Baseball has been around a very long time, and it’s gone through some crazy changes over the years. The game you can sometimes find grainy, black-and-white clips of in some kind of deep archival library is nothing like the game is today, where all stats have advanced stats attached to them, and those stats have even deeper advanced stats attached to them! On top of that, the training, the gameplay, and even some of the rules have adapted to the rapidly changing (and quickening) game of baseball.
One element of the game that has drastically evolved is the use of a bull pen. While it used to be all about who your starter was, now starters can get the hook for serving up a few bad pitches and give way to a bunch of one-inning wonders.
It’s not to say the change has been bad. It’s added to the game of wits between managers, with game management becoming one of the most important factors of any game. To show just how drastic the change has been, take a look at these insane stats to show much more rapidly pitchers are being used.
If you ask baseball fans when the season starts, they would say “April.” That’s because it’s pretty much true. The season starts RIGHT BEFORE the beginning of April. In that time, however, more pitchers were used than in 1,228 games in 1906.
Changes, man! Changes!
(H/T Jim Passon)
