"In 2017, starters averaged five and a half innings per start. Now, there's no such thing as half an inning, but that's the beauty of math. That number dipped slightly in 2018, to 5.4 innings per start. Even ignoring 2020, where teams felt more comfortable and/or harried into just getting through the 60-game season, the innings-per-start value bottomed out at exactly five in 2021."
"Since then, it has hovered in the 5.1 or 5.2 range. It's an easy Friday question - is it going to stay in that range, decline further, or somehow rebound? The market for starting pitching seeing its own absurd inflation doesn't necessarily mean anything for the trend, but you could probably build an argument any which way you wanted. So, have at it."
Starters averaged five and a half innings per start in 2017. That average dipped to 5.4 innings per start in 2018 and dropped to exactly five innings per start in 2021. The 2020 season was an outlier due to a 60-game schedule that affected how teams managed innings. Since 2021, the innings-per-start figure has hovered between 5.1 and 5.2. The current pattern prompts a question about whether the metric will remain stable, decline further, or rebound. The rising market value for starting pitching is notable but does not definitively predict the innings trend. Multiple plausible arguments support continuation, decline, or recovery.
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