Over at Baseball Musings David Pinto has a post about the DH. It's interesting, but he hits on a point I don't understand.
Now before I ask my question, please note: I'm a baseball fan, I did my time in little league, and I follow the Red Sox pretty closely. However, I'm not a fanatic. I don't memorize stats and my knowledge of players is limited to my team and a few of their closest competitors. Please don't hurt me.
My question: David says "Notice that the DH for the years in question is less offensively valued than the first baseman, the rightfielder and the leftfielder. DHs should be doing at least as well as the first basemen." What determines how well a first baseman should be doing offensively? If a manager can arrange the batting order however he likes, then shouldn't it be more like "Notice that the DH for the years in question is less offensively valued than the third batter, the fourth batter and the eight batter."?
The only thing I can come up with is that because the first baseman doesn't do much throwing (whereas an outfielder might be expected to be able to reach the plate for a tag out at home) their size and physique is a little different. Can someone explain this to me?
I assumed people knew about the defensive spectrum. The spectrum looks like this:
P SS C 2B CF 3B RF LF 1B DH
Basically, the farther left you are on the spectrum, the more defense matters and the less offense matters. At the other end, offense is much more important than defense, because they are easier positions to play. The DH, with no defensive responsibilities, should be the best offensive player on the team. Based on OPS, he's not. I should have made this clear, and I'll add an update to do so.
Thanks for the clarification David. It makes perfect sense. I went back and read the clarification and it looks like I have a new book to add to my list: the Bill James Abstract.