– Why do NFL teams basically play one quarterback all/every game, while MLB teams play multiple pitchers?
In: 11
Strength of the throw – pitchers put a lot of stress on their arms and typically always throw hard. This hurts joints faster.
Number of throws – many more throws per game in baseball
Frequency of games – baseball games occur about 4-5x as much as football
Deception – pitching is a highly specific activity with quite a few rules around it. To be competitive, it’s often advantageous to have people with different throwing styles to keep batters guessing. Lefty vs Righty is the most obvious. In football, a QB fills a lot of rolls that often doesn’t even involve throwing. They fill more of a leadership position on the team and it’s not just about how fast/accurate they throw, somewhat contrary to baseball…
So with 2-3x the throws per game and 4-5x more games with throws being delivered with much more force in a more specialized, but demanding role, multiple pitchers are needed. Sometimes this is just strategy (like switching to a middle reliever for an inning or even less), but eventually it is absolutely needed. Pitchers back in the day used to commonly throw complete games and rack up easily 100+ pitches a night. I think they realized this is not only dangerous for the pitcher, but not advantageous assuming you can keep a few more pitchers on your roster
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