The gradual extinction of the designated hitter (except David Ortiz)

The first time I saw Frank Thomas, it was on his 1992 Fleer card. In that photo, Thomas just finished taking what I imagined to be the biggest swing that particular baseball had ever seen, and judging by the smirk on Thomas's face, he's hit it a long way, too. His body is contorted with all of his weight on his back foot, his arms recovering from effort, and once he gets his balance, he's going to make a break towards first base for his home run trot, none of that trying to beat the throw nonsense since the ball has clearly left the park. I don't remember the first time I saw Frank in action, but thanks to pictures like that one, I came forearmed with the knowledge that he could hit.

That idea, like the exact formula of Greek Fire and the identity of the Sea Peoples, has been lost. In the 1990s, the DH was reserved for the best sluggers in baseball, an era of big hitting that won't easily be forgotten and probably never replicated. Because of the value they brought at the plate, teams didn't care if players like Thomas, Edgar Martinez, or Harold Baines ever stepped foot on the field beyond the batter's box and the basepaths, and (as I noted in 2012), by 1998, the designated hitter reached its peak performance year with a .283 True Average (a statistic created by Baseball Prospectus that measures overall offensive performance that scales the same way as batting average). Of the top ten seasons for the DH, seven of them happened in the 1990s, with just three occurring since 2000.

Production at DH has been more or less steadily declining, and while there are a few seasons with upticks in performance like 2011, overall the position has been diluted as teams shy away from stashing baseball's most valuable hitters in that spot in favor of roster flexibility. The caveat to the downturn in production at DH specifically, of course, is that production is down across the board, but it's obvious that the DH goes beyond that to the constraints of the 25-man roster. Teams are favoring specialized pitching over specialized hitting, which has truncated the number of position players teams carry in general, let alone the ones they carry that don't come with gloves. Because of the need for LOOGYs and closers, which has in no way lessened the usual need for reserve catchers, infielders, and outfielders, teams are interested most in the sluggers who can also field (or, at least pretend to field) and using the designated hitter's spot as a lounger for players who need a half-day off, players who have lost their natural position to someone else but are still on the payroll, and, in the case of teams that lack talent and have spots to fill, they've saved it for inexpensive veterans who were once fit for the role, but now have nothing left to offer beyond an unlikely fling with the Fountain of Late-Career Fluke Seasons (think 2013 Travis Hafner or Jason Giambi, neither of whom came within a country mile of said fountain).

Teams haven't necessarily lost interest in having a more traditional designated hitter, but in the cost-benefit analysis of home runs vs. players who have two or three tools, the security of having someone who can at least competently stand in the field seems to be winning. Viewed more optimistically, perhaps scouting and amateur player development have become so refined that there are fewer bat-only players being drafted to begin with, such that a higher percentage of players can be kept at skill positions for longer. For every prospect like the Cubs' bulky Dan Vogelbach, a first baseman who seems fated to be a DH in short order, there are three or four like the Twins' Miguel Sano who (at least until his recent elbow injury) was just good enough to dream on at third, or the Mets Wilmer Flores, who has floated between the middle infield and third in what seems like it will ultimately be a futile quest to hide his glove.

The 2013 season set a record for the most strikeouts for the DH and it was the second-worst offensive season for the DH in history, as measured by OPS, or the 16^th-worst (out of 41) as measured by TAv, only .005 off the second-worst performance (1974) . Across the league, there was a higher slugging percentage at first base, third base, left field, and centerfield than at the DH, and teams like the Yankees, who once had great designated hitters like Don Baylor, got a collective .189/.276/.307 from their designated hitters, the worst in the league. (That is to be expected when you give over 350 plate appearances to Vernon Wells and Travis Hafner -- there was a time when that would have been a good idea, but by 2013 it had passed).

It's easy to joke about how poor the designated hitters actually hit now, but there's a bigger issue at hand--the 25-man roster is causing an extinction of the prototypical sluggers that were successful in that role in the 1990s.Years from now, you can tell your children about the days when the DH was a position of great hitting that commanded respect every time someone like Edgar Martinez stepped to the plate. They will their their kids about the light-hitting DH batting eighth or the great Nolan Reimold and Marc Krauss catching their breath or resting their hamstrings for the day.

This season, there are really just three teams that will start the season with a dedicated DH who fits into more the 1990s form of the position: Billy Butler (Royals), David Ortiz (Red Sox), and Victor Martinez (Tigers). If you look at the list of games played at DH, of the current players in that role now that Hafner is done, really only Ortiz and Butler are charting -- Ortiz is second all-time with 1622 games (just behind Harold Baines' 1643 games), and Butler is ranked 18th with 626 games. Adam Lind has 357 games as a DH, and players like Martinez and Adam Dunn still haven't hit 300 games in the role. Teams will be utilizing a few more "traditional"-style designated hitters this year -- players such as Dunn and Paul Konerko, Nelson Cruz, Raul Ibanez, Jason Kubel, Alfonso Soriano, and Mitch Moreland, but given the age and contractual status of most of these players, they're transients rather than the beginning of a new Reign of Molitor, Jackson, Thomas et al.

Perhaps the biggest clue towards extinction of the prototypical DH is that the season has already started, yet Kendrys Morales remains unemployed. Morales, who managed a 123 OPS+ with 23 home runs last season for the Mariners has not been signed, even though he's only 30 years old and earned just $5.75 million last season. There are plenty of marginal offenses that could benefit from Morales' bat, but no one has been willing to make the commitment because they a) can't justify wasting a roster spot on a player who isn't a great fielder, b) don't want to give up the draft pick associated with signing him since the Mariners extended him a qualifying offer, or c) both. For teams like the Astros who have reasons to value the potential long-term value of the draft pick and save the money since the playoffs don't seem to be a possibility, that approach is justified, but for teams that winning three more games could mean playing in October, those 23 home runs really could matter.

It's not likely that 2014 gets better for the designated hitter, in fact, it might get even worse. While some teams remain committed to using their DH for sluggers (and the Red Sox just reached a one-year extension with Ortiz, so he'll be back in 2015 -- more teams are like the Athletics, who will just rotate players such as Brandon Moss, Daric Barton, Alberto Callaspo, and perhaps Stomper, the team's elephant mascot, through first base and DH.

Kendrys Morales, orphan. (Ed Zurga)