Baseball purists can breathe a sigh of relief.
Sources told USA Today Sports that Major League Baseball has no plans to implement a universal designated hitter for the 2019 season. The news broke today after the completion of the owners’ meetings in Orlando, Fla.
“It’s not happening during this CBA,” an anonymous source told USA Today Sports.
The news no doubt will comfort a great deal of National League fans, many of whom were concerned that the DH would be adopted for the first time in the senior circuit. The American League has had the DH since Opening Day in 1973.
The current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires on Dec. 1, 2021, making it unlikely that the NL would adopt the DH prior to the 2022 season.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred spoke at the end of the owner’s meeting and commented that the focus in 2019 will be on pace-of-game changes rather than more “complicated” issues such as the DH. He said that he was encouraged by the players’ association’s willingness to listen to ideas that would speed up the game such as adding a 20-second pitch clock or requiring pitchers to face at least three batters. Manfred is able to impose a pitch clock without the players’ association’s consent because the idea was proposed last year.
“I think we are at a point where we have a dialogue going with the players’ association — a dialogue that we’ve been looking to have — and I’m hopeful that we will continue the process of change, in terms of inducing additional action in the game, improving the pace of game,” Manfred told Pedro Gomez of ESPN. “But in terms of precise changes, it’s just impossible for me to predict at this point in the process.”
With regard to adopting a universal designated hitter and other major changes in baseball, such as changes to the amateur draft, Manfred said in his press conference, “Those are significant economic issues. They are different than the type of playing rule changes that we have out there. We will engage on these issues, but they came with a much broader agenda.”
Baseball could face some rocky roads ahead. With the suggestion that owners are colluding against major free-agent signings and with proposals for significant rule changes, the next set of negotiations between management and the players’ association should be contentious. Some baseball experts are already predicting a strike.
However, there are still three seasons to play before the CBA expires. It is a pretty safe bet that the designated hitter proposal for the National League will be shelved until the end of the 2021 season along with other major rule proposals.
