ORLANDO, Fla. — National League pitchers might want to hold onto their bats for a little longer.
No vote is planned at the Major League Baseball owners’ meetings on the Players Association’s grand counterproposal on pace-of-play issues that went well beyond that scope to include the integrating of the designated hitter into the National League. It is questionable whether that seismic change can occur before the current collective bargaining agreement expires in 2021. Owners and other high-ranking team officials at the meetings will be updated on the status of those talks during Friday’s general session.
The NL owners, whose team payrolls likely would increase with the addition of a DH, must sign off on such a shift, and one of them simultaneously expressed reservations and an open mind.
“I’ve never been an advocate of the DH,” Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. told The Post on Thursday, citing the strategy involved with a pitcher in the lineup, “but I do think we need to make some changes to get more action in the game.”
Baseball would like to institute a 20-second pitch clock this season — commissioner Rob Manfred can do so unilaterally because he has proposed it in past years — and also wants to force pitchers to face a minimum of three batters in an inning. With tensions between owners and players on the rise, the union responded to a proposal on those alterations by going well beyond the scope of minor pace-of-play issues, including not only the universal DH but also draft and international pool penalties for teams that repeatedly post poor records, and significant adjustments to the compilation of major league service time.
Such larger topics typically get addressed during CBA negotiations, rather than as part of a yearly tuneup. The teams must decide if they’re willing to engage on such significant matters in an atypical fashion and, if so, what they’d like from the players in return.