MLB: Scott Boras disagrees with idea to limit relief pitcher appearances

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred floated the idea of putting limits on the use of relief pitchers this week, but the game’s top agent is staunchly opposed.

Count agent Scott Boras among those who aren’t fans of MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred’s recent suggestion that the league could look to restrict the use of relief pitchers in games. Major League Baseball’s head honcho appeared on ESPN’s Mike & Mike show earlier this week, where he said he was in favor of imposing some kind of limit on relievers used in an individual inning or game.

Boras, never afraid to speak his mind, took to FOX Sports yesterday to express his disagreement with the idea. “The primary focus should be on the preservation of greatness in our game,” he told Ken Rosenthal. “If there are 20 great relievers in this game that have an impact, that’s not an irregularity. That’s a utilized reality of the game, with the design and focus by organizations to put great talent in those roles. They’re all looking for more, not less of them.”

The super-agent, who represents some of the game’s biggest stars, presents a valid point. If baseball’s elite relief pitchers are so dominant, shouldn’t that be encouraged rather than undermined? Manfred made some rather surprising comments on the subject during his interview:

"“You know the problem with relief pitchers is that they’re so good. I’ve got nothing against relief pitchers, but they do two things to the game: The pitching changes themselves slow the game down, and our relief pitchers have become so dominant at the back end that they actually rob action out of the end of the game, the last few innings of the game.”"

The commissioner has been open to making commonsense changes and adjustments to the game during the first year and a half of his tenure, and under most circumstances that’s a good thing. It’s difficult to back him up here, though. Top-flight closers like Aroldis Chapman, Kenley Jansen and Zach Britton should be punished because they are so great at their jobs?

To be fair, Manfred has to consider factors that the average MLB die-hard doesn’t think about. In trying to attract new fans, league officials typically look for ways to make games faster-paced and more exciting. Handcuffing dominant relievers just seems like an unfair and flawed strategy for injecting more life into the late innings.

Boras, of course, has business reasons to be against the notion as well. The more scoreless innings and saves his clients rack up in the course of a season, the larger their paychecks when they hit free agency. He’s also thinking about his starting pitcher clients, too:

"“Frankly, we need [relievers] because we’ve got an issue. We’ve got a number of precocious stars entering our game under the age of 25 who are making jumps from 90 innings in the minor leagues or 90 innings in the big leagues, and they’re required to throw 180 or 200 innings. Those innings jumps have been perilous for many. We have many examples to draw on.”"

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Limiting the appearances of relief pitchers, Boras says, will put more strain on starters, especially younger ones who aren’t used to the workload. He posits the idea of adding an extra roster spot or two in the interest of preserving players’ long-term health. This is certainly not a new concern for him: Boras made headlines last season after publicly clashing with the Mets over whether or not Matt Harvey had an innings cap in his first year back from Tommy John surgery.

There is also the question of game lengths. As ESPN.com points out, the average game time in 2016 has been three hours and four minutes, up from two hours, 49 minutes in 2005. There are a variety of causes to blame, but the increased specialization of bullpens certainly hasn’t helped. Many teams have a left-handed specialist who will come into the game to face one batter regardless of the outcome. Combined with more reliance on matchup data, it’s not uncommon for skippers to make multiple pitching changes in a single inning late in the game.

But should MLB really sacrifice the talent on the field and the options available to managers just to generate a more “mainstream” product? For better or worse, most fans know that a baseball game is an ambiguous time commitment. It can be a grind. But if your team wins, you’re probably not going to care much how long it took, or how many pitching changes were made.

Balancing pitchers’ workloads is just one of the many responsibilities of a big league skipper. It would continue to be so even if this rule change was actually implemented. Most would likely agree that this, along with the pace of play are important issues, but they can be addressed without artificially hamstringing your players and managers.

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Scott Boras can be a bit obnoxious at times, using his platform and name recognition to voice his opinions (nine-game World Series, anyone?) far more often than you would expect an agent to do. But in this particular case, he’s pretty much right on the money.