The changing game and the 10-day DL

This year, members have access to all the columns I write for ESPN Insider. They appear here every Thursday or Friday. Many will include a BABS-relevant postscript. Enjoy.

Over the past three decades, changes in the real game have had slow but subtle effects on the fantasy game. These changes have made fantasy more challenging to play, in part because we’ve been slow to change our own league rules. But the 2017 season could elevate those challenges to new heights.

It starts with the rise of pitching specialization. When the Founding Fathers structured our rosters with 14 batters and 9 pitchers, that was a close approximation of what Major League rosters looked like. These days, we are drafting to that 14/9 split from MLB rosters that often have 12 batters and 13 pitchers. The result is that our free agent pools are now overflowing with pitchers but bereft of hitting talent.

Add to that the skyrocketing number of disabled list stays. In 2006, 347 players hit the DL for a total of 22,472 days. The following year, 404 players were shelved for 28,524 days. DL days passed the 30,000 mark in 2012 and peaked last year with 478 hobbled players spending 31,329 days recovering from injuries.

The rise in DL days has created a deluge of fantasy transactions as owners attempt to fill an endless stream of roster holes. As soon as one player returns from the DL, another is likely to get hurt. It’s like playing Whack-A-Mole.

An average fantasy owner will see 10-12 of his players hit the DL at some point during the season. That’s on average.

The fallout from all this is a glut of players who get small chunks of playing time. We chase these guys all year, spending our precious FAAB dollars or waiver picks in hopes of uncovering a hidden gem. More likely, these players get their cups of coffee and go back to the minors. The more numerous these short-timers, the more random the game becomes.

The shifting roster construction combined with soaring DL days impacts our ability to replace injured players with meaningful substitutes. Particularly in AL-only or NL-only leagues, the free agent pool is flooded with middle relievers; the hitting side is a wasteland of bench players and second catchers.

The Tout Wars experts leagues recognized this changing landscape and enacted several rules changes over the past few years. First, they reduced the size of the reserve rosters, thereby feeding more players into the free agent pool. Then they converted one of the outfield spots to a “swing” position – eligible for any batter or pitcher. Finally, they reduced the position eligibility requirement from 20 games to 15 in order to provide more roster flexibility for those hitters we do draft.

The result of these changes has been some marginal improvement in roster flexibility but the effort that goes into juggling players continues to increase.

In 2017, it’s potentially going to get worse.

Major League Baseball’s enactment of a new 10-day Disabled List seems innocuous on the surface. Whereas teams had to keep a hurt player active until it became apparent that he’d be out for two weeks, now they don’t have to wait as long to make that decision.

With the 15-day DL, a player could remain “day-to-day” for a week before a decision was made. Fantasy leaguers would have to ride that dead roster spot as well.

Now, the key decision point will likely be on Day No. 4. If a player is not ready to play after four days out, it probably makes sense for a team to put him on the 10-day DL and get a live body onto the roster.

But the reality was, 15-day DL stays rarely lasted just 15 days anyway. What MLB has done is effectively reduce the barrier of entry to get a player onto the DL, but the back-end hasn’t changed. So a player can stay on the DL for as long as a team needs for him to be there, or until they need the 40-man roster space that requires a move to the 60-day list.

To recap… it is now easier to get onto the DL and no more restrictive to come off.

The end result will be an increase in the number of players who will be placed on the DL, and likely the number of DL days overall. It is possible that we might see last year’s record total eclipsed and perhaps push 35,000 days, or more. And while the shorter 10-day minimum, as opposed to 15, will reduce these numbers somewhat, odds are that won’t happen much. There is no incentive for a team to adhere to “just 10 days.”

What impact does this all have on fantasy leaguers?

It will increase the number of players who spend time on an MLB roster, though their respective tenures could be even shorter than they already are. It splinters playing time expectations. The total of all the available plate appearances and innings will remain fixed within a narrow band – last I checked, the season is still 162 games long – but more players will be trying to claim a piece of that pie. Many more.

Good luck projecting playing time this year.