Hey, when it's just a mustachioed muckraker on the Internets...
When u figure out the way to shoehorn 14 relievers into a game pic.twitter.com/MAIymttGcN
— Jay Jaffe (@jay_jaffe) September 8, 2015
everyone's free to ignore it.
But what about your 2015 Cy Young Award winner?
OK, so nobody's likely to listen to that guy, either.
But should they?
Of course they should. It's bad enough that the sport is bastardized every September by bloated rosters that change some fundamental things about the game. It's worse because it's happening when the kids are back in school and baseball's fighting for attention with not just homework but also football.
In his oft-updated "Hey Bill!" page, Bill James recently said he was "strongly in favor of keeping the September callup rules."
When someone responded with surprise, considering what Bill's written about the slow pace of games in this era, Bill suggested that there aren't more pitching changes in September than in the other months.
Which seemed manifestly wrong to me. And as another reader pointed out, it is wrong. From 2004 through '13, there were roughly 2.9 relievers per game from May through August, but 3.4 per game in September. And one would guess the numbers got progressively higher toward the end of that 10-year period.
Granted, half a reliever per game -- and it must be per team, per game, right? -- doesn't seem like a lot. That's only one more pitching change per game, on average. And some of those come at the start of the inning, and don't add any time to the game at all.
Still, it's about trends and perceptions, and the trend is for ever-more relief pitchers; the perception is that we're spending too much time watching managers saunter to the mound -- not to mention watching generic relievers throwing 95 -- and not enough watching players hitting and running and fielding.
A couple of weeks ago, Joe Girardi had some pointed comments about the September rosters. So did Chris Antonetti. It usually seems like there's a consensus that something should be done. But of course nothing ever is done.
Same as it ever was.
