From Jason Motte’s 78 games in 2011 through Jordan Hicks’ 73 games in 2018, there has been an unbroken line of righthanders with 70 games, but not unbruised. Motte and Hicks both had elbow surgeries in seasons soon after that workload, as did Trevor Rosenthal and Seth Maness. Those later two righthanded relievers each had at least two 70-appearance seasons, and in 2014 the Cardinals had three righthanded pitchers – Rosenthal, Maness, and All-Star Pat Neshek – make at least 71 appearances. The workload and the injuries could be coincidence more than causality and the 70-game threshold is arbitrary, but the trend was clear, and one reason was what Shildt described.
Mixing, matching and fusing roles has lightened relievers' workload
