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Pitching up until the 1960's was the centerpiece for most major league baseball teams. While teams depended on big hitters like Babe Ruth, Eddie Mathews, Jimmie Foxx and others, the starting pitcher dictated whether the team won or lost that game. While it is a rarity to see a starting pitcher throw seven innings in a baseball game today, it was a rarity for a starting pitcher not to pitch at least seven innings. Pitching so deep into every baseball game ultimately decided how the game was going to turn out and is also the reason why most pitching records are held by players who played in the early twentieth century. Pitchers like Cy Young, Warren Spahn, Walter Johnson and many others have won well over 300 games because of their ability to pitch many innings at a time and the pitching concept led managers to keep starting pitchers in as long as possible. Hall of fame pitchers from today's pitching concept can still win over 300 games, but usually can only amass 250 victories throughout a full career. This is due partly to the change of the pitching rotation in the mid 1960's or so. Up until this time, teams carried four starting pitchers that were expected to pitch every fourth day as long as they possibly could. The idea of keeping more hitters on the bench rather than pitchers was important because the strategy of the game was skewed towards manufacturing runs with pinch runners and pinch hitters rather than today's current strategy.

In today's “new” concept, pitching has become a premium on the roster. This has changed due to many different reasons. Like everything in the world today, money is a big factor. General Managers are concerned about hurting the pitcher's arm, so they limit the amount of pitches or innings they can throw. Also, match-up pitching has become very popular. Using statistics, MLB teams can find out whether hitters are good against left or right handed pitchers and can even find out how good a hitter is on fastballs or breaking pitches. Due to this new information being kept in the “new” pitching concept era, teams usually keep up to 10 or 11 relievers to try to counter attack against a big hitter late in the game that could decide a win or loss. In Whitey Herzog's book You're Missin' a Great Game, Herzog talks about the planning each game took because of the new use of relievers. “You'll never know what reliever you'll need tomorrow, so the best thing is just to have depth on your staff” (Herzog 120). With all the different match-up's that were possible, it was vital to keep that many relievers in the “new” era of pitching.

While many people can debate over which concept is better, there are clear-cut positives for both concepts. Being able to pitch deep into ball games allowed teams only to keep 8 or so pitchers which gave the team that extra dangerous player on the bench who could get that important hit, steal a base or be able to sacrifice the runner to the next base. The game itself was much more of one starting pitcher against another. The better pitcher on that day would be the deciding factor in a victory or loss. In today's new concept, a baseball game has evolved into much more than just one starting pitcher against another. With pitch counts, expanded pitching rotation and risk factoring into each pitcher, the amount of innings pitched by starting pitchers has decreased. While some old time baseball fans may hate this new style, less arm strain on a pitcher could extend his career multiple years. Also, it may be more challenging for a hitter because of a new pitcher almost every other inning due to match-up relievers