Mariners manager Scott Servais doesn’t mind having extra players on his roster, but the way teams are allowed to use their call-ups following September roster expansion bothers him, Matt Pentz of the Seattle Times writes. With more tactical options available, managers can slow the pace of games by making large numbers of substitutions. “I just think you should determine your 25-man roster before the game starts and play the game,” says Servais. “The game just changes in September, and it shouldn’t change. You play a certain way for five months and the last month, you play differently and it’s just not right.” M’s utilityman Shawn O’Malley disagrees, saying that everyday players can use the extra bit of rest reinforcements can provide. “Maybe it does take a little bit longer, but at the end of the day, what’s 20 minutes?” he says. “Any time you can give guys that are playing 159 games a year a five-inning break, it benefits them.” Here’s more from Seattle.
- The Mariners have announced that reliever Tom Wilhelmsen has been activated from the 15-day DL. The righty has missed the past two weeks due to low back spasms. For the season, Wilhelmsen has posted a 7.02 ERA, 5.7 K/9 and 3.2 BB/9 over 41 innings, but his performance has been much closer to his career norms since he returned to the Mariners organization in June after struggling in the early going with the Rangers.
- In other Mariners injury news, catcher Steve Clevenger’s season is over after the organization opted to end his rehab assignment at Double-A Jackson, Ryan Divish of the Times writes. Clevenger has experienced lingering elbow soreness. The Mariners placed him on the DL in late June with a separate injury, a hand fracture for which he had surgery. The 30-year-old Clevenger collected just 76 plate appearances in his first season in Seattle, batting .221/.303/.309 with one home run. That’s a stark contrast from the performance of Orioles slugger Mark Trumbo, for whom Seattle acquired Clevenger in a salary-shedding move. Clevenger will be eligible for arbitration after the season. With Chris Iannetta having a $4.25MM club option, the Mariners will have some decisions as they attempt to determine who, besides the hot-hitting Mike Zunino, will catch for them next season.
There should be a limit on players allowed to be used in September. Joe giradi basically makes a pitching change every batter once he gets to the seventh, that’s taking expanded rosters to the extreme
Instead of limiting rosters, what about setting a limit on how many relievers you have on game day? Teams have to set a lineup each day and come September, when rosters expand, they’d have to set their BP lineup as well. Set it at 7 or 8 per game since that’s generally what teams carry all season anyway and everyone wins. Contenders worried about taxing a BP can make their closer inactive for a game if he’s pitched the previous 2-3 days and replace him with a fresh arm. It’d be no different than what happens already in the season except teams wouldn’t have to worry about DFA or optioning players.
That’s kind of what I meant, I wasn’t really clear though. Keep 40 guys up on the big league team, and maybe have a 25 man active roster minus your 4 unavailable starters
That could work too. I like the theory behind 40 man rosters for September as its a way to keep the top contenders as fresh as possible for quality post-season okay but tweaks do need to be made to ensure that a manager can’t or shouldn’t make 4 pitching changes in a single inning.
Quality post-season *play*. God how I hate auto-correct lol
Tom has a career 2.98 era with Seattle and a 10 with Texas, maybe there really is something more to that trade. Although I highly doubt Tom purposely blew games in Texas.
Test