Pinch Hitters in 2019:
Mets: .211 BA
Dodgers: .230 BA
The pirates led the NL with .319 PH BA.
So, in 2019, the Mets and Dodgers saw a marginal increase in chance of getting a hit when pinch hitting for a pitcher, and Pitt, the team that did it the most successfully likely didn’t win or lose any more games due to their strategy.
Piggybacking off this, I looked up "Wins Above Avg by Position." The top 5 teams for PH were:
- LAD (1.0)
- MIN (0.6)
- HOU (0.4)
- NYY (0.4)
- TBR (0.2)
Number 6 on the list is OAK, whose PH were worth -0.2 wins above average last year.
The vast majority of teams, and every NL team but the Dodgers, lost value with pinch hitters.
How about the DH position?
- MIN (2.9)
- HOU (2.8)
- TBR (1.0)
- LAA (0.8)
- KCR (0.4)
At 6 is BOS with 0.3, then LAD, MIL, TEX, ATL are tied with 0.1, then MIA, PIT, CIN, CHC, WSN, NYM are all at 0.0 before you start getting to negative values. And you have to go all the way down to 26 (BAL) before you get above -1.