Nate Silver says relievers have broken baseball, and has a plan

[Guest 41Forever]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/relievers-have-broken-baseball-we-have-a-plan-to-fix-it/https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/relievers-have-broken-baseball-we-have-a-plan-to-fix-it/



Nate Silver looks at the recent discussion about requiring pitchers to stay in longer, and said it's the wrong approach. Instead, he says, you limit the number of pitchers a team can have on a roster, which will force them to pitch longer without making such a large rule change.



He says rosters could have a designated "emergency pitcher" -- who could even be a coach, if the team wanted.



Don't know if I agree with all of this, but he's always a good, thoughtful read.

[nymr83]

I really dont like artificially constraining strategy. One answer to the million relievers strategy is for a team to have a smaller staff and tons of pinch hitters. This can be accomplished in part by having a bunch of relievers with options remaining so you can shuttle them to AAA between games

[smg58]

I agree with nymr about not constraining strategy. I also think shorter benches full of players you're asking to play more positions than they should is a fad that won't last because it's not good strategy. Or at least it presently isn't for National League teams that regularly use pinch hitters.

[nymr83]

I would personally rather have more hitter platoons and less righty/lefty specialist relievers

[MFS62]

A rule to decrease the number of pitchers/ pitching changes per game would also be an argument for the DH, wouldn't it? You could keep them in games longer because you wouldn't have to pinch hit for, then replace, them.





Later

[Benjamin Grimm]

Replacing a pitcher for a pinch hitter doesn't slow the game.

[MFS62]

I was not thinking of it in terms of game time, I was thinking of it in terms of the resultant impact on roster makeup and strategy.



Later