[z28jd]

Originally Posted by sycks22

People are talking about how much easier it is to be just a DH instead of playing the field. I would argue that playing the field keeps many player's minds in the game, case in point what happened to Adam Dunn this year? He hits 40 bombs / year when he's in the OF, but once he DH's he loses focus and hits .170 something. Also my favorite player Frank "The big hurt" Thomas was a much better hitter when he was playing 1B (back to back MVPs) than he was later in his career as a DH. Staying warm and focused for the 30-45 minutes between at bats is not to be over looked. What do you guys think about Thome? He's DHed for the last 7-8 years for the most part.

In the case of Thome, Thomas and especially Martinez, the position is considered easier for them because there is no way they could've taken the grind of playing the field added on to their time as a hitter. Martinez was injured in 1993, he never fully recovered from that, there is no way he plays another 1500 career games if he has to play the field too so even if he somehow hit just as well playing through the pain the overall stats he amassed would most certainly be worse. Without the DH he may not have made it through the 2000 season. Martinez was pretty bad in 1993 when he first got injured and nothing great in 1994 but as soon as he moved off the astroturf and onto the bench in 1995, he was still battling nagging injuries but was able to play almost everyday anyway and he excelled at the plate.

Thome actually played almost 1000 more games in the field than Martinez so really the only thing you can say about him is it is highly doubtful he would've reached 600 homers without the DH rule. Thomas played about 400 more games in the field than Martinez so his numbers are padded by the DH but he put up no doubt hall of fame numbers so even if you factor in the DH there shouldn't be any question with him making it