Position players pitch in Major League Baseball primarily to save relief pitchers for games that actually matter. When a team is getting blown out or a game drags deep into extra innings, managers send a fielder to the mound rather than burn through bullpen arms that will be needed tomorrow. What was once a rare novelty has become a routine strategic move, with more than 50 position players taking the mound in 2019 alone.
Protecting the Bullpen Is the Main Reason
A baseball season is 162 games in roughly 180 days. Relief pitchers can only throw so many innings before fatigue sets in and injury risk spikes. When a team is down by double digits in the sixth inning, using a legitimate reliever to get through the remaining outs wastes one of the most limited resources on a roster. That reliever might be needed in a close game the next night, or the night after that.
So instead of grinding through a hopeless game with real pitching, the manager waves in an outfielder or utility infielder. The position player lobs pitches in the general vicinity of the strike zone, the game ends, and the bullpen lives to fight another day. It’s a concession, not a strategy to win that particular game. It’s a strategy to win the next one.
What Position Players Look Like on the Mound
Professional pitchers routinely throw fastballs between 90 and 100 mph. Position players, even though they’re elite athletes, typically can’t match that. Most throw in the 70s or low 80s, relying on soft tosses and the novelty of their delivery to get through an inning or two. A few outliers have surprised everyone. J.D. Davis of the Astros threw 21 pitches at 90 mph or above during a two-thirds-of-an-inning outing in 2017. Adam LaRoche of the White Sox mixed a 50.7 mph lob pitch (a tribute to his father’s signature slow pitch from a 14-year big league career) with an 85.9 mph fastball that got a strikeout.
The results are predictably uneven. Some position players get shelled. Others have delivered genuinely memorable performances. Stevie Wilkerson of the Orioles earned a save in 2019, retiring the side in order to close out a game. He became the first position player to record a save since the stat became official in 1969. Matty Alou struck out three batters in two scoreless innings back in 1965, still the most strikeouts by a position player in a scoreless outing in the modern expansion era. José Oquendo of the Cardinals threw four innings in 1988, the longest outing by any position player since 1961.
MLB Now Has Formal Rules About It
For decades, there were no restrictions on when a position player could pitch. Managers used their own judgment, and because it happened so rarely, the league didn’t bother regulating it. That changed as the trend exploded in the late 2010s. More than 40 position players pitched in 2018, breaking the modern record. The next year broke it again.
Starting in 2023, MLB introduced specific criteria. A position player can only enter the game as a pitcher if at least one of these conditions is met:
- The game is in extra innings
- The team is trailing by at least eight runs at any point in the game
- The team is winning by at least 10 runs in the ninth inning
These thresholds formalize what was already an unwritten understanding. The league wants position players pitching only when the outcome is effectively decided. The eight-run deficit for trailing teams is notably more lenient than the 10-run lead required for winning teams, reflecting the reality that it’s almost always the losing side sending a fielder to the mound.
Extra Innings Add Another Layer
Since 2020, MLB has placed an automatic runner on second base at the start of every extra inning. This rule, made permanent in 2023, speeds up the resolution of tied games but also creates situations where pitching resources get stretched thin. A game that goes 12 or 13 innings can exhaust every available reliever, leaving the manager with no professional arm left in the bullpen.
In those cases, a position player pitching isn’t about score differential. It’s about survival. The team has simply run out of pitchers. This scenario is less common now that the automatic runner rule tends to end extra-inning games faster, but it still happens, and the 2023 rule explicitly permits position players to pitch whenever extra innings begin.
Why This Became Common Only Recently
Position player pitching was vanishingly rare before the mid-2010s. Several overlapping trends changed that. Bullpens got more specialized, with managers using specific relievers for specific matchups rather than asking one arm to throw three innings. That specialization means more pitchers get used per game and more games leave the bullpen depleted. Simultaneously, teams began prioritizing long-term health over any single regular-season game. If a team is losing 14 to 2 in August, no front office wants a reliever throwing 30 pitches that could contribute to a September injury.
The rise of analytics also played a role. Front offices now track pitcher workload with precision, monitoring pitch counts, rest days, and fatigue indicators across the full season. A relief pitcher used in a blowout loss isn’t just wasting one outing. He’s adding wear that accumulates over 162 games. Position player pitching is, in this framework, a form of asset management. The lost game is already lost. The goal is to protect the arms that will matter in October.
The Entertainment Factor
There’s one more reason position player pitching has stuck around, even as the league has tried to limit it: fans love it. A catcher throwing 68 mph eephus pitches to hitters who crush baseballs for a living is genuinely entertaining. Pablo Sandoval hit a home run, stole a base, and pitched a scoreless inning in the same game in 2019, becoming only the second player since 1900 to pull off that combination. Russell Martin of the Dodgers pitched four scoreless outings in a single season, one of only two position players to do that in the modern era.
These moments are silly, memorable, and completely unlike anything else in the sport. They turn a forgettable blowout into a highlight. For the position player, it’s a chance to live out a childhood fantasy on a major league mound. For the crowd, it’s a reason to stick around when the scoreboard says the game is already over.