Could the 2020 short season in the majors affect pitchers this year?

With the first month of the 2021 season about to expire, teams should start keeping a closer eye on the workload of their pitchers, who face a significant increase in pitches this year as they return to a 162-game schedule after playing the shortest schedule in 150 years.

With one start left in the month each, Shane Bieber (534), Gerrit Cole (512) and Trevor Bauer (506) are the only pitchers with more than 500 pitches thrown this season in the majors, but 10 other pitchers, including Tyler Glasnow (#6 with 475), exceed 450.

Lance Lynn (1,408), Bieber (1,238), German Marquez (1,226), Lucas Giolito (1,214), Max Scherzer (1,213), Brandon Woodruff (1,211), Cole (1,203) and Aaron Civale (1,201) were the leaders last season trimmed to 60 games, four fewer than the team schedule the National League had in its first season in 1876.

Assuming no injuries, we would only have to multiply last year’s total by three or April’s number by six and we would get the approximate figure for the season.

Solved? Not necessarily.

“With pitchers, things don’t come down to mathematical multiplication. It’s more complicated than that,” the Boston Red Sox manager said.

“You have to be very careful, especially when we’re going to change such different schedules. On the other hand, there are a lot of pitchers, including our Eduardo Rodriguez, who didn’t throw a ball because of last year’s pandemic. It’s a situation similar to when a pitcher comes back from surgery,” he added.

Smartly managing the increased workload for pitchers in a 162-game regular season – after the coronavirus pandemic caused the campaign to be reduced to one-third of normal – while also seeking a postseason berth is one of the biggest challenges facing teams this year.

Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all system for trying to achieve the same results. The plan can vary from team to team and pitcher to pitcher, and even a plan can vary from month to month within the season.

In 2019, the last time a 162-game schedule was played, 29 pitchers threw more than 3,000 pitches. Bauer (3,687) was the only one with more than 3,600, while Lynn (3,553) was the other 3,500 and Rodriguez (3,495) followed closely behind. Justin Verlander (223.0), Bieber (214.1), Bauer (213.0) and Cole (212.1) were the innings leaders, while 11 others topped 200 innings.

However, 2020 was the first season all-time in which no pitcher exceeded 200 episodes. In fact, no one reached 100, with Lynn (84.0), Marquez (81.2) and Kyle Hendricks (81.1) the only ones with more than 80.

So far, Bieber leads in the innings pitched department with 36.1. Detroit Tigers left-hander Matthew Boyd is second with 34.2 after working 60.1 in 12 starts last year.

How the jump to normalcy is managed will be key. Some teams will prefer to reduce appearances, others will use extended rotations from time to time to take a couple of starts away from their regular starters, and teams that are not in contention in recent months will most likely finalize assignments for some of their pitchers well before the calendar concludes.

Managing young pitchers who have not had heavy workloads in their careers is more complex than with more veteran pitchers.

“We have to be very careful with them, and not just from a strict innings standpoint. We have to pay attention to the stress they’re under, and somehow we can measure it and evaluate it with due diligence,” said the Miami Marlins’ Kim Ng, the first female general manager in the majors.

For contending teams, especially those without the depth of the champion Los Angeles Dodgers, who boast a roster that includes three Cy Young Award winners and at least six genuine options to open games, things are even tougher.

For example, Dominicans Domingo German and Deivi Garcia battled during spring training for the fifth spot in the starting rotation. German won the battle and Garcia was sent to the bullpen before Opening Day. After two inconsistent starts, German was also sent to the bullpen.

However, German and Garcia were promoted the same weekend to open the first games of back-to-back series against the Cleveland Indians and Baltimore Orioles, respectively. With a rotation comprised, after Cole, of pitchers with injury histories, it stands to reason that many different guys will have at least one start on the year.

And that will likely be the trend for most teams: lots of pitchers to spread out the 1,500-plus innings each team must pitch in the regular series, which runs afoul of the record number of pitchers used by a club in a season, set by the Seattle Mariners with 42 in 2019.