Batting Around: Do September expanded rosters work? Do they go far enough or too far for playoff contenders?

Teams are allowed 28-man rosters for the season's final month

Throughout the season the CBS Sports MLB experts will bring you a weekly Batting Around roundtable, breaking down pretty much anything. The latest news, a historical question, thoughts about the future of baseball, all sorts of stuff. Last week we debated Adley Rutschman's future with the Orioles. This week we're going to tackle expanded rosters in September.

What do you think about September roster expansion? Are two extra spots enough?

Dayn Perry: I think there's a sensible middle ground between the old roster-expansion rules, in which a team could carry the entire 40-player roster in September, and the current setup, which allows just 28 players for the final month of the regular season. The old way was just too unwieldy, but now seems a bit stingy. I'd advocate something like five additional players (maybe max three pitchers of those five) instead of just two. That strikes me as a reasonable compromise position. Teams out of contention could use a little something to draw eyeballs in September, and more young talent on the roster could help with that. 

R.J. Anderson: I'm with Dayn here. I don't miss the days of endless reliever parades. What I do miss, however, is the flexibility teams had to bring up someone like Guilder Rodríguez, a minor-league lifer who otherwise wouldn't have ever appeared in The Show. I think giving teams a couple more roster spots (maybe 30 with a pitcher limit) would enable teams to again reward those players.

Matt Snyder: I hate to jump on the bandwagon here, but I definitely like more spots becoming available without letting teams go crazy with up to 40. Allowing teams to go up to, say, 32 roster spots without requiring it would be perfectly fine with me. I'll echo the sentiment that it's good for non-contending teams to give a few extra players some time in the majors and for contenders, it can reward having extra organizational depth. Further, some extra roster spots would hopefully free us from the embarrassment that position player-pitching has become.

Mike Axisa: I have no idea why the MLBPA agreed to go all the way from 40 players down to 28 in one fell swoop. That's a lot of days in the big leagues (i.e. service time and MLB pay) that have been bargained away. They couldn't cut down to, say, 32 players first? You could even set a 26-man "active" roster for each series and limit the number of players available to play while still getting guys to the big leagues. There is no putting this toothpaste back in the tube though. Full expanded rosters are never coming back.

Anyway, I wrote something defending full September call-ups a decade ago now and I think it holds up. One extra position player and one extra pitcher doesn't accomplish much. Relievers still get shuttled in and out on an almost daily basis, teams can't make wholesale changes in the late innings of blowouts to rest players, etc. Also, fans don't get to see those random minor leaguers who make the last few weeks of the season interesting, especially for non-contenders. If it were up to me, I'd go all the way back to 40, and I would be willing to compromise with 32. Any fewer than that and we're not helping teams out much at all.