Designated hitter
The designated hitter is a baseball player who bats in place of the pitcher. Unlike other players in a team's lineup, they generally only play as an offensive player and usually do not play defense as a fielder or a pitcher during a game. Due to their specialized offensive-only role, the designated hitter is generally expected to produce above average offensive stats and production compared to other players who play defense.
In Major League Baseball, the position is authorized by Rule 5.11 of the Official Baseball Rules. It was adopted by the American League in and by the National League in, making it universal in MLB. Within that time frame, nearly all amateur, collegiate, and professional leagues worldwide adopted the designated hitter or some variant, a major exception being Nippon Professional Baseball's Central League, which plans to adopt it in 2027.
Major League Baseball rule
The designated hitter is a player who does not play a position in the field, but instead replaces the pitcher in the batting order. However, a starting pitcher may choose to also start as the designated hitter so that the pitcher bats for himself. The DH may only be used for the pitcher as stated in Rule 5.11. Use of the DH is optional, but must be determined before the start of the game. If a team does not begin a game with a DH, the team's pitchers must bat for the entire game.The designated hitter can be moved to a fielding position during the game. If the DH is moved to another position, his team forfeits the role of designated hitter, and the pitcher or another player would bat in the spot of the position player replaced by the former DH. If the designated hitter is moved to pitcher, any subsequent pitcher would bat should that spot in the batting order come up again. Likewise, if a pinch-hitter bats for a non-pitcher, and then remains in the game as the pitcher, the team would forfeit the use of the DH for the remainder of the game, and the player who was DH would become a position player.
The DH substitution rule has an exception: If a starting pitcher started simultaneously as the designated hitter, that player may remain as DH to bat for his relievers after being replaced as pitcher, likewise remaining as starting pitcher if he was pinch hit or pinch run for by a bench player who had become the new designated hitter. If that player starts the game as a designated hitter and pitches out of the bullpen, the team would lose the designated hitter once his relief appearance is over, unless he is moved to another position on the field. The exception was added by MLB for the 2022 season, coincident with the introduction of the universal DH. It has been widely nicknamed the "Ohtani rule" as a nod to Shohei Ohtani, at the time a two-way star pitcher and hitter for the Los Angeles Angels who had sometimes batted for himself in the past, but had to leave games as hitter or move to another position on the field when relieved as pitcher due to the limitations of the old rule. The rule change was subsequently applied for international-level games, starting with the 2023 World Baseball Classic.
Unlike other positions, the DH is "locked" into the batting order. No multiple substitution may be made to alter the batting rotation of the DH. In other words, a double switch involving the DH and a position player is not legal. For example, if the DH is batting fourth and the catcher is batting eighth, the manager cannot replace both players so as to have the new catcher bat fourth and the new DH bat eighth. Once a team loses its DH under any of the scenarios already discussed, the double switch becomes fully available, and may well be used via necessity, should the former DH be replaced in the lineup.
| Season | National League | American League | World Series | All-Star Game | Interleague play |
| Before 1973 | No | No | No | No | No Interleague play until 1997 MLB season. |
| 1973–1975 | No | Yes | No | No | No Interleague play until 1997 MLB season. |
| 1976–1985 | No | Yes | Yes in even years, No in odd years | No | No Interleague play until 1997 MLB season. |
| 1986–1988 | No | Yes | Home team rule | No | No Interleague play until 1997 MLB season. |
| 1989–1996 | No | Yes | Home team rule | Home team rule | No Interleague play until 1997 MLB season. |
| 1997–2009 | No | Yes | Home team rule | Home team rule | Home team rule |
| 2010–2019, 2021 | No | Yes | Home team rule | Yes | Home team rule |
| 2020, 2022–present | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Interleague play and exhibitions (until 2021)
In Major League Baseball, during interleague play between 1997 and 2021, the DH rule was applied to a game based on the rules of the home team's league. If the game was played in an American League park, the designated hitter could be used; in a National League park, the pitcher must bat or else be replaced with a pinch-hitter. On June 12, 1997, San Francisco Giants outfielder Glenallen Hill became the first National League DH in a regular-season game, when the Giants met the American League Texas Rangers at The Ballpark in Arlington in interleague play.At first, the DH rule was not applied to the World Series. From 1973 to 1975, all World Series games were played under National League rules, with no DH and with pitchers required to bat. For 1976, it was decided the DH rule would apply to all games in the World Series, regardless of venue, but only in even-numbered years. Cincinnati Reds first baseman Dan Driessen became the first National League designated hitter in the postseason; he was the DH in all four World Series games that year. This practice lasted through 1985. Beginning in the 1986 World Series, the DH rule was used in games played in the stadium of the American League representative.
