Infinite Monkeys

I think it's been that way for a very long time. It's always been the case that teams could have a (roughly) 40-man roster, but only 25 active players. In order to play in post season, you need to have been part of the 40-man roster on August 31st.
Here's the Wikipedia entry, and a bit of history.

RobbL it's been longer than 20 years.

I really started following baseball in the late 60's and I remember it happening then.

That second link seems to have the answer, 1968 for the 25-40 roster. And the explanation of the history of roster sizes is interesting, thanks.

Robb,

The expanded roster in September has been around since 1909. The dates to expand the roster has fluctuated between 8/15 and 8/31. It's been 8/31 since 1917. The number of players you could expand to has been 40 since 1921. To add to this confusion is the fact that until 1958 you had 28 players on your roster on opening day and didn't have to cut down to 25 players until 30 days into the season.

It's interesting how your first instinct was to suspect a conspiracy for base motives. You really need to spend less time with Deuce.

You don't think that the MLB's track record in recent years (e.g. using the All-Star Game to determine the World Series home field advantage, not to mention the brazen corruption involved in building many of the recent ballparks with public money) warrants some suspicion?

Besides, both my theology and political/economic positions are based on an anthropology that assumes selfishness as man's default behavior. Capitalism is based on this idea, and it's pretty core to American conservatism, as well. Socialists and communists believe that the heart of man is either naturally good or can be inclined that way by government. Capitalism and democracy are designed to channel self-interest toward the public interest without pretending that self-interest will go away.

Major League Baseball is big business. Owners, players, sponsors, and TV networks have all established by their behavior that revenue trumps principle with very few exceptions. There are several very believable reasons why this practice COULD have come to be recently, including:

1. TV networks and MLB ownership wanted to increase viewership and ticket sales going into the postseason.
2. The players' union could have demanded the expansion to ensure that more minor-league players get a taste of the big-league salary pool.
3. The owners and team management needed a device to maintain control of a larger number of players to avoid "poaching" by other teams without committing to the routine use of a large number of players in the games.

That last reason, by the way, is a big part of the actual reasoning described in the link you posted. So conspiracy? Not in the commonly-used sense of the word. It doesn't require Oliver Stone's imagination to come up with the scenarios I listed.

Again, you're putting a spin on it with your third point. The simple fact is that there would be a strong temptation for players not under contract to jump to a team that actually has a chance at winning the World Series. It would turn the weeks leading up to the post season into a ridiculous free-for-all, creating all-star teams that would have little in common with the teams that actually went through the season. It's a perfectly sensible rule, and understanding it requires no probing of the nefarious depths of human nature.

Oh, I don't necessarily disagree with the rule, although it seems the trade deadline rules alone resolve (or could resolve) the "free-for-all" problem you describe.

At any rate, my initial suspicion was that #1 was the chief reason for the rule, and it was truthfully kind of refreshing to find out that #3 was a lot closer to the truth.