I agree. The designated hitter rule is odd and artificial, and so it should be discarded.
But I’m not against suggestions that will keep baseball from being a snooze-fest. Among these are:
1. Get rid of the new pitcher warm-up. When a new pitcher takes the mound, his first pitch should count.
2. Get rid of the four-pitch intentional walk. If the pitcher wants to intentionally walk a batter, the pitcher should just point to first base. No more of those four dull, wide pitches.
3. Move the pitching mound back a bit. Passes make a football game more exciting. The NFL understands this. Hits make a baseball game more exciting. MLB does not understand this.
This was already implemented in 2017.
“Get rid of the four-pitch intentional walk. “
That has already been done.
Your #2 was a rule change effective last season.
1. The new pitcher needs a few pitches to get used to the mound, where the divots are, how it plays. Every mound is different. But cut it from 8 warmups to 4, perhaps.
2. They have gotten rid of the four-pitch intentional walk. They’ve been waving players to first base for a couple of years now. (They just hold up four fingers.) If I were a hitter, I don’t think I’d like it.
3. No, the pitching distance has been the same since the 1800s. This is tampering with the long-established way the game is played. What you want to do is lower it, as they did after “The Year of the Pitcher” in 1968, when it went from 15 inches to 10. It takes some angle off the ball, reducing the movement a bit, and at any speed, straight is easier to hit.
Lowering the mound works. Drop it from 10 inches to 7, and see what happens.