Kansas City Royals Lose Billy Butler In World Series Vs San Francisco Giants For 3 Games
By Joel Wagler
The Kansas City Royals will lose their most accomplished hitter, Billy Butler, for three games against the San Francisco Royals in the World Series. Because the National League insists on clinging to archaic rules for no apparent reason, Billy Butler will be relegated to pinch hitter duties for the three games played in San Francisco.
The Kansas City Royals are a team built with an every day designated hitter who is a major cog in their offense. None of their pitchers have spent significant time in the National League, and it is really unfair to expect them to have any success with a bat in their hands.
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The San Francisco Giants, on the other hand, get to replace their pitchers with a real offensive player for the four games played in Kansas City. In both scenarios, the National League team gets an unfair advantage base on how their teams are put together.
Why does the National League insist on making pitchers bat? It is a ridiculous case of just plain mule-headedness. There is no reason to continue to let pitchers swing the bat.
Please, don’t throw the tired old argument out that it adds strategy to the game. Come on, any idiot with even a modicum of baseball knowledge can execute a double switch. There is no grand strategies involved in this. Get over yourselves!
Meanwhile, we have to suffer through the painful at bats of pitchers who didn’t bat in college or in the minors. For American League pitchers forced to bat in inter-league play, or the World Series, it is even dumber to have these guys hitting or trying to run the bases.
It is time for the National League modernize this awful rule.
Meanwhile, the Royals trade Billy Butler’s bat for the inexperienced sticks of pitchers who may have a handful of official plate appearances since they were teenagers. Even though Butler hasn’t had a very good season overall, and is now two full seasons away from a really productive campaign, he is still immeasurably a better option than a pitcher.
Instead, for maybe up to three games, Butler will be a high paid pinch hitter. He will surely bat in all three games, if all three are played, but it will be just for the one at bat each game. If he gets a hit, he will be lifted for a pinch runner.
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That will be it. If all three of those games are played in San Francisco, the Royals most accomplished hitter, and the Royals longest tenured player, will be relegated to a few brief moments in the limelight in the most important games of his career.
It isn’t really fair to the Royals, or to Butler, or to the fans. No one wants to watch James Shields hit instead of Billy Butler, anymore than anyone would want to see Billy Butler pitch instead of Shields.
The Royals will lose Butler’s .295 career average, 127 career doubles, and and 276 career doubles. Instead fans get to suffer through the likes of Jeremy Guthrie batting – he of the .089 batting average. Or James Shields, with his .213 batting average, and .479 OPS.
Maybe the Royals can start Jason Vargas all three games in San Francisco. Vargas has a respectable career batting average of .262, and a .608 OPS.
Regardless of how frustrating Billy Butler has been at the plate over the last two seasons, he should be batting in the World Series, not Jeremy Guthrie, or Yordano Ventura, or even Jason Vargas.
The Kansas City Royals, and baseball fans everywhere, lose out. Maybe baseball is losing out, too.