When and if opening day comes around this year, New York Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake anticipates a brimming bullpen.
Major League Baseball and the players’ association have talked about a compressed schedule to get in as many games as possible, which would set off a call to arms.
“I think if you have 15 guys it gives you some depth,” Blake said on Wednesday.
Photo: Kim Klement-USA TODAY
Active rosters were to expand from 25 to 26 players from opening day through Aug. 31 in exchange for the limit dropping from 40 to 28 from Sept. 1 on.
When a strike delayed the start of the 1995 season until April 25 of that year, teams were allowed 28 players through May 15.
There is talk of 28 to 30-player rosters following the shutdown caused by COVID-19 pandemic.
Photo: AP
Teams are preparing for a season that could extend into late November or even December, if domes and ballparks in warm-weather cities are used.
“Both the PA [Players Association] and the MLB are very, very adamant about playing as many games as we can this year,” Seattle pitcher Marco Gonzales said. “I think it favors everyone — the fans, the ownership group, the players. I think it’s the right thing to do, and so we’re going to probably have to get creative on how to do that. There’s been talk of doubleheaders, skipping off days here and there. There’s going to be a lot of things that we have to get creative with.”
Teams that carried nine or 10 pitchers in the 1960s and 1970s have had 13 in recent years, and even 14 for some American League games.
A new rule this season limits pitchers to 13 through August and 14 the rest of the way, but that could be tossed in a reconfigured season, as openers and perhaps six-player rotations gain prominence.
“We haven’t really mapped it out that far yet,” Blake said during a conference call from his home in Ohio. “We obviously know that our depth will be tested, as will both teams.”
MLB has delayed opening day until the middle of May at the earliest. Starting pitchers were two-to-three outings within being ready for the season.
“We’re doing everything we can to maintain kind of where we were, getting our up-and-downs and our pitch counts and all of that,” Chicago White Sox All-Star right-hander Lucas Giolito said. “Despite limited resources, we’re able to pick up a ball and throw it and change intensities and measure it out.”
“I think when it does come time for us to play again, we’ve already been communicating pretty much on a weekly basis with our coaching staff and training staff and everything like that,” Giolito added. “We’ll just kind of pick it up and kind of gauge where guys are at and make decisions from there.”
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