September Call Ups Are Silly

It’s great in theory, right? Reward kids who had great seasons in the minor leagues. Allow them to get a taste of the major leagues before they normally would have come up. Have young guys around “meaningful” September games could certainly have an impact on the rest of their career, just as 1995 Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada.

But in practice, it works terribly.

In practice, you see teams that have comically large teams. Bullpens that nearly double in size. Benches that more than double in size. And this all happens in what are supposedly the most important games of the season.

After playing a full season with relatively limited options coming out of the bullpen and only a few players to come off the bench, all of a sudden there are endless arms out of the bullpen and more bench players than you could hope for.

Now managers can carry multiple players to do nothing but pinch run. They can employ four lefties out of the bullpen rather than maybe just one. If an opposing manager brings in a lefty, there is almost certainly a righty bat on your bench to counter with.

It’s ridiculous. And it needs to stop.

I usually one to leave smarter people to come up with solutions to problems I point out, but this solution is just way too easy.

All season long, major league baseball teams play with 25 men on their roster. So in September, allow major league clubs to have 40 players in the clubhouse and in the dugout, but require the manager to name 25 players as active prior to the game.

You want to deactivate all your starters other than that day’s starting pitcher? Go for it. You want to rest a star player because he had played too much recently? Deactivate him.

This would allow teams and managers to have flexibility with their roster from day to day. It would allow teams to still carry a few extra players they couldn’t have the rest of the year without making a joke of the game and a joke of the month of September. It also still gives teams an opportunity to call up players and have young players around their big league squad for a month or so and gain the experience that front offices consider so valuable.

A win for everyone, and a solution that is too easy not to implement.