ARLINGTON, Texas — Major League Baseball would consider limiting 26-man rosters to 12 pitchers after 2024 in an attempt to incentivize teams to prioritize starting pitching, commissioner Rob Manfred said Friday before Game 1 of the World Series.
“Historically, starting pitchers have been some of the biggest stars in the game, and the way that pitching is being used right now has caused a diminution of the star quality for some of our starters,” he told a small group of writers. He added, “I think that there’s a lot of fans who feel like the change from ‘Let’s see what today’s pitching matchup is’ to ‘Who’s the opener today?’ has not been positive.”
Starting pitchers were responsible for 67.84% of innings in 1998; beginning in 2016, that figure has dropped nearly every year. It sat at 57.94% in ’19, at which point the league intended to limit rostered pitchers to 13 to encourage teams to use each pitcher for longer. It delayed the implementation of that rule until ’22 because of the pandemic, but there has been little improvement: Starters accounted for 57.98% of innings this year.
