Email a copy of 'Player's Perspective: September Roster Expansion' to a friend
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By Ryan Spilborghs | at
Email a copy of 'Player's Perspective: September Roster Expansion' to a friend
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houseoflords44
First, it wasn’t just teams that were out of contention that were using a ton of players. The Mets had a game against the Phillies where they used 10 pitchers. The Nationals had 39 players in September. Second, I think there is a compromise here. Teams will still be allowed to bring up the same amount of players, but only dress 30 players in a game. Make a rule that no more than 3 of those players can be pitchers. That way, it gives teams a chance to have a few more players to take a look at, but at the same time, keeps the number of players to a minimum and prevents a team from using too many pitchers in a game
Blue_Painted_Dreams_LA
That still wouldn’t necessarily change anything just because you can sit three SP who wouldn’t have throw anyway. So if you have a reg staff of thirteen plus add 3 relievers as you suggested then you still have an excess of 6 more relievers. Or the easier way to think 11 active relievers with two sp.
jd396
Yeah, it’s way too easy to abuse a limitation like that by having a bottomless bullpen.
pustule bosey
Limiting pitchers doesn’t make sense, look at a team like the giants who normally carries anywhere from 2-4 additional pitchers on the 25 man roster compared to most teams- limiting the number of pitchers just handcuffs a manager’s options and in the end forces teams to compete for the same resources since the build of the team has to be the same
RoadRunner1938
Nothing should change, this new commissioner is going to screw up baseball like Bud did! Example making the All-Star game count BS
BoldyMinnesota
The story says players hate September call ups, most fans don’t like them, and some managers don’t like them. Change is always needed. If you think things should be left just because it’s how it’s always been done, you’ll quickly be left in the past
A'sfaninUK
Yeah, I don’t mind September callups, but as a fan I loathe the unbalanced schedule and interleague play and the ASG “counting”.
“If you think things should be left just because it’s how it’s always been done, you’ll quickly be left in the past” – fantastic quote!!!
pustule bosey
I am with you, the unbalanced schedule is terrible – I really think they need to:
+decrease the number of in division games – there are like 6 series’ in division with each team
+increase the number of interleague games and not limit to one division per season
+manage the schedule so that teams get a days off with more regularity, some teams end up playing for like a month straight and then having a bunch of days off the following month which totally screws with the routine that players need
+either eliminate 2 game series’ and 4 game series’ or designate them with some kind of sense: eg: all interleague is 2 game series”, 4 game seies’ only happen the first or last month of the season
and yeah, kill the ASG mattering for home field advantage – it is counter intuitive that the previous year’s players’ current performance should decide the current year’s advantage, especially when there have been no repeats in forever in the WS
takeyourbase
Agreed on all your points.
Rbase
‘However, if you were to survey coaches and players about September baseball, most will say they hate it.’
So, what are the odds that it will be changed next season? It seems like it is a priority for the players to have this rule altered in such a way that they don’t feel they are up against unfair competition. Maybe expending the rosters to 30 players instead of all 40 will help to solve some of the issues which are described in this article.
krillin
Thanks for the article Ryan!
bbgods
After reading a lot of proposals, I would like to see a roster increase to 27 all season, along with a three player taxi squad all season. Early in the season, it can be used for veterans such as a third catcher. During the season, it can change to suit the situation.
And after the minor league season is over, it can be used for top prospects.
Each series, the manager selects 27 players who are active. Nothing changes in September except the composition of the taxi squad if desired.
Dookie Howser, MD
Question for Ryan:
Does Jeff Francis know who Dustin Pedroia is yet?
BoldyMinnesota
He’s a guy who tries to check swing but ends game 1 of the Alds striking out?
Jokes
TheMichigan
Man they got Ryan Spilborghs to write this? Sweet
Steve Adams
It’s the second piece Ryan has written for us. We’re happy to have both him and Burke Badenhop writing occasional columns for us and hopeful that we can continue to get some other recently retired players to share their experiences. If you’re curious to check out the others, you can find them all under the “Player’s Perspective” tag:
mlbtraderumors.com/players-perspective
Caldwell 2
Great work, Spilly, and huge props to MLBTR for getting more former players to voice their opinions and tell their stories.
Personally, I think it’d be pretty difficult to put a rule in place that deals with all this because almost anything is susceptible to loopholes. The only thing I could think of to effectively limit pitching changes is a hard cap on the amount of pitching changes a team can make per game, but that wouldn’t work for a number of reasons.
Dookie Howser, MD
Somebody on here recently had a really good suggestion to deal with the expanded September rosters: Before each game, together with the lineup card, the manager would also submit a “bullpen card” which would have a smaller subset of the pitchers on the active roster whowould be eligible to pitch that game (I think the original suggestion was 7, but the number isn’t really important right now). Only these guys could pitch in that game, unless it went into extra innings, then you can start using your other pitchers. This would limit the number of pitching changes per game, while also having the benefit of the larger bullpen to rest up some arms on a day-to-day basis late in the season and having the young guys get to experience the big league clubhouse and not have to be shuttled in and out, up and down. The bullpen guys would also know ahead of time when they can expect to be “off” or “on-call” almost like starters, so their routine wouldn’t be totally off.
del4rel
logged in just to say thanks because these articles are awesome to read. nice to finally get an unfiltered player’s perspective.