The need for roster flexibility in baseball today has seen many teams shift away from adding a pure pinch hitter.

"I think it's a lost art," Doug Melvin said. "Branch Rickey said in one of his books that pinch-hitting was overrated, because a guy in the game with three at-bats had a better chance than a guy coming off the bench cold. And it is a little bit overrated in some cases. But most of us would love to have it."

Matt Stairs, who hit the final of his 23 career pinch-hit home runs with the San Diego Padres in 2010, might have been the last of that stand-alone breed when the Washington Nationals released him in 2011.

Bench players today require the ability to play multiple positions.

"It's an evolution of the game," Buck Showalter. "I think a lot of things are going to get kind of phased out.

"That one-dimensional guy that plays really good defense or only pinch hits? You can't carry a one-dimensional guy hardly anymore. The need for more National League-type players is showing up in the American League, guys who can do a lot of things. They're valuable. And what they're getting paid has increased."