If they make it so Ohtani is only a position player in the rosters, I'll honestly be pretty peeved. That just completely screws up anything after year 1 in Franchise. And it makes no sense to do; there aren't pre-existing injuries in Franchise, so Shane McLanahan is available to pitch but Ohtani isn't? It solves a problem for a pretty small amount of players and creates a problem for a larger group.
I don't think it's really a matter of taking it "seriously", personally. I think it's largely a matter of talent. There were absolutely pitchers who put no effort into hitting and were terrible. But there were pitchers who took it seriously and still weren't really great. Tom Glavine won 4 Silver Sluggers, and always seemed to take pride in his hitting, and he had a career .454 ops. There is a guy named Reggie Crawford in the Giants system who was a two-way player, including exclusively playing 1B in the AFL last year. And after having just a .600 OPS across the AFL, Single-A, and High-A last year is pivoting to focusing on pitching (though he's still going to take BP, he's not going to play 1B or DH anymore).
Even 100 years ago, pitchers had just a .519 OPS league wide, with the next lowest position being Shortstops at .680.
Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk
Comment