Angels' Cozart believes there is 'ulterior motive' to Rays starting Romo

Los Angeles Angels third baseman Zack Cozart didn't mince words in his first objection to the Tampa Bay Rays starting a one-inning reliever against his team on back-to-back days, and, on Tuesday, he further explained his opinion, suggesting it will affect how players get paid.

"I feel like teams have an ulterior motive when they are doing this," Cozart told Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register. "Less starting pitching means you don't have to pay guys as much."

These comments come in the wake of the Rays starting Sergio Romo on back-to-back days against the right-handed top of the Angels lineup. In the first game, Romo struck out the side before turning it over to left-hander Ryan Yarbrough, who set a personal high of 6 1/3 innings in the victory. In Sunday's finale, Romo went 1 1/3 with another three strikeouts before giving the ball to Matt Andriese in the loss.

Following the pair of games, Cozart said that the Rays' actions were "bad for baseball," comparing it to "spring training."

"I'm not saying I don't see their side of it," Cozart clarified on Tuesday. "I get it. We have a lot of righties in the lineup. They didn't want to start the lefty and Romo is usually pretty good versus righties. ... I just don't want to get where guys aren't getting paid as much because there's a ton of bullpen guys coming in one and after another and then all of the sudden there's one or two guys on the staff who start.

"I'm more concerned about the financial aspect of three or four years down the road, if your whole staff is bullpenning except a couple guys, your payroll is going to go down because you don't have to pay starters anymore."

Yarbrough, 26, has started three games of his rookie campaign this season but ranks fourth by innings pitched among Rays hurlers. Yonny Chirinos is in a similar predicament from Tampa Bay's experimentation and could hypothetically get paid less when they are first eligible for arbitration as early as following the 2019 season if both or either are eligible for Super 2.

Major League Baseball's arbitration system has long awarded the traditional statistics such as wins and saves, though players did win their arbitration cases en masse this past offseason. Even further, the free-agent market suppresses the value of high-leverage relievers compared to their starting-pitching counterpart - specifically in term length - based mostly on workload.