[Pelican]

I have to be a contrarian on this, at least to observe that the pitcher must get some advantage from seeing the batting order the first two times through. (If a guy hits the slider down and away, note to self - and catcher - don’t throw him the slider down and away the next time…) So I would not hang my hat on the third time through invariably favoring the hitter. (A pitcher who expects to go eight innings might not show everything he has the first two times through…)

I understand I would be bucking some statistical evidence on this, that suggests a real penalty the third time through. Baseball Prospectus has featured a lot of work on this. There’s a bit of a chicken/egg problem: is facing the batting order a third time causing shorter outings - or are mandated shorter outings causing a problem pitching past the fifth inning? There’s a big difference between a manager saying “give me four good innings of all you got” and “I need seven innings from you to rest the ‘pen”.

Of course a SP who has not gone over 75 pitches over his first ten starts can be expected to struggle, when called upon to throw 100 pitches in a game. It’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. We’re designing SP for shorter outings, at the expense of endurance. The “penalty” becomes almost inevitable.