MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has a "crisis on his hands," as increased use of analytics regarding pitching rotations has "made a travesty of the game," according to Bill Madden of the N.Y. DAILY NEWS. This is due to the "emasculation of starting pitching which has led to the proliferation of relief pitchers on every team, further compounded by baseball's continued idiotic inaction regarding the expanded rosters in September." Madden: "These games are becoming a joke. This is like Little League. Worse, they’re becoming a too-long joke." The average September game time this season is "three hours, four minutes and 23 seconds as opposed to three hours, one second in games from April-August." One start to fixing the issue is to "finally resolve this September roster expansion issue so every team is playing on an even field, with a designated number of players deemed eligible for each game, preferably no more than 28" (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 9/23).
LOOKING FOR ANSWERS: THE ATHLETIC's Ken Rosenthal wrote club and league officials have expressed the "hope that the unsettling events of the summer" involving offensive language used in Twitter posts by Brewers P Josh Hader, Braves P Sean Newcomb and Nationals SS Trea Turner will "serve as 'teachable moments.'" Now, a "certain tension exists within the sport, from those bracing for the next exposure of ill-advised social media posts to players who are unsure how they would react to a teammate who had expressed bigotry." MLB is "full of players from different nationalities, backgrounds and cultures," and the league in recent years has "worked aggressively to promote diversity and tolerance" (THEATHLETIC.com, 9/21).
