Brian, as usual has raised an interesting discussion. It does seem like with rare exceptions (late season callups like Todd Worrell in 1985) that low inning pitchers would probably not be called on to pitch in the playoffs in real life MLB.

One solution raised by other people is to have different limits for starting and relieving. I personally think this is a bad solution as it would make the process of enforcement too difficult. You would run into the issue of how to treat relievers who started in the corresponding season and other issues. Having a hard and fast rule of X innings for all pitchers is an EASY way to make a decision and is easily enforced (and I think EASY enforcement is a key issue here).

If you want to raise the limit from 20 innings to 30 innings that could have merit. But I think going to 50 innings accross the board would not out way too many relievers... especially LOOGY's. And as stated above I feel it is impractical from an enforcement point of view to have different standards for starters and relievers.

My suggestion is either leave it alone or bump it to 30 IP for all pitchers.