September expanded roster baseball is the absolute worst. Its not so bad when two playoff teams are competing against each other, but you are in for a long evening when the bottom dwellers are playing. The mid inning pitching changes make me cringe. Coaches love matchup baseball and if they have a bullpen full of specialists you better believe they are using them.
It continues to boggle my mind that baseball hasn't changed the roster expansion rule. The idea is to reward certain minor leaguers and to give managers some roster flexibility towards the end of the season. Today many of the call ups are more AAAA fringe major leaguers rather than prospects. These are the type of guys that usually fill up a 40 man roster spot instead of the mega prospect sitting in AA. You will see a ton of bullpen specialists, pinch runners and defensive specialists instead of high end prospects. It is so odd to have such a drastic rules change at the end of the year.
Every year a ton of articles will come out on ways to fix the roster expansion rule. Some will argue that it should just be eliminated while others think giving the manager a certain number of players that can be considered "active" for the game that day. I think I could get on board with the "active" roster.
I think this marks the third year in a row where I wrote something about roster expansions. I'll go back to screaming at clouds in the sky now.
Call-ups that don't include prospects seems a bit pointless. the Tigers have been playing double-a ball all year. with all the injuries, we've seen a lot of our minor leaguers already. none in particular that I want to see again either.
ReplyDeleteYou don't like former Pirate farmhand Jacoby Jones....
DeleteYeah, I'm not a fan of anything that slows the game down... and that includes roster expansion. Boo!
ReplyDeleteI think there should be a limit of some sort... maybe set a 25 man roster for each series? In a three game series you'll only need three starters, which would open up two roster spots for call-ups. No?
I know Bobby Cox tried to champion something similar to what you proposed for the whole season. His thought was the roster expansion should be used to help prevent injury by basically every team having a taxi squad of a couple of players that could be made "active" when needed.
DeleteIt's very odd and outdated.
ReplyDelete40 guys is bonkers
DeleteWow - did my email spark the soap box, or just pure chance?
ReplyDeletepure chance!
DeleteRoster expansions? What the heck are those? After seeing the depressing loss to the Angels the other night... the baseball season (in terms of my own two teams) is pretty much over for me. My number one concern is seeing whether or not Altuve can end the season with a .350 average and take home the AL MVP. But I'm also looking forward to seeing Kershaw back on the mound.
ReplyDeleteI'm pulling for Altuve, but holy smokes is Trout coming on strong.
DeleteI personally love it every year. Mainly because it gives me a chance to see a lot of fringe "prospects" make a short stint in the big leagues for disappearing into the ether.
ReplyDeleteI just get sick of the specialists coming up instead of the actual prospects. The Pirates left many of their prospects in the minors because all their teams were in the playoffs.
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