Been a while since I produced a Data Table, but the subject of working starting pitchers on three days rest came up the other day.
As far as I can tell, the five man rotation began to emerge at least as far back as the 1960s, and have been universally used since the early 1980s. Before that we had four man rotations, and before that we had three man rotations. Before that we had Old Hoss Radbourn. But it's my belief that the four man rotation was never quite the standard practise the people seem to think it was, or not for all that long anyway. At the very least, it didn't quite operate the way the current five man rotations do. A Modern manager just rolls over his five starters - if he has an ace who stands heads and shoulders above the rest, he may bump his other four back to keep his big man working on regular rest. But that's about the extent of the variety you'll find.
It's the modern schedule that makes this possible. It was the schedules of the past that made it somewhat difficult (and to a large degree, not as necessary) to do the same thing with four starters.
Last year, the Blue Jays played 162 games in 182 days. They had 22 off-days, and played 1 double-header. In 1971, Earl Weaver's Orioles played 162 games in just 171 days. But they had a whopping 37 off-days, because they also played 19 double-headers. The 1961 Tigers (163 games in 174 days) had 34 off-days and played 23 double-headers. The farther back you go, the more you run into similarly weird things in team's schedules - four days in a row with no games, three double-headers in a week.
Anyway, I've come to suspect that all the additional off-days made it much easier for managers to keep their top starters rested; meanwhile, it was all the double-headers that created the need for that more-or-less extinct creature, the Spot Starter.
But this is all about my Data Table!
There are 126 men who have started 400 games in the major leagues. We know how much rest everyone was working on since 1917, so let's just run the names in chronological order: I assume the columns are obvious - they're numbers of starts made with x days of rest (yes, back in the day some pitchers would start both games of a double-header), total starts (that we have the data for), and percentage of career starts with 3 days rest or less and four days rest or more.
Pitcher 1st Last DH-2 0 1 2 3 4 5 6+ TOTAL 0-3 4+What jumps out at me immediately is the way the number of 400 career start pitchers falls off in the 1930s and again in the 1990s - also known as the Two Great Golden Ages of hitting. Which seems to suggest that the tougher the conditions are for pitchers, the less likely it is that they'll have long and fruitful careers.
Plank INC 1901 1917 0 1 2 5 9 10 3 10 40 42.5% 57.5%
W.Johnson INC 1907 1927 3 5 24 38 134 83 30 40 357 57.1% 42.9%
Marquard INC 1908 1925 0 3 11 29 66 46 24 37 216 50.5% 49.5%
Quinn INC 1909 1933 0 10 16 28 80 69 38 53 294 45.6% 54.4%
