The 27th man

 Watching Daniel Norris start today for Columbus it reminded me of the thought I had last night when David Fry pitched the bottom of the 8th.  

While my thinking is generally held in the same esteem as when Moe told Curly "Don't think. You'll weaken the nation", maybe this idea will be different, so I wanted to share it here.

In double headers teams are allowed to add a 27th man.  What if we make this a permanent situation but with certain limitations.

• In a doubleheader teams will continue to be able to bring up an extra pitcher.  That pitcher will continue to be able to play in one or both games of the doubleheader.
• In all other games the team is allowed to have a 27th player, a pitcher, who is with the team and is designated as the 27th player before the game.  That pitcher has the following limitations:
•  He is only allowed to pitch if his team is behind by 10 or more runs in the 8th inning or beyond.   
• He cannot be someone who is on the current active roster (i.e., guys can't just rotate through that position)
• He does not have to on the 40-man roster or added to the 40-man roster if he pitches in a game
• He must be a player who is currently pitching in a team's minor league system (can't sign a guy off waivers and then put him in this position and can't use a coach or non-player personnel to fill that position).
• The player will continue to be paid his minor league salary unless he gets into a game in which case he will be paid the MLB minimum salary for that game.
• If the 27th man is sent back to the minors a minor league option does not have to be used.

I am just fed up with seeing position players pitch.  A pitcher s,hould pitch.  Watching Fry pitch was a nice oddity but it reminded me that Fry could have hurt his arm by pitching and how the batters had to, essentially, put up non-competitive at bats just not to embarrass the position player/pitcher or the other team.  If you remember in the 14-1 game against KC Fry, Freeman and, I think, Arias, in their only ABs of the game, had to just go through the motions instead of really focusing on improving their stats.  

The use of position players to pitch should be disallowed.  It helps no one, first putting the position player turned pitch at risk for hurting his arm and putting the batters he faces in a bad position by not allowing them to at least put up competitive ABs.

I think this rule would allow pitchers who might not get a chance to pitch in a major league game or even dress out with major leaguers, to at least have an outside opportunity to do that and, if it does occur, batters would not feel the obligation to give up instead of trying to get a hit.  Plus, with the player not HAVING to be on the 40-man roster, it wouldn't necessarily impact the organization's better prospects as you wouldn't necessarily want them just sitting around for a week or more and never getting n a game.

Just a thought...without trying to weaken the nation.