Fixing The Game Of Baseball

First, I agree wholeheartedly with the absurd specialization of the game. There is no reason to take out an effective starter to bring in a lousy reliever with a better match-up. As a diehard Mets fan, I used to cring every time Aaron Heilman was up in the bullpen because he was facing a right-handed batter, while a perfectly suitable Johan Santana is removed from the game. Very frustrating. Additionally, the idea of the "relief ace" - that your best reliever shouldn't be closing, but should come in in the high-leverage situations - is perfect.

However, I disagree with comparing pitchers now to pitchers of past eras. Pitchers are simply too expensive of an investment to be pitched on short rest, not becuase of decreased performance, but rather becuase being tired leads to poor mechanics, which could lead to injury. This was the original reason for the advent of the 100-pitch limit, though it is abused now.

One must also consider the differences from the past, in terms of batters. What #7 hitter in 1985 hit more than 10 HRs in a year? Today, every player has power, bat-speed, and the ability to hit to all fields. In the past, as Orel Hershiser said in an interview, you could "take off" the 7-8-9 batters in the NL. Today, even the pitcher can hit a HR off of a meatball.

And don't discount the effects of the slider, as pitch that brutalizes arms but is in every major-leaguers arsenal. Did this pitch even exist in the 80s?

Pitchers or capital investments, they are still underutilized. The addition of pitch count limits to the five man rotation has lopped fifty innings a year off all the best pitchers, and there is no evidence that such a reduction is necessary.

The bulk of the arm twisting pitches have been around longer than this problem, including the slider. The hitting resurgence is a combination of the Charley Lau top hand style and the unwillingness of umpires to allow pitchers to bust hitters off the inside part of the plate. In the interests of avoiding fights (which it has) they have allowed batters to use the top hand swing freely on inside and outside pitches.

This last part, along with not calling chest high pitches (Gooden would have walked 100 batters in 1984)forces more hard breaking stuff.

If the steroid era did not force rule changes toward the pitcher, I don't know what will.