OMFG, Bud Selig! Move the All-star game to Wednesday!
A very quick post, because I’m the worst blogger ever.
Last night’s all-star game nearly either saw position players pitch, or nearly ended in the second tie this decade. People are proposing all kinds of rule changes to prevent such a future occurrence, or berating pitchers, managers, training staffs, and general managers for making their all-star pitchers unavailable. (Since it’s completely unreasonable that teams investing millions of dollars into these pitchers would want to avoid an injury in an exhibition, even one with some minimal reward.)
The problem is that several pitchers threw over 100 pitches in games that actually do count in the standings, and therefore were unavailable for no more than an emergency inning, as they had only a single day’s rest before Tuesday night. I think the solution is simple, with some acquiescence by Fox: move the game to Wednesday. That way every pitcher will have had a minimum of two days’ rest, and would, in all but the rarest of circumstances, be available for at least two innings in the game.
I grant that more conservative usage of pitchers would also help — Cliff Lee hadn’t pitched since Friday, and certainly could have thrown more than two innings, for example — but if we’re going to suppose that no pitcher can throw more than two innings, and you have four starters who are now limited to one inning because they pitched too recently, as well as three relievers who really shouldn’t throw more than an inning, because they’re not accustomed to throwing more, you’ve knocked yourself down to a max of 17 innings, assuming that you use everyone else for the full two innings they might be available. If you can bump those four starters up to two innings, because you’ve moved the game back a day, you’re now at a max of 21 innings, and no general managers debating whether to sue either the manager or Bud Selig. No one plans their vacations around the all-star game (unless you’re going to the woods, and you want to pick a time when you won’t miss anything important on TV,) so people won’t mind the switch to Wednesday, especially if it saves them having Joe Buck and Tim McCarver delighting in the possibility of another tie.
Tags: all-star game, Baseball, bud selig
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