Cubs' Lester: Lack of 200-inning pitchers 'terrible' for baseball

Once upon a time, long before pitcher safety became a growing concern in baseball circles, it wasn't unreasonable for starting pitchers to hurl 300 innings in a season.

Today, it's increasingly rare that a starter even reaches the 200-inning plateau, and Chicago Cubs left-hander Jon Lester isn't wild about the possibility of the trend becoming the new norm.

"I hope not," Lester told Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times. "I think it’s terrible for the game. That puts too much pressure on your bullpen. That means you’re using them more. The bad things about those guys, man, is they’re on call every night. There’s a time and a place (for leaning on the bullpen), and the playoffs are a different animal and you throw that out the window. But what you do in the playoffs is not what you do in the seasons."

Since becoming a fixture in the majors in 2008, Lester has tallied 200 innings or more in eight of 10 seasons. He didn't make it last year, finishing the campaign with 180 2/3 innings after spending time on the disabled list with a shoulder injury.

Lester added that he felt he let the team down and that top starters need to be able to take on heavier workloads during the regular season.

"It’s too many outs for those (bullpen) guys to get to have them fresh and ready to go by the playoffs. I feel like starters need to be more accountable and go deeper into games."

Related: Cubs tab Lester for 3rd Opening Day start in 4 years

Only 15 pitchers threw 200 innings in 2017, down significantly from 2015 when 28 pitchers reached the milestone. Only Chris Sale, Max Scherzer, Jeff Samardzija, Corey Kluber, and Chris Archer have completed 200 innings in each of the last three campaigns.