Position
ited to the biggest rebuilders. Every team save for the Mets – who trot out five starting pitchers capable of going deep into games – has deployed a position player on the mound. Even the otherwise indomitable Dodgers and Astros have combined for seven appearances.
“There’s probably less stigma to it now, and when a game gets out of hand, there’s more a thought of, let’s preserve for tomorrow,” says Brewers manager Craig Counsell.
The largest single-season leap in position player appearances came between 2017 (36 instances) and 2018 (65). During 2018, the Rays pioneered use of the “opener,” in which a reliever starts the game and hands off to a more traditional starter, who avoids facing the top of the lineup at the start of his outing.
Counsell’s Brewers were among the teams to mimic the strategy last season, including in the playoffs, and more than half of major league clubs have used some form of it this year.
“Bullpens in general are – I hesitate to say overworked, because that’s our job – but relied on very heavily,” says Nationals closer Sean Doolittle, who landed on the injured list this week after appearing in 54 games.
A predictable outcome
It’s fair to say teams saw this coming. The Angels tried developing two twoway players in infielder Kaleb Cowart and first baseman Jared Walsh; they eventually traded Cowart to Seattle, while Walsh has made four pitching appearances this year. The Padres attempted a similar gambit with backup catcher Christian Bethancourt in 2018.
Nowadays, the eight- or nine-man bullpen is common, leaving just three or four bench spots for position players. Still, they end up on the mound, producing no shortage of oddities this season.
Nationals second baseman Brian Dozier gave up two home runs as a pitcher – and hit a home run off a position player, Milwaukee’s Hernan Perez.
A Dodgers-Marlins game last week ended with two catchers closing the game: Bryan Holaday for the Marlins and Russell Martin, making his second appearance of the year, “saving” the Dodgers’ 15-2 victory.
Padres second baseman Ian Kinsler pitched a scoreless top of the ninth of a 10-2 game against Tampa Bay and homered in the bottom half of the inning, the first San Diego “pitcher” to hit a ninth-inning home run.
“That was totally unexpected,” Orioles outfielder Stevie Wilkerson said of the outpouring of love after he became the first position player to record a save, in a 16-inning win in Anaheim against the Angels on July 26. “I don’t think, after the first time I was asked to go pitch, anyone would’ve thought I’d get that save opportunity a few weeks after.”
Wilkerson made his major league debut last year, has 10 home runs this season and at 27 is a little younger than the typical emergency fireman. He says it doesn’t hurt his pride that the Orioles have designated him their wear-it man for the late innings and that it’s almost impossible he’d hurt himself.
“I’ve never been sore from it,” says Wilkerson, who has retired 16 of the 22 batters he’s faced this season and given up one home run. “Throwing up those 55-mph cheeseburgers doesn’t take too much toll on the body.”
Indeed, lack of velocity is the position player’s best friend: both to disrupt hitters’ timing and to position themselves to avoid injury.
“I was a little scared because I don’t want to get a line drive right to my face,” Orioles infielder Hanser Alberto said of his seven-batter foray against the Yankees. “I can get the hitters off balance. Slower is a little harder for them to hit.”
For the most part. Alberto did yield a home run to Brett Gardner but retired sluggers Gleyber Torres and Gary Sanchez, who had already homered twice in that game.
Throwing in the towel
The Yankees ravaged the Orioles this season, winning 17 of 19 games, including the last 16. A day after completing a four-game sweep of Baltimore last week, the Yankees were blown out 19-5 by the Indians.
New York started that game with an opener gone bad – Chad Green gave up five runs and recorded just one out – and ended it with first baseman Mike Ford throwing 42 pitches and absorbing the last two innings.
Manager Aaron Boone caused a stir by suggesting baseball might be better served with a mercy rule. Preposterous?
“I don’t think it’s an awful idea,” says Counsell. “I really don’t. You have to put a number of innings on it to make sure it’s handled right. I wouldn’t make liberal use of it; it has to be pretty specific. But when it’s a 19-5 game, I think everybody is in agreement we don’t need the ninth inning.”
That’s not a universal opinion. “No, I don’t feel like we’re Little Leaguers,” Brewers reliever Jeremy Jeffress says. “Play the game.”
There will be rules changes in 2020: A 26th man added to the roster from April through August, a cap on the number of pitchers teams can carry and a ban on position players pitching in regulation when the winning team leads by fewer than seven runs.
That would have cut this year’s total by seven, so the trend will hardly succumb to rules changes, at least for now.