Blue Jays star Kevin Gausman slams MLB commissioner over idea for pitching rule changes

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Rob Manfred throws out so many pitches that you would think that he would be the type of starter that baseball needs.

The problem is that he is the MLB commissioner and his ideas and pitches are often swatted down by the league’s players.

Toronto Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman was the latest to get a hold of one of Manfred’s soft lobs and sent it right back where it came from.

During an appearance on the Questions for Cancer podcast, Manfred discussed his perception of the supposed problem with starting pitching and floated two ideas to remedy the situation.

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Gausman reposted a clip featuring Manfred speaking on the podcast about the idea of instituting a minimum pitch requirement for starters.

The two-time all-star fired back, throwing one high and inside to Manfred.

“Don’t believe a word this man says,” Gausman wrote on X. “Get ready for 6 innings you get to keep the DH, if not a fan hits in their spot.”

The floated rule change would add a threshold for starting pitchers to reach – either number of pitches or runs allowed — before a manager would be allowed to lift them from a game, with exceptions made for injuries.

“(That’s) just too blunt an instrument to fix this problem,” Manfred told host Chris O’Gorman during the podcast.

Manfred sees the problem being that starting pitchers are throwing less innings before managers decide to reach into their bullpens.

The stats back up that notion, with the innings-per-start rate declining from 6.3 in 1984, to 5.9 in 2004, to 5.2 in 2024, according to CBS Sports.

The big problem with this, Manfred says is that “the name and the face that you see the most in a broadcast is the starting pitcher. The matchups of great starting pitchers, historically, have been important in terms of the marketing of the game … I think we need to get back to that.”

Another idea pitched by the commissioner to ensure that managers don’t dip into their bullpen too early is changes to transaction rules. Manfred’s idea has the aim of developing pitchers who can go longer into games and preventing teams from refreshing their pens after overtaxing their arms.

“One of the things that happens today, guy pitches three days in a row, he gets outrighted, (and then the team) brings somebody else in to give him some rest, as opposed to him staying on the roster the whole time,” Manfred said.

“I think we need to create incentives, through things like roster rules, transaction rules, for clubs to develop pitchers who go deeper in the game,” he continued. “Rules that create incentives for the clubs to develop pitchers of a certain type.”

Of course, forcing starters to pitch longer into games undoubtedly would increase an already-alarming injury rate.

“The injury issue, our physicians have studied this carefully, they continue to believe that the focus on velocity and spin rate is a specific cause of the increase of injuries,” Manfred said.

This past season, Gausman sported a 14-11 record with a 3.83 ERA. He also knows a thing or two about going late into ball games, leading the majors with two complete games and throwing 181 innings total.

He made the AL all-star team in 2023 and finished in Cy Young Award voting.