Why do National League, Major League Pitchers have such Low Batting Averages?In Major League Baseball, the National League requires the pitchers of each team to hit in the game they are playing. Due to this rule, pitchers hit around every five games that their team plays because that is how often they pitch. Naturally, only seeing plate appearances every five to seven days will not produce a productive batting average, even if you are Alex Rodriguez. Beyond this, there is an economic rationalization. The cost and the benefits from National League pitchers being lower than average hitters can be explained in a few different but related ways.First, for a pitcher to be a decent hitter, they must practice as much if not more than they practice on their pitching. Of course, this is a cost to the pitcher and the team. Practicing more on hitting will reduce the amount of time the pitcher has to practice pitching. This result is a decrease in maintaining the skills of pitching and this also decreases the pitcher’s productivity. A pitcher’s pitching workout is designed for much less batting practice than pitching practice for a reason. Taking away from the pitchers main focus will not only hurt the pitcher but also the team itself for not having a maintained, productive pitcher on their pitching staff. Not only does practicing hitting cost the pitcher, but it also affects the team as a whole by decreasing repetitions of hitting for the position players who are actually paid for being good hitters. The time that pitchers take hitting, takes away from the practice time that the position players have to hit. This cost could be very serious because if the pitchers and the position players aren’t hitting very well, you will not have a successful hitting baseball team. Along with not being able to hit very well, the team will be losing more games. Without offense, you will not win.After all, without pitchers, there is no baseball team. It is obvious that it benefits the team to sacrifice the pitcher’s offensive production in order to have a competitive pitcher. This is especially true in today’s baseball. There is so much specialization throughout all the positions, in order to be competitive; teams must allow the pitchers to specialize in pitching. Through specialization in whatever is the cheapest to produce, a baseball team can bring all aspects together to achieve the ultimate goal, a win. The cost to baseball teams to have good pitchers that can hit is obviously too expensive because this is still true today. If there was a way to go around this issue, it would have been done by now. Would Greg Maddox be where he is today if he had focused as much on hitting as he did his pitching? It is doubtful, and the system that National League teams are using will be around for