There was initially no DH in the All-Star Game. Beginning in 1989, the rule was applied only to games played in American League stadiums. During this era, if the All-Star Game was scheduled for an American League stadium, fans would vote for the DH for the American League's starting lineup, while the National League's manager decided that league's starting DH. Since 2010, the designated hitter has been used by both teams, regardless of where the game is played.
For the 2021 All-Star Game, MLB granted an exception to the DH rule because Los Angeles Angels' Shohei Ohtani was selected as both starting DH and starting pitcher. Ohtani started the game as both a pitcher and the DH and was replaced as pitcher after one inning but remained in the game as the DH without the American League having to forfeit the use of a DH. The American League would have lost the DH if either Ohtani, or a player replacing him at DH, had played a position in the field other than pitcher.
Background and history
The rationale for the designated hitter rule arose early in the history of professional baseball. During the 1880s, an increased emphasis on improving the specialized skill of pitching contributed to a decline in pitcher batting averages. In 1891, during negotiations surrounding the merger of the American Association and National League, team executives J. Walter Spalding of New York and William Chase Temple of Pittsburgh proposed competing ideas to eliminate the pitcher from the batting order. Temple's proposal "favored the substitution of another man to take the pitcher's place at the bat when it came his turn to go there," while Spalding proposed removing the pitcher's turn from the batting order, reducing its length to eight players. Temple's proposal was voted down by a narrow margin prior to the 1892 season.The idea of a designated hitter was raised by Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack in 1906; however, his proposal received little support.
Pitchers rejected the idea of giving up hitting. In 1910, Addie Joss stated, "if there is one thing that a pitcher would rather do than make the opposing batsmen look foolish, it is to step to the plate, especially in a pinch, and deliver the much-needed hit." A 1918 article in Baseball Magazine attributed to Babe Ruth stated, "the pitcher who can't get in there in the pinch and win his own game with a healthy wallop, isn't more than half earning his salary in my way of thinking." Nevertheless, in the late 1920s, National League president John Heydler made several attempts to introduce a 10th-man designated hitter as a way to add more offense to the game. Several managers were interested in the idea and intended to implement it during spring training in 1929. However, Heydler's proposal was not adopted as an official rule change, and he advised teams to have pitchers bat during spring training in order for them to prepare for the regular season.
Serious momentum to implement the designated hitter was absent until the pitching dominance of the late 1960s. In 1968, Bob Gibson led the major leagues with a live-ball era record 1.12 ERA. For the first time since 1908, the American and National Leagues had a collective batting average below.240; Carl Yastrzemski led the American League in hitting with only a.301 mark. After the season, in order to increase offensive output, the height of the pitcher's mound was reduced from, and the upper limit of the strike zone was lowered from the top of a batter's shoulders to his armpits. In 1969, the International League and four other minor leagues began a four-year trial period for the designated hitter. The American League allowed its use in spring training in 1971, however, when the minor league trial period ended, the American and National Leagues could not agree on implementation.
File:Ron Blomberg 1972.jpg|thumb|New York Yankee Ron Blomberg was the first designated hitter during a regular season game.
