The Reds & and the new DH debate

[AtomicDumpling]

Originally Posted by dougdirt

Young players don't get $15M a year. Old guys do. Every league in this country is set up to pay old guys and not young guys. They all set it up that way because they (the old guys) are the ones running the players associations. They know it keeps them in the leagues longer.

It isn't that having the DH that gives them the advantage though. It is the fact that they can add talent that NL teams simply can't in free agency. They can sign first basemen and left fielders and third basemen that are going to likely decline out of defensive values but can hit very well still and use them in their early 30's at those positions still, before transitioning them to DH later. NL teams can't do that, so they just don't wind up signing some of those guys and miss out on the still very producing early 30's part of their careers because they just couldn't risk the mid and late 30's part where they would still have to play defense with those guys.

That is beside the point. The point is that having a DH doesn't increase the pool of money a team can spend. If the National League were to add the designated hitter it doesn't give the Reds an extra $15 million to spend right? So how does adding the DH give the players more money? It doesn't. It only changes how that money is distributed. More money going to a DH means less money going to a pitcher. The players' association doesn't care if the money goes to player A or player B, what they want is to maximize the total amount of money given to players -- and the DH doesn't change that one bit. The number of major league jobs and the total amount of money paid to players is unaffected by whether the DH is used or not, therefore the players' association is not going to take one side over the other.