Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have agreed to extend the current 14-pitcher limit through June 19, per a league announcement. (Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported the news before the official announcement.) From June 20 onwards, teams will be limited to 13 pitchers on their active rosters.
The 13-pitcher limit was agreed to way back in the 2019-2020 offseason but has been kicked down the road several times over the past 2 1/2 years. First, the COVID-19 pandemic put the 2020 season on hold, eventually resuming with a shortened Spring Training and regular season. In response to the unusual conditions, the pitcher limit was scrapped, both for that season and the following one.
After this winter’s lockout led to yet another shortened Spring Training this year, teams were allowed expanded rosters at the beginning of the campaign. The initial plan was to implement the 13-pitcher limit on May 2, though the plans changed as that date neared. MLB and the MLBPA agreed to a 14-pitcher limit, which was planned to shrink to 13 on May 30. With that date fast approaching and many teams still dealing with strained pitching staffs, the league and union have agreed to extend the 14-pitcher rule for at least another three weeks.
At least one club is certainly happy about the news, as Tigers’ manager A.J. Hinch responded thankfully to the announcement, telling Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic “We need it.” Detroit has been arguably the most snakebit team in the league this year, as they currently have nine pitchers on the injured list, including six starters. Tarik Skubal is the only member of the Opening Day rotation that is still taking regular turns for the club.
I see a trend……..
“From June 20 onwards, teams will be limited to 13 pitchers on their active rosters.”
——-
I don’t believe them.
It does bring back memories of last March when MLB repeatedly said regular season games will be cancelled and not made up.
Not gonna beat around the bush, they lie. A lot.
They might as well just extend it through the rest of the season
Disagree. Until they stop coddling pitchers and continue to reward by overthrowing, injuries and burnouts will continue. It is boring baseball to have a just three bench players and so many pitching changes.
You know that what you call ‘coddling the pitchers’ the rest of baseball recognizes as an attempt to protect their investments and maximizing potential success.
chef – And how exactly has “protecting their investments” worked out for them?
How many pitcher injuries, especially TJS, have we seen the past few years compared to 20 years ago?
Do you think the recent emphasis on strikeouts and higher velocity pitches helps “protect their investment”?
And another thing some people fail to realize about the shorter outings of relief pitchers, they are throwing twice as many warmup pitches because of the increase in appearances.
A reliever who throws 2-3 innings once every three days would be at less risk of injury than a guy who throws 1 inning twice every three days.
Can’t believe anybody thinks today’s bullpen management actually “protects their investment”.
In 1991 49 Pitchers threw 200+ innings (Charlie Hough came .2 of an inning from making it an even 50). None of the pitchers ever had TJ surgery in their careers.
In 2001 45 Pitchers threw 200+ innings
In 2011 39
In 2021 4. If you want to even be fair and throw the shortend 2020 season in as a reason 2019 (pre-covid) only saw 15 Pitchers throw 200+ innings.
For decades pitchers threw 200-300 innings per season and they’re arms didn’t fall off. It is coddling im the sense Pitchers are being taught to throw as hard as possible, not how to actually pitch, and to basically clock out after 5 innings
how about…just don’t have a limit?
Honest question:
Wasn’t the limit introduced to 1. speed up the game by limiting pitching changes
2. To stop teams like the rays from just abandoning starters altogether
If I remember correctly the 3 batter rule was put into place at the same time wiping out the one batter specialized lefty reliever.
If that is all true than a limit is coming at some point to reinforce the pace of play agenda that MLB refuses to abandon. The dumbest one was the no pitch intentional walk, how much time does that actually save anyway? And it takes away the random wild pitch on one that blows the ball game, which I personally, liked to see on occasion…
If watching a pitcher having to throw four pitches for an intentional walk excites you, we watch baseball for very different reasons.
I agree with dirty Mike. The reason for lengthy games has nothing to do with intentional walks. Please though get rid of the stupid 2B runner in the 10th inning.
No limits to gameday rosters would solve all these problems.
Make it permanent through the regular season.
MLB is sure falling in love with enacting uneccesarily complicated and arbitrary rules.
Here’s a novel idea… why not let teams construct their rosters the way they want to? You’re not really speeding up the game any with these limits anyway.
Get that sound thinking the hell out of here.
@clr. I agree 100%.
How about 28 man rosters with 15 pitchers? I guess owners are unlikely to go for that as it adds another $1.5M to the payroll and the owners have been telling us for years that they cannot afford to increase payroll.
As long as find new TV partners willing to prop them up… the financial base of the game remains strong enough.
You better let me have as many pitchers as I need after screwing with their spring trainings multiple years outta the past 3
In- Friggin -Deed HRipper
Love the old school guys in here yelling at the clouds
Just have 30 man roster. 18 pitchers ⚾️
Coming June 20, The Return of the Juiced Balls.
Last Saturday, 28 teams played fifteen games (one doubleheader and one game was cancelled.). Of the 270 players who started in the batting order, 44 finished the day below the Mendoza line. That is more than 16%. (I did not include the SF catcher in my count as he had only seven ABs so far). Wasn’t always this bad. This is the worst offensive year in more than a decade. At least we can’t blame it on pitchers batting.
You kidding me? What happened to the 9 or 10 pitcher staff which was customary for most of MLB existence? I hate analytics. Made the game boring and too long
Bowadoyle—I could not agree with you more:
How about this—change the limit to 11 and mandate that four of the eleven must be the four that most recently started and pitched at least 5 or 6 full innings.
This is what is ruining baseball and has turned it into a three outcome game. Getting a new pitcher in the fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth inning all throwing 95+ is making the game unwatchable. And with 14 pitchers on the roster it’s easy to not have to manage the pen closely because even with the parade out to the mound you have four or five guys that didn’t pitch the day before.
Let’s get back to the day when it was common for a starter to go 6+ with 100 pitches.
They’ve basically eliminated almost any game going past 11 innings—you don’t need 14 pitchers.
I love analytics, but I hate that there’s been no adjustments to help the batter. Pitching and defense improving at a drastic pace. Hitters are just trying to hit more home runs, which isn’t so much an advancement, as it is a change in philosophy.
Something as simple as enlarging the bases would lead to more base hits and steals.
With 6 man rotations this is almost a necessity
Here’s an idea: After the sixth inning, there has to be one pinch hitter every inning. That way, you’ll need at least 3 hitters on your bench. More strategy. Yummy.
In extra innings, the batting team decides on how many runners get put on base, first, first and second, bases loaded. Then the team in the field adds that many players to their defense. Yummy.
At this point just scrap the 13 Pitcher rule. It’s been in place for three seasons now and is yet to actually be used.
Or up the roster size to 28. Unfortunately todays modern game is designed for starting to pitchers to go 5 innings (if they’re lucky) and the bullpen to carry the rest. Since teams won’t leave pitchers out to take a shellaking in a blowout game like back in the day 8 relievers are apparently never going to be enough
Now get rid of the Manfred runner
How quickly we forget……Manfred DID get rid of the runner in the tenth and reinstated the previous rules…the PLAYER’S UNION brought it back.