Like other experimental baseball rule changes of the 1960s and 1970s, the DH was embraced by Oakland Athletics owner Charlie O. Finley. On January 11, 1973, Finley and the other American League owners voted 8–4 to approve the designated hitter for a three-year trial run. The National League chose not to implement the DH; it was intended for the two leagues to agree on a common rule at the end of the American League's trial. On April 6, 1973, Ron Blomberg of the New York Yankees became the first designated hitter in MLB history, facing Boston Red Sox right-hander Luis Tiant in his first plate appearance. Blomberg was walked on five pitches with the bases loaded in the first inning. As expected, the American League posted a higher batting average than the National League in 1973. This trend held in every season in which the American League employed the designated hitter but the National League did not between 1973 and 2021.
At the end of its three-year trial period, the American League kept the designated hitter, while the National League still refused to adopt it. In response to increases in American League attendance because of the DH, the National League held a vote on August 13, 1980, to determine whether or not to adopt it. A majority of the 12 member teams was necessary to pass the rule, and the measure was expected to pass. However, when the teams were informed that the rule would not take effect until the 1982 season, Philadelphia Phillies vice president Bill Giles was unsure of how the team owner, Ruly Carpenter, wanted him to vote. Unable to contact Carpenter, who was on a fishing trip, Giles was forced to abstain from voting. Prior to the meeting, Harding Peterson, general manager for the Pittsburgh Pirates, was told to side with the Phillies however they voted. The final tally was four teams voting for the DH, five votes against, and three abstentions. Five days after that meeting, the Cardinals fired their general manager, John Claiborne, who was the leading proponent for the adoption of the DH rule, and the National League never held another vote on the issue.
The designated hitter was not used in the World Series from 1973 to 1975. Between 1976 and 1985, the DH was used in the World Series during even-numbered years, while pitchers batted in odd-numbered years. In 1986, the rule was changed to implement designated hitters only in World Series games in which the home team was from the American League. This rule was also adopted for interleague play during the regular season upon its introduction in 1997.
As time passed, the designated hitter rule enabled American League managers to employ diverse strategies in setting their teams' lineups. Managers could rotate the DH role among part-time players, or they could employ a full-time designated hitter against all pitchers. Healthy regular lineup players gained the ability to take a partial day off by not playing the field, while aging, injured, and injury prone players gained the opportunity to bat without being exposed to re-injury while fielding. By 2009, only a handful of players compiled over 400 at-bats as a DH each year. This trend continued, even with the eventual onset of the universal designated hitter.
The Astros moved to the American League in 2013, giving each league 15 teams and requiring interleague play throughout the entire season. There was debate within MLB to unify the rules of the two leagues, with either the American League returning to its pre-1973 rules and having the pitcher hit or the National League adopting the DH. In January 2016, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred indicated that consideration was given to the National League adopting the DH for the 2017 season, when a new collective bargaining agreement would take effect. However, he later backtracked, saying that he did not envision such a change being made in the near future. Accordingly, the DH rule was not then adopted by the National League.
In 2020, as a health and safety measure due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the National League used the DH for the first time. For the first time since 1972, the National League had the higher seasonal batting average of the two leagues. At least one of the proposals released during negotiations between MLB and the Major League Baseball Players' Association regarding the 2021 season's rules included the so-called "universal DH," but an impasse led to a temporary return to National League pitchers hitting in that year.
On April 4, 2021, an American League team voluntarily declined to use a designated hitter in their starting lineup for the first time since 1976, when the Los Angeles Angels placed starting pitcher Shohei Ohtani second in the batting order. This was also the first time since 1903 that a pitcher had been listed as the second hitter in the starting lineup. On June 23, 2021, Ohtani made history again when, for the first time, an AL team did not use the designated hitter and an NL team did. While the Angels declined the DH privilege, the visiting Giants opted to use it, starting Alex Dickerson at DH.
On February 10, 2022, Manfred announced plans for a universal DH beginning with the 2022 season. The rule was ratified as part of a new collective bargaining agreement with the MLBPA on March 10, 2022, after which both leagues have continuously employed the designated hitter.