A bombshell headline hit the news as ESPN reported on Thursday morning that Major League Baseball is considering a number of rule changes to encourage teams to keep starting pitchers in the game longer. One potential addition down the line would be a six-inning minimum, with exceptions, for starters — a drastic limit on substitutions that the game has never seen before.
The rumor reached some members of the Phillies, a team led by its starting rotation for much of this season, by Thursday afternoon. Carlos Estévez showed Tyler Phillips, a rookie starter in Philadelphia to eat up innings as Ranger Suárez recovers from a sore back, the report in the clubhouse before the pitchers headed out to the field at Citizens Bank Park for a workout.
Phillips didn’t have much of a take on the six-inning minimum. “I just know that whatever happens in baseball,” he said, “I have to find a way to adjust to it.”
Such is life as a major leaguer, but this specific rule would be a seismic shift if implemented. MLB has added a three-batter minimum for pitchers and a pitch clock in recent years in an effort to improve pace of play and watchability. However, a rule forcing starters to throw six innings — except in certain instances such as a pitcher reaching 100 pitches, allowing four or more earned runs or suffering an injury — would possibly be the biggest change to strategy and play of them all.
Phillies manager Rob Thomson expressed his concern for potential injuries among starting pitchers if the rule was put in place.
“I think you’d be putting a lot of people in harm’s way,” he said.
The thought is that pitchers could be put in vulnerable situations if required to extend their outings after stressful early goings or if they must continue to pitch when they just don’t quite have it on the mound. Reliever Matt Strahm — who hadn’t yet seen the report but said he’s “always got an opinion” — echoed a similar stance on the risks that could be associated with the six-inning requirement.
“The taxation on the body throwing the baseball, I think it’s hard to say you need to do ‘X’ number,” Strahm said. “I think we’re getting into a dangerous category there with telling a starter he has to give max effort for this long. You’ll see managers now in the fourth, fifth inning start checking on their starters, asking if they’re good and all that. I just think there’s better ways to go about it than mandating six innings.”
Of course, just about every starting pitcher wants to go deep into the game. But there are real reasons that clubs don’t have them do it anymore. The numbers show that starters tend to be less effective as they face the lineup a third and fourth time through the order, and teams don’t want to put themselves at a disadvantage — even if more pitching changes might not be as appealing to the viewers.
Still, this year’s Phillies have shown that there is still value in having a group of starters that can perform better in bulk compared to the rest of the league. Their starters lead the National League in innings pitched (688 2/3) and ERA (3.52). Philadelphia has four complete games this season, all shutouts. Both totals are the best in the majors.
Right-hander Aaron Nola, a 10-year Phillie, said he’s glad he entered the league at a time when he could develop his stamina as a young pitcher. He’s in favor of starters going deeper into games than they’re typically allowed to these days, but he believes that should be encouraged by teams instead of mandated by the commissioner.
“I think, if you want guys to throw six innings, that should be on the player,” Nola said. “And I think a lot of players want to do that. They want to throw deep in the game. This is the major leagues; I would assume a lot of starters want to do that. But I don’t think it should be made a rule.”
Pitchers would have to train differently to handle the increased workload, starting in the lowest levels of affiliated baseball. Minor-league pitchers are often eased into their professional careers with extra days of rest and limits on pitch counts and total innings in a season. Starter Taijuan Walker saw some of that up close recently as he worked his way back from the injured list with two rehab starts for Double-A Reading.
“I love going deep into the game … but I feel like (the rule) would be kind of tough to do,” he said. “And if they did do it, you’d have to change the whole preparation and everything in the minor leagues too, because I feel like there’s a lot of restrictions in the minor leagues for starters.”
Strahm also noted some potential day-to-day logistical questions that could arise if a six-inning minimum was adopted. What happens if a scheduled starting pitcher wakes up with a sore back? That scenario wouldn’t necessarily require a stint on the injured list, but it could leave a team without a starter available to throw six innings or 100 pitches in that game. It might not be realistic to expect each team to have a member of the bullpen capable of throwing so deep on a given day when he wouldn’t be pitching at that volume with regularity.
There are certainly reasons for MLB, fans and even players to want starters to go deeper into games. The role of the starting pitcher has diminished, and it’s had consequences on the viewing experience. But this major rule change would not fix all the issues, especially not immediately, and could create new ones. Maybe the concerns make it unlikely to become a reality. If the league hopes to make this happen, MLB would have questions to answer to ensure that a six-inning minimum is healthy for the sport and its pitchers.
“There’s a lot of different variables they’d have to figure out, and they’ve put out very few things about it,” Walker said. “I don’t think it’s going to work. I don’t think it’s going to stick. But who knows?”
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