Rob Manfred was asked about relief pitcher use slowing down the game. His response was that the league has been thinking about ways to limit relievers, and I found this interesting:
“You know the problem with relief pitchers is that they’re so good. I’ve got nothing against relief pitchers, but they do two things to the game: The pitching changes themselves slow the game down, and our relief pitchers have become so dominant at the back end that they actually rob action out of the end of the game, the last few innings of the game. So relief pitchers is a topic that is under active consideration. We’re talking about that a lot internally.”
Bullpen use echoes bullpen use I saw playing Strat-O-Matic baseball in the 1980s. A number of the more successful players I saw would concentrate on building a lights out bullpen, then start using them as soon as they could. It made it difficult to generate any offense in the late innings against these pitchers.
It’s a great strategy for MLB teams, because relievers are relatively cheap, especially compared to position players and starters. What may fix this problem in the long term is the realization that these pitchers are valuable. If seventh inning setup men start demanding $20 million a year, I suspect the use of seventh inning setup men will go down. Either that, or set a roster limit of 10 pitchers, and prevent quick trips to the minors.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2a3ce8x
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