Should MLB Expand Active Rosters to 27 Players?

For decades, the active MLB roster size remained fixed. There were times when it swelled (every September, most famously, but also early in some seasons after work stoppages and other external disruptions) and times when owners colluded to constrict it slightly, but for nearly a century, the official, everyday roster size in MLB was 25 players. That changed in 2021, when the league added a 26th active player on an everyday basis, in exchange for the players agreeing to radically reduce the scope of September call-ups. In a connected rule change, MLB also capped the number of pitchers any team could have active at a given time, at 13. That finally put a stop to what had been, in its own right, decades of pitcher creep.

For most of baseball history, teams carried 15-17 position players and 8-10 pitchers. Starting in the late 1980s, the balance tilted, relatively quickly. Eleven-pitcher staffs became commonplace and stayed that way throughout the 1990s. By the mid-2000s, 12-pitcher rosters were common. In the 2010s, it became 13 for many teams in many situations, even with only 25 total roster spots available. Some teams even dared to roster 14 hurlers and 11 position players for a few days at a time, which is where everyone could finally agree that a line had been crossed. Rosters finally grew, and the extra spot was effectively carved out for hitters via legislation.

I don't think we've gone far enough, though. Firstly, simply capping pitching staffs at 13 hasn't stemmed the tide of peculiar pitcher usage that has left so many hurlers hurt and so many teams scrambling and overpaying for whichever arms happen to be healthy at a given moment. Secondly, though, the league is not going to expand for at least another fistful of years. That will make it 30 years between rounds of expansion, and all of the odd distortions of the game we've seen as the result of too much talent caking itself onto and around every roster in MLB will accelerate in the meantime. 

In my opinion, as part of the next round of CBA negotiations (if not sooner), the league and the players union should get together to expand the roster to 27 players—and simultaneously tighten the limit on pitchers again, to 12. Teams should go back to carrying six men on their benches, giving us more defensive and baserunning specialists and more pinch-hit options for manipulating matchups. Holding teams to 12 active pitchers per game should begin to bend them back toward instruction and development that incorporates the ideas of sustainability and durability. Meanwhile, managers would have more options for in-game moves. It would be good for offense. It would be good for fans who love the chess match of the game. It would create more jobs for a union that deserves more of them and has waited too patiently for over two decades already.

There's no room for Tyler Black on the Milwaukee roster in 2025. It will also be difficult to navigate the matriculation of Jeferson Quero to the majors, if and when he's ready for that, with William Contreras and Eric Haase in place already. Those are two examples of players who could readily fit onto a roster with 14 or 15 position players, though, and there are other types of players who play entertaining and edifying baseball who would have clearer utility on such a roster. It would feel like an extreme change, since it's only been a few years since the previous expansion of the roster, but it's really only making up for time lost to inadvisable inaction over long stretches of the previous 20 years.