On Apr 6, Joe Sheehan wrote for the Washington Post, “In MLB’s new era, long relievers are going extinct.” He stated, “These days, long relief is an accident, happening when a starter leaves the game due to injury or a game drags on past the 11th inning,” and concluded, “Teams don’t need to carry long relievers any longer.”
There’s one problem. His article is two years out of date.
Some might say that’s like a lot of WaPo pieces: stuck in 2015. For Fangraphs had already proclaimed the ‘Death of the Long Man’ in March that year.