Four-man Rotations

Valatan, a regular poster on Viva El Birdos(a GREAT Cardinals blog) posted recently about the idea of the Cardinals using a four-man rotation. I voiced concerns in a reply, namely that an injury could leave the Cardinals seriously deficient in the rotation, that with two very young arms, I’d hate to see the Cardinals jeopardize their careers for an experiment, and that while the 5th starter for a playoff team is overrated, as they aren’t used in the playoffs, that our fifth starter ideally is Kip Wells, and that it’s not a situation of cutting our fifth starter out.

After this, I brought up that I thought I remembered a team(Montreal I believed it to be) used a four-man rotation recently and that looking up how that experiment went would be the most recent view of the four-man rotation.

I suggested someone else do it, but eventually decided to look up this information myself.

Three situations where a four-man rotation was used include the 2003 Toronto Blue Jays(I had the wrong Canadian team), the 1995 Kansas City Royals, and the Orioles of the Weaver era(69 to the late 70s).

In the first two of these, the experiment ended pretty quickly due to injuries and other problems. However, the Orioles had incredible success with the four-man rotation.

First up: The 2003 Toronto Blue Jays

Halladay and Lidle were the two biggest names in that rotation. Halladay pitched brilliantly all year long, starting 36 games and pitching 266 innings. He posted an ERA of 3.25 and won the Cy Young award that year, having won 22 games. Lidle on the other hand, had issues, only starting 31 games and posted a 5.75 ERA in 192.2 innings. The 5.75 ERA was his career high in ERA, so the four-man rotation didn’t work out so well for him. No one else even posted 30 games started for the Blue Jays that year.

Despite Halladay’s success, he also suffered arm injuries the following two seasons, starting only 42 games the following two seasons and pitching almost the same number of innings in 2004 and 2005 combined that he did in 2003. With pitchers’ arms, they are often so fragile and they break down anyway, so it’s not entirely certain that Halladay’s injuries are because of that season, but it does seem to be a good possibility.

The 1995 Kansas City Royals

Their attempt at a four-man rotation completely fell apart when Kevin Appier, their best pitcher that year sustained an injury that season. The team high for games started that year was 33 and innings pitched 213.1, both by Mark Gubicza. Overall, this attempt at a four-man rotation was complete failure.

The 1970s Orioles

This was the longest sustained success of a four-man rotation in recent memory. Under Weaver, who used the four-man rotation to great success, several players became stars. The four-man rotation setup(having more chances to win games and pile up huge innings pitched numbers also gave them greater chances at post-season awards).

In this group is Jim Palmer, who won three Cy Young awards and from 1970-1978 started at least 35 games every year except 1974, where he battled the injury bug. You could blame this on the four-man rotation, but given how pitchers break down, having one injury-plagued season is pretty meaningless as far as damning the idea of a four-man rotation.

Also in this group of pitchers with sustained success in Baltimore was Mike Cueller, who had his greatest success under Weaver, winning a Cy Young in his first season there. He was always a good pitcher, but got the most notoriety from his time under Weaver. He fell off in 1976, but at the age of 39, this should be expected.

Dave McNally was the last of the three longest tenured pitchers in the four-man rotation. He emerged in 1968 and pitched very well under Weaver for six seasons until 1974. In 1975, he only started 12 games and never pitched in the majors again, instead retiring after a labor dispute. (My first thought here was maybe an injury, but no evidence that the Baltimore 4 man rotation really hurt anyone).

I’m sure a fan of the 1970s Orioles would know whether there was anyone who tried to fill that 4th spot that it seemed the Orioles could never really fill reliably(Most years it was these three guys making 35+ starts and a handful of other guys filling out the other 60+ games). I couldn’t find anything in short time though showing that Weaver wrecked anyone’s career with the four-man rotation.

Overall, I still think it’s a bad idea for the Cardinals in 2007 because of having two young arms that are unaccustomed to pitching like that. If we had Woody Williams and Matt Morris in the rotation with Carp and one of the young guys, I think it’d be an awesome experiment to try. But injuries to the likes of those players seem less likely as they’ve proven themselves very durable starters, and it’s not wrecking an entire career. The risk-reward doesn’t seem to justify trying to go it with four guys.

To be honest though, I do give more credence to the idea than I started with.