The Death of the Chess Match: A Gen X Manifesto on Why ALL MLB Pitchers Should Still Hit

I’m of a generation that remembers when you had to tape songs off the radio, dial a rotary phone, and actually watch a manager use his brain in the sixth inning of a baseball game. Growing up a National League fan in the 1980s and 1990s, baseball wasn’t just a game of athletic optimization; it was a gritty, asymmetrical chess match. There was a beautiful, distinct divide in our universe: the American League had their designated hitters, their beer-league softball aesthetics, and their bloated scoreboards. But the National League? That was real baseball. In the senior circuit, everybody played defense, and everybody grabbed a bat. Then came 2022, the year the suits in league offices permanently mandated the universal DH, outlawing pitchers from hitting forever. To me, it felt like a radical, soulless departure from tradition, a surrender to a generation obsessed with quick-fix action over deep-cut strategy. They promised us a high-scoring revolution. But now that we are several seasons into this sanitized era, let’s look at what this "upgrade" actually bought us, and what we lost along the way. First, let's talk about the math, because even a stubborn Gen X purist can't ignore the spreadsheet. The proponents of the universal DH swore that removing pitchers from the lineup would unleash a tsunami of offense. But if you look at the actual numbers since the National League capitulated in 2022, the overall offensive bump has been surprisingly, almost hilariously, minor. League-wide, replacing pitchers with professional hitters has only increased batting averages and runs scored by a microscopic margin, specifically, a meager 1 extra hit every four games and roughly 1 additional run every week. If you were expecting every game to turn into a 10-9 slugfest, you were sorely disappointed. The reason this league-wide impact feels so small comes down to simple math and modern baseball philosophy. First of all, pitchers only accounted for a tiny fraction of a team's total annual plate appearances. Second, the modern DH spot isn't what it used to be. Instead of plugging in a permanent, terrifying slugger, many contemporary managers use the DH slot merely to give everyday fielders a semi-day off. Add to that the modern "Three True Outcomes" era, where batters either walk, strike out, or hit a home run, leading to lower batting averages across the entire league, and the grand promise of a high-average offensive renaissance evaporates. Where you do see a stark, undeniable statistical shift is when you isolate the infamous 9-hole in the batting order. This is where the contrast between the old guard and the new era is most glaring. Before 2022, having a pitcher in the 9-slot was essentially an automatic out. Historically, pitchers batted a dismal .110 to .130. They walked up to the plate looking like charity cases, striking out in nearly 45%  of their at-bats. It was a guaranteed rally-killer, sure, but it was our rally-killer. Since 2022, with the universal DH fully implemented, everyday hitters and platoon DHs have taken over that final spot in the lineup. Today, the professional hitters occupying the bottom of the order hit between .240 and .250. Even better for managers, the strikeout rate in that spot has plummeted from that horrific 45% to a perfectly respectable, league-average 23%. Yes, on paper, that is a massive upgrade for the No. 9 hole, nearly doubling the batting average and cutting the strikeout rate in half. But by turning that spot into just another predictable, league-average professional hitter, MLB cured the disease by killing the patient's soul. By eliminating the vulnerability of the hitting pitcher, baseball permanently eradicated the game's greatest tactical maneuvers. In the old NL, a manager actually had to manage. You couldn't just sit on your hands and let an algorithm run the bullpen. Remember the double switch? It was an art form. If your starting pitcher was cruising in the sixth but his spot in the batting order was coming up with the bases loaded, you faced an agonizing, dramatic crossroads: Do you pinch-hit for him and burn your ace early, or do you let him hack and hope for a miracle? Today, that tension is dead. Managers no longer have to make hard choices. Furthermore, the sacrifice bunt has essentially vanished from the game. Pitchers used to drop beautiful, desperate bunts to move runners over, a small-ball staple that kept defense on its toes. Today, with a .240 hitter in the 9-hole, everyone is swinging for the fences. Even pinch-hitting has lost its magic. It used to be a crucial mid-game tactical substitution to rescue the pitcher's spot; now, it is merely a late-game optimization tool based on lefty-righty matchups. To my generation, baseball was great because it was hard, imperfect, and human. The spreadsheet crowd acts like a pitcher standing in the box was a tragedy, but they forget that some of these guys could absolutely swing it, transforming themselves into genuine, active participants in their own victories by “helping themselves out.” Look no further than the legendary "Big Red Machine" of the 1970s. Outfielder George Foster famously noted just how deep that historic lineup ran, explaining that the Reds essentially had eight great hitters every single game, "and nine when Don Gullett was pitching." Gullett wasn't just a flamethrower; he was a legitimate offensive threat who could drag his own team across the finish line with a clutch hit. And then there were those rare, mythic nights where a pitcher utterly dominated both sides of the scorecard. On June 23, 1971, Philadelphia