If and when baseball returns in July, the National League will have a slightly different look than fans are used to seeing. For the first time in the league’s 144-year history, the lineups of each of the 15 teams who play in the NL will feature a designated hitter. They will join the American League, who adopted the DH in 1973, giving Major League Baseball the universal DH for the first time.
DH in the NL was originally part of the owners’ proposal for both the 2020 and 2021 seasons, but with MLB and the MLBPA not coming to an agreement and the commissioner imposing a 60-game season instead, the DH was kept for 2020 as part of the health and safety protocols that were put in place.