MLB’s era of ‘load management’ is just getting started

In 1998, a record 96 pitchers qualified for an earned-run average title. Major League Baseball had just expanded to 30 teams. There were more players, and more pitchers, than ever. In the years that followed, the number of ERA qualifiers – pitchers who threw at least 162 innings in a season – hovered in the eighties and nineties.
Then after the 2014 season, a funny thing happened. Qualifying for an ERA title became somewhat rare. Only 78 pitchers qualified in 2015, then 74, then 58.