Time to change September roster rules

August, 22, 2011

8/22/11

12:55

PM ET

By Jim Bowden | ESPN.com

Major League Baseball is the only one of the major sports that dramatically changes its roster limit rules for the final month of its regular season. After playing five months with 25-man rosters, baseball increases rosters to a maximum of 40 players beginning on Sept. 1, before reducing them back to 25 for the playoffs and World Series. The only reason this rule has ever made sense is that the minor league teams that provide the inventory of extra bodies stop playing in early September.

However, this roster change causes imbalances. Large-market clubs usually have the freedom of calling up any player they want while small- to middle-market teams usually are limited to the number of players they can call up, a number they have most likely budgeted in the offseason, regardless of whether they are in a pennant race. The other imbalance is the level of talent that each club has at the Triple-A or Double-A levels, or the specialty players it has available to help in a tight pennant race.

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ABOUT THIS BLOG

Jim Bowden

Bowden, who served as the senior vice president and GM for the Cincinnati Reds and the Washington Nationals, is an analyst for ESPN.com. In 1992, Bowden became the youngest GM in MLB history when the Reds hired him at age 31. The Reds finished in first place twice during his 10 years as GM, and he was named MLB Executive of the Year by Baseball America in 1999. After working for ESPN in 2004, Bowden became the first GM of the Washington Nationals when the franchise relocated from Montreal to Washington, D.C., in 2005, working in that role until the 2009 season. Bowden co-hosts the "Inside Pitch" radio show on Sirius XM satellite radio. Follow on Twitter: @JimBowdenESPNxm.