Phillies right-hander Rick Wise walked onto the turf at Riverfront Stadium to face that very same powerhouse Cincinnati lineup. Wise was battling a miserable, weak-legged bout of the flu, yet he went out and threw a masterful, 93-pitch no-hitter against Rose, Bench, and Foster. But he didn't stop there. Helping his own cause, Wise stepped up to the plate and blasted two home runs, driving in three of his team's four runs in a 4-0 shutout. Throwing a no-hitter and hitting two round-trippers in the exact same game remains arguably the most heroic, self-reliant single-game performance in professional sports history. For me, this connection to the grit, flexibility, and adaptation of the game isn’t just about abstract legends on a screen; it’s deeply personal. Back in the 2000s, I had the privilege of being a high school coach and watching a kid named Nick Ramirez in our high school baseball program. Nick was a pure ballplayer, a 6-foot-3 kid with a beautiful left-hand swing, immense power, and a fastball that sat around 90mph who was selected in the 4th round of the 2011 MLB Draft by the Milwaukee Brewers as a power-hitting first baseman. When that initial path didn’t work out, Nick didn't pack up his locker. He did what real baseball players used to do: he dug deep, tapped into his versatility, and adapted. He got back on the mound, converted into a pitcher, and fought his way all the way to the Major Leagues. Over a gritty professional career, he proved his value as a tough, reliable left-handed reliever, pitching for the Detroit Tigers, San Diego Padres, New York Yankees, and ultimately, the Los Angeles Dodgers. Even after finding his calling on the mound, that hitter's DNA never truly left Nick. Back in 2019, while pitching for Detroit, Nick actually got the call to step up to the plate at PNC Park for a Major League at-bat against the Pittsburgh Pirates. He didn't look out of place, and he shouldn't have; Nick was a reminder of a fundamental truth that the modern analytical crowd completely glosses over. Almost all Major League pitchers were absolute, unmitigated studs at the plate growing up. Before the cold machinery of professional specialization forced them to choose, they were the most feared hitters on their high school and college teams. To pretend these guys "can't hit" is a modern myth; they are some of the most gifted, all-around athletes on the face of the Earth. Watching a kid you coached claw his way to the show, wielding both a mid-nineties fastball and a swing that could still turn on a big-league pitch, reminds you of what the soul of baseball has always been about, the raw, multifaceted hustle of athletes who refuse to be confined to a single dimension. Yet, even in this sanitized, DH-dominated era, the universe has a way of reminding us why the two-way player is the absolute, unmatched pinnacle of athletic theater. If you want to know what baseball loses when it separates pitching from hitting, look no further than Game 4 of last year's National League Championship Series. On October 17, 2025, Shohei Ohtani put on a performance so mind-bogglingly explosive it felt like a glitch in the space-time continuum, single-handedly turning a playoff game into a theater of pure bedlam. On the mound, the “Great Ohtani” was a force of nature, slicing through the Milwaukee Brewers' lineup with a devastating, 100-pitch masterclass. He racked up 10 strikeouts over six-plus scoreless, stingy innings. But it was his performance at the plate that blew the roof off Dodger Stadium and sent a jolt of raw, unfiltered adrenaline straight through the sport. In the bottom of the first, right after striking out the side on the mound, he stepped up and launched the first leadoff home run by a starting pitcher in postseason history. He wasn't done. In the fourth, he demolished a ball 469 feet over the pavilion roof, and in the seventh, he hammered his third solo blast of the night. Three swings, three home runs, and ten strikeouts. The entire sports world stopped in its tracks. The stands weren't just cheering; they were shaking. Why? Because watching a single human being carry a franchise to the World Series with both his arm and his bat is the most electrifying, heart-pounding spectacle in modern entertainment. It is the absolute peak of athletic drama. You don't get that kind of visceral excitement from a designated hitter who spends half the game sitting in the air-conditioned clubhouse playing Wordle. You only get it when the hero of the game is out there on the dirt, doing it all himself. The “Great Ohtani” is the magnificent, living proof of our manifesto. But because of the universal DH rule, he has to exist under a special loophole, a "designated hitter who also pitches." He is treated like a circus act, an anomaly, rather than what he actually is: the ultimate, thrilling evolution of what baseball used to expect from everyone who stepped onto the diamond. The universal DH might have polished the game's rough edges, giving us a few extra hits a month and a cleaner 9-hitter. But in doing so, it robbed us of the drama, the surprise, and the chess match. They optimized the game, but they forgot that sometimes, the beauty of baseball lies in its flaws, and its most legendary, exciting heroes are the ones who can do it all. Hello, and thanks for listening to my podcast For years, my mission has been to foster a community around engagement, unique takes on interesting stories, and conversation. If you value what I do, please consider supporting me. I've started a GoFundMe to cover my production and operational costs, including those pesky social media fees. 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