Alexander INC 1911 1930 4 6 13 51 141 97 42 58 412 52.2% 47.8%
Rixey INC 1912 1933 2 2 21 63 176 96 49 69 478 55.2% 44.8%
Pennock INC 1912 1934 1 3 17 41 97 93 60 79 391 40.7% 59.3%
Cooper INC 1912 1926 0 3 20 35 135 72 30 44 339 56.9% 43.1%
Jones INC 1914 1935 0 7 24 34 135 112 74 92 478 41.8% 58.2%
Faber INC 1914 1933 2 7 16 48 154 87 50 68 432 52.5% 47.5%
Meadows INC 1915 1929 2 7 23 46 129 83 26 63 379 54.6% 45.4%
Grimes 1916 1934 0 7 23 61 177 107 50 71 496 54.0% 46.0%
Hoyt 1918 1938 0 5 33 54 124 106 44 59 425 50.8% 49.2%
Zachary 1918 1936 1 1 13 21 108 100 67 97 408 35.3% 64.7%
Lyons 1923 1946 0 7 14 33 104 85 66 175 484 32.6% 67.4%
Whitehill 1923 1939 0 3 11 29 144 155 60 71 473 39.5% 60.5%
Ruffing 1924 1947 2 3 16 36 113 148 97 123 538 31.6% 68.4%
Grove 1925 1941 0 8 29 49 149 79 49 94 457 51.4% 48.6%
Fitzsimmons 1925 1943 0 2 15 41 103 95 52 116 424 38.0% 62.0%
Harder 1928 1947 0 0 31 35 114 109 53 91 433 41.6% 58.4%
Hubbell 1928 1943 0 0 26 55 130 88 50 84 433 48.7% 51.3%
Newsom 1929 1953 6 2 17 63 176 109 48 62 483 54.7% 45.3%
Derringer 1931 1945 0 3 32 49 148 107 54 52 445 52.1% 47.9%
Feller 1936 1956 0 0 22 43 188 114 53 64 484 52.3% 47.7%
Wynn 1939 1963 0 0 20 38 210 182 78 84 612 43.8% 56.2%
Spahn 1942 1965 0 0 17 39 282 195 71 61 665 50.8% 49.2%
Pierce 1945 1964 0 0 12 32 96 184 49 59 432 32.4% 67.6%
Simmons 1947 1967 0 0 4 23 105 152 73 105 462 28.6% 71.4%
Roberts 1948 1966 0 3 16 46 219 192 71 62 609 46.6% 53.4%
Ford 1950 1967 0 0 3 19 156 150 51 59 438 40.6% 59.4%
Friend 1951 1966 0 0 14 32 215 134 46 56 497 52.5% 47.5%
Pascual 1954 1971 0 0 7 16 105 163 54 59 404 31.7% 68.3%
Bunning 1955 1971 0 0 10 15 241 157 46 50 519 51.3% 48.7%
Jackson 1955 1968 0 0 4 20 193 134 46 32 429 50.6% 49.4%
Drysdale 1956 1969 0 2 16 20 253 119 27 28 465 62.6% 37.4%
Osteen 1957 1975 0 1 0 11 201 192 39 44 488 43.6% 56.4%
Pappas 1957 1973 0 0 4 6 141 161 82 71 465 32.5% 67.5%
Kaat 1959 1983 0 0 13 34 282 180 50 66 625 52.6% 47.4%
Gibson 1959 1975 0 0 1 5 92 258 70 56 482 20.3% 79.7%
J.Perry 1959 1975 0 1 10 21 193 136 40 46 447 50.3% 49.7%
Marichal 1960 1975 0 0 1 6 215 148 31 56 457 48.6% 51.4%
G.Perry 1962 1983 0 0 2 7 280 281 75 45 690 41.9% 58.1%
Niekro 1963 1987 0 0 6 34 255 270 93 58 716 41.2% 58.8%
John 1963 1989 0 0 3 18 156 303 136 84 700 25.3% 74.7%
Lolich 1963 1979 0 0 5 30 251 115 45 50 496 57.7% 42.3%
Tiant 1964 1982 0 2 6 11 159 176 57 73 484 36.8% 63.2%
Wise 1964 1982 0 0 0 3 104 211 73 64 455 23.5% 76.5%
Palmer 1965 1984 0 0 0 2 257 150 46 66 521 49.7% 50.3%
Carlton 1965 1988 0 0 0 0 198 354 85 72 709 27.9% 72.1%
Jenkins 1965 1983 0 0 1 13 226 231 78 45 594 40.4% 59.6%
Hunter 1965 1979 0 1 0 10 189 161 55 60 476 42.0% 58.0%
Holtzman 1965 1979 0 0 2 8 191 112 40 57 410 49.0% 51.0%
Ryan 1966 1993 0 0 1 13 178 378 104 99 773 24.8% 75.2%
Sutton 1966 1988 0 0 1 2 175 384 124 70 756 23.5% 76.5%
Seaver 1967 1986 0 1 0 3 58 445 81 59 647 9.6% 90.4%
