2019 MLB season: The trend toward using position players in relief

All but five major league teams have used a position player on the mound at least once the 2019 MLB season; one even recorded a save Thursday night.

When Baltimore’s Stevie Wilkerson retired three Angels batters in succession in the 16th inning Thursday night, he became the first position player in history to record a major league save. He almost certainly will not be the last as the trend of using positing players in relief has exploded during the 2019 MLB season.

In an age of baseball awash in trends – shifts, openers, extended at-bats, pitching up in the zone – no trend surpasses the use of position players as pitchers for the speed of its acceptance.

Consider the data. Wilkerson was the 39th MLB position player to see mound duty already during the 2019 MLB season. That’s five times as many who tried the mound as recently as a decade ago….more on that in a few paragraphs He wasn’t even the first to do so Thursday night; Yankee catcher Austin Romine pitched one inning of New York’s pounding at the hands of the Boston Red Sox. Romine allowed three runs and four hits.

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Nor was Wilkerson unfamiliar with the mound routine. He had made two previous appearances for Brandon Hyde’s 2019 Orioles, going one inning in a 16-4 loss to Tampa Bay July 12 and working two innings in a 17-6 defeat to Boston July 20.

Against the Angels, Wilkerson was summoned for a unique reason. It was the 16th inning and both teams were out of other pitching options, Baltimore having used nine arms and the Angels have gone through 10. He retired Brian Goodwin on a fly ball to deep center, got Kole Calhoun on a ground ball to short, and ended the game by inducing a fly ball out from Albert Pujols.

For the record, that leaves Wilkerson with a 2.25 ERA in four innings of work this season.

Although Wilkerson leads the majors in innings worked by position players, he has competition. In Houston, Tyler White has made four appearances totaling 3.1 innings. In Arizona, John Ryan Murphy’s two mound stints have encompassed three innings.

They are part of a rocket-like trend. Eleven major league position players this season have made two or more mound appearances. Twenty-five of the 30 teams – the only exceptions being the Angels, Marlins, Mets, Nationals, and Reds – have employed a position player to pitch at least once already this year.

Is that a change? You betcha. As recently as a decade ago, only eight position players pitched in a major league game. They worked a total of just 6.1 innings; during the 2019 MLB season position players have pitched 52.2 innings. No position player pitched more than a single inning during the entire 2009 season. And of those who did — Boston’s Jonathan Van Every and Dusty Brown — were actually combination pitcher-position players.

Why the drastic change? Major league managers would have to provide the definitive answer, but it’s not hard to speculate that the decreasing number of innings demanded of starters has a lot to do with it. The 100 most heavily used pitchers this season are on pace to have worked about 10 innings fewer than their counterparts of just a decade ago.

Managers and general managers have compensated for that lessened starter workload by adding a bullpen arm; teams today routinely carry 13 pitchers, where they not so long ago carried a dozen. But with the continued 25-person roster limit, that 13th pitcher shortens teams’ benches, reducing strategic options. And since most relievers, today have assigned ‘roles’ – closer, setup man, seventh-inning guy, loogy – managers are less likely to want to use pitchers outside those roles for fear of destroying the pitching universe’s karma.

In a rout, that more and more frequently means a call to the bench for somebody – a backup catcher, a lightly used middle infielder – who can motivate the ball in the general direction of the plate. At any speed, by the way; Wilkerson was clocked – if that is not too generous a word – in the mid-60s Thursday.

Not that it generally matters – although it did Thursday night  — but the quality of players as pitchers mound work varies from dreadful to pretty darn good. Of the 39  who have been on the mound, 18 made it through their stints unscored upon, 11 also allowing no hits. Arizona’s Caleb Joseph, Cleveland’s Kevin Plawecki, LA’s Russell Martin, and Milwaukee’s Hernan Perez have all survived two mound stints with 0.00 ERAs.

Not all position players are as successful. Murphy’s two appearances for Arizona have resulted in opponents scoring nine runs, including three home runs. In Houston, White’s four trips to the slab have yielded eight runs including four homers. Kansas City’s Chris Owings and Seattle’s Dylan Moore both got cuffed around for four runs in their mound stints.