To Save Starting Pitching, Max Scherzer Thinks It's Time for Radical Change

MLB has a starting pitching problem. Max Scherzer knows how to fix it: Penalize teams for taking their starter out early. It’s a concept the Toronto Blue Jays pitcher calls “the qualified starter,” and he has upgraded his original suggested requirements. What’s a qualified starter?

“If you go six innings, throw 100 pitches or give up four runs,” Scherzer says. “You achieve any one of these three, you become qualified.”

A team is penalized if it pulls its starter before one of those thresholds is reached, says Scherzer, who last year suggested five innings, 90 pitches and three runs as thresholds. He believes new rules are the only fix.

“Once you’re qualified, alright, okay, the DH gets to be in for the rest of the game,” Scherzer says. “If you’re unqualified, [the DH] has got to come out.

“Okay? If that's not enough to make the analysts upstairs keep the starter in the game, let’s talk about maybe there’s a free substitution. That way you can pinch hit or pinch run for somebody if you want to.

“If that’s not enough, okay, let’s go to extra innings. You get the baserunner. If your starter is qualified, you get the baserunner [on second base] in extra innings. If you’re not, you don’t. You know, keep upping the rules.”

MLB is concerned about its pitching injury epidemic and the increasing trend of starters working less often and for fewer pitches. The issues are linked. The concept of “burst” pitching—maxing out on velocity and spin in shorter outings—has led to more injuries. The fallout from this style also includes more pitching changes, fewer balls in play and the loss of prestige for starting pitchers, who traditionally have been important drawing cards.

Despite the downsides, MLB teams continue to adhere to such a philosophy because the amateur and pro markets have learned so well how to increase velocity and spin. This increasing supply of hard throwers—and the injury risk associated with throwing hard—have prompted teams to ask starters to pitch less. From 2014 to 2024, the average number of pitches per start dropped from 96 to 85—and with more rest between starts. 

“So, it’s going to take rule changes,” Scherzer says. “We’re going to have to legislate this in and/or you're going to have to start fining teams if they’re not getting their starters qualified.”

There is no incentive in place, not even the injury risk, to alter the “burst” pitching methodology. Teams build in for the injury factor and pitchers accept the risk as the price of higher performance. But if starting pitchers were required to throw 100 pitches, Scherzer says, they would be incentivized to modify their style to last longer, such as seeking weak contact rather than swings and misses.

“Because the league has always wanted more offense,” he says. “How do you get more offense? Just let the starter stay in for the third time. We know it. Do you want more offense? Here you go. Just make the starter stay in. You'll get a more entertaining product. No one wants to see the starter go five innings, no runs, 75 pitches and pulled because the third time through.”

Asked if the players association would get behind a concept like the “qualified starter,” Scherzer says, “They have to. You have to address this injury bug.”

MLB has begun internal discussions about how to address the starting pitching problem. Scherzer’s idea of the qualified starter would force a paradigm shift. No one is comparing today’s starter workloads to Iron Joe McGinnity at the start of the 20th century. Rather, the collapse of starting pitching is a very recent phenomenon that dovetails with advances in technology and analytics. Using Scherzer’s thresholds, look at the deterioration of six-inning and 100-pitch starts just in the past 10 full seasons:

The number of 100-pitch games has decreased 70% just in the past 10 full seasons. Six-inning starts are down 36%. (Starts with four runs allowed have gone down 10%.)

The trend is also pronounced in the postseason. Because the inventory of postseason games over the past 10 full seasons has varied from as few as 64 games to as many as 86 games, I used the annual percentages of postseason games with at least six innings or 100 pitches.

Last postseason only three times in 86 starts did a pitcher throw 100 pitches. In the 2014 postseason they did so 20 times in 64 starts. Over the past two postseasons, a starter has been pulled with less than 100 pitches 161 times in 168 starts.

That mountainous blip you see on the above chart in 2019 is due to the Houston Astros and Washington Nationals riding old-school style starters to the World Series. Gerrit Cole, Justin Verlander, Stephen Strasburg and Scherzer combined to throw 100 pitches or more 17 times.