Via BBTF, Ryan Spilborghs makes suggestions for keeping players healthy:
The other part of expanding the roster is wanting baseball to have a maximum game rule, my suggestion is no player can start more than 146 games in a season, and cannot play more than 10 consecutive games without a mandatory day off (I don’t count a scheduled off day as end of a succession). It doesn’t mean player can’t be used in game he doesn’t start. He can pinch hit, and I would go so far as saying not able to play more than 5 innings on games he had mandatory no start unless game goes extra innings then there is no rule. I’m sure many players who want or like to play everyday will squawk, that they want to play everyday, but it’s like the parent who knows when it’s time for kid to go to bed, or the friend that takes that extra tequila shot out of your hand. There is a bigger picture and in the long run (and morning after) they will be grateful.
It would be really tough to set records with those restrictions.
Teams in pennant races would have to be crafty about resting guys, too.
Are you kidding me?
You want to pay full price for tickets when stars are not playing?
Take care of your body & playing 155 games a year is not that hard.
Eat better,get your sleep & you can accomplish being ready to play daily.
Heck,there are hardly any double headers these days.
‘It would be really tough to set records with those restrictions.’
… especially records for consecutive games played.
To me, this looks like a solution in search of a problem. Is there any evidence of players getting hurt because they are starting too many games a season or too many games in a row, or on too many days that weren’t already scheduled as off days?
Seriously????????
Spilborghs and Jim Tracy are channeling….scary stuff
I have a feeling that the same owners who would object to reducing the schedule by twenty or so games a year would also object to paying their best players two or three million dollars a year for mandatory sitting on their posteriors. Memo to Mr. Spilborghs–thanks, but baseball is an American game: we don’t want to see it played under French labor law.
I did like the idea of expanding the roster, though–the recent expansion of pitching staffs has left benches very thin, and a return to normal sized position benches might provide some useful rest to the starting players in the normal course of the game (the other option that might serve a similar function would be to limit the number of pitchers on the twenty-five man roster to ten or eleven, which would more or less eliminate the use of spot relievers and speed up the late innings as well as leaving room for a normal sized bench).
How many players even started 146 games last year. Where would you find this?.
89 played 146 games but I am sure many did not start that many.
Also, as mentioned above, where is the proof that playing time causes injures. I can see coming off the bench to be more likely in causing an injury due to lack of warm up time.