from Amazon
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Criss-cross applesauce
Such very cool data. I’ve always set the change in pitcher usage at around 1982/1983. That’s when the starters were on a different usage pattern, and closers were on a different usage pattern. That was my guess anyway. If you look at the chart, the percentage of starts of 3 days and 5 days criss-crossed during 1979/1980. And if you look at the 5+ days, the percentagejumps and plateaus from 1977 to 1987, and then another jump/plateau 1988 to 1997, and finally our current one from 1998 to present.
However, if you look at the % of starts of 3 or fewer days of rest minus % of starts 5 or greater days of rest, you get a wildly enormous transition from 1973 to 1981, after which, a plateau from 1982 to 1986, then another transition from 1987 to 1991, a plateau from 1992 to 1997, and a jump/plateau from 1998 to present. This is what I remember, and I think it better describes the changing pattern of usage.
Studes, maybe you can add a new chart that shows just those three lines, the “3 and fewer”, “four”, and “5 and more”?