Koosman 1967 1985 0 0 2 5 76 313 84 47 527 15.7% 84.3%
J.Niekro 1967 1988 0 0 5 12 126 233 72 52 500 28.6% 71.4%
Torrez 1967 1984 0 0 3 8 115 199 70 63 458 27.5% 72.5%
Reuss 1969 1990 0 1 1 7 79 279 101 79 547 16.1% 83.9%
Blue 1969 1986 0 0 1 5 175 193 49 50 473 38.3% 61.7%
Blyleven 1970 1992 0 1 1 5 182 343 85 68 685 27.6% 72.4%
Hough 1970 1994 0 0 1 3 60 236 96 44 440 14.5% 85.5%
D. Alexander 1971 1989 0 0 1 6 76 231 76 74 464 17.9% 82.1%
Reuschel 1972 1991 0 0 5 5 177 227 66 49 529 35.3% 64.7%
Tanana 1973 1993 0 0 0 2 63 362 115 74 616 10.6% 89.4%
B.Forsch 1974 1989 0 0 0 2 40 236 82 62 422 10.0% 90.0%
Flanagan 1975 1992 0 0 1 0 107 189 60 47 404 26.7% 73.3%
D.Martinez 1976 1998 0 0 3 2 101 293 99 64 562 18.9% 81.1%
Knepper 1976 1990 0 0 0 5 87 217 55 49 413 22.3% 77.7%
Morris 1977 1994 0 0 0 0 72 331 75 49 527 13.7% 86.3%
Welch 1978 1994 0 0 0 0 37 274 95 56 462 8.0% 92.0%
Morgan 1978 2002 0 0 0 13 11 229 100 58 411 5.8% 94.2%
Sanderson 1978 1996 0 0 1 1 24 228 80 73 407 6.4% 93.6%
Stieb 1979 1998 0 0 0 2 41 254 77 38 412 10.4% 89.6%
Valenzuela 1980 1997 0 0 0 0 25 258 95 46 424 5.9% 94.1%
Moore 1982 1995 0 0 0 5 52 269 70 44 440 13.0% 87.0%
Viola 1982 1996 0 0 1 1 56 243 83 36 420 13.8% 86.2%
Candiotti 1982 1999 0 0 3 3 17 216 116 55 410 5.6% 94.4%
Hershiser 1983 2000 0 0 4 1 19 249 143 50 466 5.2% 94.8%
Cone 1983 2003 0 0 0 1 13 231 111 63 419 3.3% 96.7%
Clemens 1984 2007 0 0 0 1 12 458 166 70 707 1.8% 98.2%
Langston 1984 1999 0 0 1 3 17 260 94 53 428 4.9% 95.1%
Gooden 1984 2000 0 0 0 1 6 253 94 56 410 1.7% 98.3%
Maddux 1986 2008 0 0 0 3 37 490 151 59 740 5.4% 94.6%
Moyer 1986 2012 0 0 0 4 15 355 180 84 638 3.0% 97.0%
Brown 1986 2005 0 0 1 1 14 294 112 54 476 3.4% 96.6%
Finley 1986 2002 0 0 0 0 20 294 103 50 467 4.3% 95.7%
Glavine 1987 2008 0 0 0 0 25 434 164 59 682 3.7% 96.3%
Wells 1987 2007 0 0 1 2 17 275 133 61 489 4.1% 95.9%
Burkett 1987 2003 0 0 0 5 21 236 111 50 423 6.1% 93.9%
R.Johnson 1988 2009 0 0 0 0 10 408 117 68 603 1.7% 98.3%
Smoltz 1988 2009 0 0 0 0 20 306 103 52 481 4.2% 95.8%
Schilling 1988 2007 0 0 0 1 1 294 99 41 436 0.5% 99.5%
Rogers 1989 2008 0 1 1 1 16 276 122 57 474 4.0% 96.0%
Appier 1989 2005 0 0 0 2 14 222 120 44 402 4.0% 96.0%
Mussina 1991 2008 0 0 0 0 10 338 126 62 536 1.9% 98.1%
Wakefield 1992 2011 0 1 4 12 19 225 140 62 463 7.8% 92.2%
P.Martinez 1992 2009 0 0 0 2 0 199 161 47 409 0.5% 99.5%
Trachsel 1993 2008 0 0 0 1 6 227 128 55 417 1.7% 98.3%
Petitte 1995 2013 0 0 1 0 14 299 127 57 498 3.0% 97.0%
Suppan 1995 2012 0 0 0 0 2 241 108 66 417 0.5% 99.5%
Hernandez 1996 2012 0 0 0 0 6 266 153 49 474 1.3% 98.7%
Millwood 1997 2012 0 0 0 1 6 267 111 58 443 1.6% 98.4%
Vazquez 1998 2011 0 0 0 0 5 255 133 50 443 1.1% 98.9%
Hudson 1999 2013 0 0 0 0 4 258 115 36 413 1.0% 99.0%
Buehrle 2000 2013 0 0 0 1 6 209 137 51 404 1.7% 98.3%
Zito 2000 2013 0 0 1 1 1 241 123 34 401 0.7% 99.3%
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