You are still failing to see the other side.

Yes, hitter will light up other scrub pitchers like a tree, hence their CURRENT REAL LEAGUE averages, but WHY do you expect the hitters to hit their average in our league with its superior pitching?

Think for a minute.... BY THE SAME TOKEN these same hitters aren't going to face the scrubs. They are going to be facing better pitching, so why doesn't their average suffer?

Maybe you are having trouble shifting your point of view.

Let me put it this way...

Take Ken Griffey Jr and look at his stats from last year.

Now, take ALL the pitchers in the American League, and make the WORST 50 pitchers DISAPPEAR. (5 teams - 10 per staff). So Ken Griffey NEVER faces the 50 worst pitchers in the American League.

Now replay that year.

Do you think that Ken Griffey Jr will:

1) Bat Significantly higher than his previous average?
2) Bat the same average?
3) Bat lower than his previous average?

I hope this will help everyone see what I'm trying to say. I don't understand why everyone is so offensive minded.

Baseball is a pitchers game. No one player controls the flow of the game like a pitcher. When a pitcher is hot (even a garbage pitcher) he can shut the best team down. And when a pitcher is off, even the worst team can beat him.

If people are still hung up on hitting, then look at where St. Louis ended up in the standings last year, and then look at how the Atlanta Braves faired over the 90's with moderate hitting.

Now, I'm not saying that the game should be re-worked to favor pitching... far from it... but what I am saying is that I don't understand this constant repetition of the statement "we are in a smaller league with better hitting, pitching will suffer." In my mind, with a 50-50 split between pitcher/batter, the OVERALL average should STILL be in-line with the major league totals, not 15% in favor of the hitter.

R