I keep waiting for the other Thome to drop in the White Sox DH Saga, so, among other reasons, I've kept quiet on the whole Sox-Need-A-DH discussion. I mean, what do you need to add aside from, "Duh, this ain't the NL." One look at the NL record vs. the AL in interleague should tell you what happens when you try to play baseball a batter short.
Well now, reading the twitter instead of hoping for Kanye to make the Haiti telethon a relevant pop-culture moment, I see that Kenny seems to think that the Sox DH-by-committee is similar to the approach the Angels have used in their recent domination of the AL West, which, you know, hasn't exactly had a second team since Mulder, Hudson, and Zito left the AL.
So let's take a look at the Angels DH's over the last three (arbitrary) years. Click years for full split breakdown
2009: Some guy named Vlad takes nearly 400 PAs at DH. Nobody else makes 75 appearances. Result: .296/.348./469
2008: Vlad and Garrett Anderson largely split duties, with others taking remaining 200 PA. Result: .271/.330/.437
2007: Vlad and Shea Hillenbrand split 360 PA, with others taking up remaining 300 PA Result: .257/.315/.391
Without question, the best result is from the year the Angels only said they had a DH by committee, giving Vlad the bulk of the work. In '08 things worked out alright, essentially getting league average DH output, but they weren't in any hurry to bring back the floundering Anderson. '07 is just an outright disaster.
Which category do you think a crew which features Omar Vizquel, Mark Kotsay, and the bloated corpse of Andruw Jones getting the lion's share of the reps will fall into?