Justin Verlander's proposed rule changes for starting pitchers would be a major shakeup for Cardinals

Justin Verlander hung up his cleats following the 2026 season, but the future Hall of Famer already has some ideas on how Major League Baseball can "save" the starting pitcher, and it would have a major impact on how the Cardinals handle their pitchers moving forward.

Verlander recently spoke with The Athletic about his frustration with how the game has changed, and he presented five rules he would implement to help with pitchers having shorting, max-effort outings.

Here are Verlander's five rules that he would propose to help save the starting pitcher:
1. If a starting pitcher has thrown fewer than 90 pitches through the 6th inning, the starter must go out again for the 7th inning.

The next four rules have to do with when a pitcher can be removed earlier than that:
2. Injury
3. If he has a 40+ pitch inning
4. If he's given up five runs total OR three runs in that specific inning
5. If the tying run is in the on-deck circle after the 6th inning

Cardinals careful handling of pitchers would be challenged by Justin Verlander's rules

Whether or not Verlander's ideas are put into place, it is entirely possible that Major League Baseball will implement some rules in the next few years to encourage starting pitchers to go deeper into ball games, and that would be challenging for the Cardinals with how they are handling their pitchers right now.

Part of the reason the Cardinals have been careful with their starting pitchers has been a lack of pitching depth, but that should change in the next few seasons as their pipeline seems to be pumping out more young arms. That may mean the Cardinals are more aggressive with how they handle their starters in the next few years.

But the Cardinals have been able to keep their starters healthy in a way that has drawn the eyes of teams around baseball and pitchers who may want a place to rebuild their value. That would not be possible in this new environment that Verlander is proposing.

With that being said, I have a feeling there are many Cardinals fans who would love to see the game value length out of starters again, and this rule change would certainly force that. Verlander did a good job of thinking through how teams can still protect their players (and their ability to win) in the details he put into this rule, but it would also make starters pitch deeper into games, even when the analytics would point to going to a reliever in that spot.

One thing that would make me nervous about this rule is how it impacts young arms coming up right now. The Cardinals, like most organizations, are careful with the pitch counts and innings pitched from their starters in the farm system, so I would be a bit worried about how this could impact Liam Doyle, Tanner Franklin, and other Cardinals pitching prospects. Most minor league pitching prospects only pitch one a week as well, so this would be quite the step up in workload. Even assuming they would make these changes in the minor league levels as well, it will likely take years for everyone to adjust to the new normal.

I'm personally curious to see how much Major League Baseball may push for this in the future, and Verlander's proposal may be one of the ways they could approach that.

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