. I can immediately think of Rich Ankiel and because he went to my high school John Olerud (he wasn't considered to have a great arm but he was kind of a beast in college before his aneurysm). Brooks Kieschnick of course actually did this in the 90s.
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I would add to this, that this is quite common in high school and college, because there aren't as many games, the rosters aren't as deep, and the players are all out there for playing time. Once you become a professional, and especially for "the money they're paying", it becomes vitally important to specialize; to be extremely good at one thing rather than sort of good at lots of things.
I think that's why pitchers hitting, has become a lost art. The league wants to move everyone to using a DH, so pitchers can just pitch. It's a bit boring from the perspective, that it eliminates a bit of strategy and novelty from the game; but makes it more exciting in the technical aspect of it all. So when you see a player like Ohtani, you say, "Gee, that's something different".