With rain cancelling games up and down the East Coast all week and the season set to end on Sunday, we've seen a lot of doubleheaders and the 40-man rosters being taken full advantage of. Opinions are mixed on the increased roster size in September/October, and I definitely see both sides of that conversation. But the fact that, with a few exceptions, you have to make up all September/October rainouts with a doubleheader is one of the biggest arguments for roster expansion in the final month of the season.
Take the Baltimore Orioles, who've had to deal with the rain the most. The Orioles were scheduled to end the season with home series against the Blue Jays and Yankees. The Toronto series was supposed to start on Tuesday, but that game was postponed and they played a doubleheader on Wednesday...with Thursday's game moved up from a 7:00 start to a 12:00 start, then still having to deal with a three-hour rain delay. More rain on Friday led to the first game of the Yankees series being postponed and a made up as part of a Saturday doubleheader. So, that means Baltimore's playing two doubleheaders in a four-day period.
If this was the middle of the season, there's absolutely no way Baltimore would've been asked to play two doubleheaders in a week. But in September/October, they have the extra personnel, so it's not as big a deal. They don't need to worry about screwing up their rotation or having to find another starting pitcher for the one game. They don't need to ask guys in the bullpen to pitch twice in one day, either. Likewise, there's enough position players on the roster that a starter's not gonna have to play both games, which would be the case with the 25-man roster.
For teams that are headed for the postseason, they can use the expanded roster as an opportunity to rest some of their starters down the stretch. Did you see the lineups Toronto and Kansas City used in their first game after clinching? They wouldn't have been afforded that luxury if a postseason spot wasn't already wrapped up. Of course, the benefits of doing that have been questioned, but I think most managers would take the opportunity to clinch early and rest guys over having to win every game down the stretch just to get in, and requiring all of your regular guys to play everyday as a result.
It also gives playoff-bound managers a chance to set up their pitching rotations for the postseason. This has become less of an issue in recent years with the Division Series not starting until Thursday or Friday, so starters can go in Game 1 basically on regular rest. But you still see managers trying to work it out so that the guys they want starting on particular days in the postseason are pitching on as-close-to normal rest as possible. Or extended rest if the situation calls for it. The way to do this usually involves pushing back starts and inserting September call-ups where needed.
Likewise, a September call-up can be used as an audition for a place on the postseason roster. While most playoff teams already have a pretty gauge on what their postseason roster will look like, there are usually one or two spots in the back of the bullpen or off the bench that could go to somebody unexpected simply based on the strength of a good September. And that audition might not even have taken place if not for the 15 additional places on the roster.
While playoff teams might use September as a chance to rest guys and audition players for a potential role in the postseason, those squads out of contention might take advantage of call-ups to give guys a month of Major League experience. Whether it's somebody they expect to have an important role the next season or someone being used as a fill-in or somebody they just aren't 100 percent sure about, September's a chance to start looking towards next year in an otherwise lost season.
Teams call up players for all kinds of reasons in September. Most add a third catcher just in case, and you usually see a reliever or two added to each bullpen. But the contenders tend to add more players than the other teams. For example, the Yankees usually call up a young outfielder for the sole purpose of using him as a pinch runner. Why? Because his run might be the difference in a close game.
The expanded roster gives you extra depth and the ability to make moves you wouldn't be able to make over the first five months of the season. This is one of the main criticisms of the expanded rosters in September, and it's a valid one. I remember a game a few years ago where the Texas Rangers used something like nine relievers in a September game against the Yankees. And it was something like six different pitchers in the same inning. They just kept matching up lefty-vs-lefty, then bringing in a righty for the right-handed batter, then another lefty for the left-handed hitter on deck. Is that in the spirit of the rule? Probably not. But it's totally allowed.
I've heard several different "solutions" to this problem, and some of them are intriguing. Most of them involve calling up as many guys as you want, but declaring which 25 players are eligible for that particular game or series, with the caveat that all three (or four, if that's how long the series is) starting pitchers have to be included. As a trade off for the Players Union, anybody who gets called up, whether they're on the active roster for a game or not, gets paid and gets credited with service time.
Is that the answer? I don't know. Is this an "issue" that needs to be resolved? I don't know about that either. All I know is that there really aren't that many people out there who have a problem with the status quo, even if it does seem a little silly that you play under one set of rules for five months and a completely different set of rules for the most important month of the season. But that argument could also be made for playing interleague games all year, including the final series of the season. (Houston is fighting for a playoff spot, but doesn't have a DH in its final three games because they're in Arizona. That could end up making a huge difference.)
Whether you like interleague play or you hate it, it's here to stay. So are the expanded September rosters (which predate interleague play by quite a few years). And seeing as it's just as easy to find positives about the expanded rosters as it is to find negatives, keeping things as-is is probably the best way to go.
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