While owners are locking out major league players and negotiations are bogging down, they have canceled another week of games. Here’s another idea to improve the action during a game.
Limit a team to ten pitchers on their active roster. If a pitcher is removed from the active roster, he cannot be reinstated for 30 days.
With the adoption of a universal DH, don’t allow teams to use position players as pitchers.
In recent years, major league rosters have 26 players. Most teams have carried 13 or 14 pitchers on their roster. The typical pitcher throws a fastball and slider in the 95 to 100 mph range.
At these speeds, hitters have less control over the direction of their hits, and teams can institute shifts to match a hitter’s patterns.
The arms of pitchers who throw that fast are hurt easier, limit the number of pitches, and require more rest.
By limiting a roster to only ten pitchers, players will have to learn to get outs using less velocity, more movement, and better accuracy. It will be back to those days where pitches over 90 mph were the exception. It could be the return of the knuckleball.
With reduced velocity, the time between pitches will be less as pitchers will be less prone to resting.
In 2021, it was commonplace for a major league club to use their triple-A team to expand their pitching staff. They would make roster moves daily to promote and send down pitchers. Many times a pitcher would stay at the major league level for one day at a time.
Let’s stop this practice by not letting players be recalled on the majors until 30 days after their last demotion.
These ideas would make major league managers, pitching coaches and general managers work on a plan that does not include 12 pitchers throwing the same fastball and slider combinations. They call the position “Pitcher,” not “Thrower.”