Sorry but you’re excuse mongering failure. Pitchers were always “max effort”. And reducing their innings and available pitches is the exact OPPOSITE of of maximizing a pitchers performance. Baseball is paying more for less from pitcher, because they ENCOURAGE the pitchers to be underperforming premadonas. They constantly reduce what the expect pitchers to be able to do, and the pitchers gladly comply. They keep getting worse in their skill set, and worse in their endurance. Today’s pitchers aren’t as good at ANYTHING as yesteryear’s were, and the baseball industry rejoices in that.
May I suggest Christy Mathewson's Pitching In A Pinch for your reading list?