10 Days On the DL

As a part of Baseball's new CBA that was signed in December, DL stays were reduced from 15 days to 10.  The theory behind this made a lot of sense.  In the past, there were countless situations where a player was injured enough to miss a few days, but teams were hesitant to put him on the DL in hopes that he wouldn't be out for the entire two weeks.  Being down a man for a few days was often preferable to sitting a guy out for two weeks when he might've been good to go in one.

Of course, with position players, a trip to the DL is often longer than the minimum length, so whether it's 10 or 15 days is somewhat irrelevant.  But this season we've seen teams take advantage of the new DL rules in very creative ways (as noted in an ESPN.com article I read earlier today).

The article focused on the Dodgers and how they've been able to manipulate it to their benefit.  They've basically figured out a way to keep an extra reliever in their bullpen while still keeping the regular allotment of five starters.  How are they doing this?  By utilizing their off days and the 10-day DL to essentially skip starts for the pitchers not named Kershaw.

Skipping starts for the fifth starter isn't a new thing.  A lot of teams often don't even use a fifth starter until mid-April because they don't need to with the off days around Opening Day.  And if you think about it, most teams have a similar stretch at some point in the season.  If you have two off days in a week (or Thursday and Monday off around a weekend series), you can skip your No. 5 starter and keep the other four on their regular rest.  Likewise, if a starting pitcher gets suspended, his team can usually work it so that he doesn't really miss a start (which kinda defeats the whole point, but that's a topic for another day).

LA did it a little differently.  They're doing it to give guys extra rest while still giving all their starters work.  The Dodgers recently skipped a Kenta Maeda start by putting him on the DL.  Who replaced him?  Hyun-Jin Ryu, who had just spent exactly 10 days on the DL himself.  And when Maeda comes off the DL, you can bet the Dodgers will put another starting pitcher on in his place.  And since there's no rule about how many times a player can be put on the DL over the course of the season, they can theoretically do this until the rosters expand in September.

Some of the "injuries" used to put pitchers on the DL may appear somewhat dubious, but you can't dispute the brilliance of the strategy.  Not only are they keeping their pitchers fresh, they've basically found a way to have a 26-man roster.  I applaud them for figuring it out.

Now, the Dodgers are a bit of a unique case in that they have six starting pitchers, so this is a way to give them all "regular" work, even if it means they won't be making the standard 32-33 starts apiece.  But having everybody healthy going into the playoffs is much more important for a team like the Dodgers, and limiting their pitchers to 27-28 starts each is one way to do that.  And if the rules allow for them to finagle DL stints to make that happen, why not do it?

This obviously wasn't the intent of the DL change.  But I wouldn't be surprised to see other teams start doing it, too.  Because it makes total sense.  And I don't see the Union having any sort of an issue with it, either.  It gives more guys Major League service time, starting their free agency clocks, and puts a Major League salary in two players' pockets instead of just one (you collect your regular salary while on the DL).

We've obviously seen more DL trips in the first six weeks of this season than we did last season.  That's part of the point.  Teams are more likely to put a guy on the DL if they don't have to wait two weeks and can get him back in a week and a half instead.

But we also might be seeing a bit of a DL revolution.  You can use any minor "injury" to take a guy out of commission for 10 days, which lets you use somebody else in his place.  And that seems preferable to the Triple A shuttle.  For everyone.