Anyway, Smith and Trammell are very close in James’ new system. Smith is 94 Win Shares above average (Win Shares minus Loss Shares) while Trammell is 106 Win Shares above average.

Sigh.

The worst thing about this is I've come to hate Ozzie Smith, even though (a) the Hall's ignoring of Trammell is obviously not Smith's fault and (b) Ozzie was a great player, too. I hate Ryne Sandberg (vis. Lou Whitaker) for the same reason.

I may have to sign up for BJO.

What caused the change? Well, I can tell you what else happened in 1975 and 1976: Peter Seitz struck down the reserve clause, the owners lost their appeal and then locked players out of spring training for 17 days while negotiating a new player contract, Catfish Hunter signed a $3.3 million contract and a couple of dozen players became free agents at the end of 1976. Baseball evolved from a pastoral game to a business nearly overnight; the Dodgers raised their ticket prices for the first time since 1958.

True, but the first free agency draft wasn't until '77.

In my last column, I showed a great graph of the yearly number of days of rest between starts. The data indicated that 1976 might have been a critical year in the movement from three days of rest to four, so I decided to research the subject a little further.

Here's a little table that shows how dramatically the number of rest days changed between the two years:

B-ref now gives G & IP by days rest divided among starters and relievers. Here's how starts on 3 days rest breaks down team-by-team from 1975 to 1976:

CWS -80
LAD -66
TEX -39
PHI -37
CAL -35
CHC -30
SFG -28
NYY -22
MIN -22
KCR -21
NYM -18
STL -17
MON -12
HOU -11
ATL -11
MIL -10
BOX Even
BAL +2
PIT +2
CIN +6
CLE +7
OAK +14
DET +28
SDP +33

Yeah, it does look like a sea change.

- Sox lost Wood - and replaced Chuck Tanner with Paul RIchards. Tanner went to Oakland, who became one of the only teams to see their 3-days-rest totals go up (at 65, they were 3rd highest in MLB that year).

- Dodgers lost Messersmith. They also had Tommy John return, and had to be a bit more lenient on his reconstructed arm.

Those two teams combine for almost 40% of the reduction.

- Texas: Billy Martin got fired midway through 1975 and Frank Lucchesi , his replacement,was someone who almost never used men on three days rest. They had 44 such starts in '75 but only 5 in 1976. In 1974, Martin's only full year in Texas, they had 83 starts on 3 games rest. I'll be almost all those 44 in '75 came on Martin's watch. Even still, Martin came to NYY in mid-75, and saw a a reduction in 3-day starts in 1976, his first full year on the job. Instead of 83 such starts as happened in 1974, Martin's '76 Yanks had 41 starts on 3 days rest. Martin's leaving explains what happened in Texas, but Martin himself changed. For a while anyway, we all know what happened with the 1980 A's. Maybe it was just that Steinbrenner could stock the team with enough starters Martin trusted.

- Philly. Not sure. 1976 was the year they got Jim Kaat. Looks like they just wanted to give everyone a bit more rest.

- California: Nolan Ryan went down with an injury in AUgust 1975. Still, until mid-May 1976, both Ryan and Tanana regularly took the hill on 3 days rest. Looks like Dick Williams decided to shift to a 5-man rotation with Sid Monge the fifth man at that time.

- Cubs. Traded for Steve Reno early in the year. Then again, they still had 61 starts on 3-days rest.

In 1974 Tommy John blew his arm and had it reconstructed, the next year Nolan Ryan, the superpitcher, went down with injury, John came back when Messwersmith went out. Looks like several things combined to make the sea change.

Perhaps most importantly, in 1975 the Reds won 108 games with only 10 starts from men on 3 days rest. Sure, thyey wen tup in '76, but only to 16. Nothing breed imitation like success.

Studes with his latest TTDKLW (which I believe was Bill Mlkvy’s original name).

This seems like as good a time as any to mention that back when I went to HS, there was a family with the surname Smrt.

Great summary, Chris. Thanks.

So, you don't like my theory? :)

This seems like as good a time as any to mention that back when I went to HS, there was a family with the surname Smrt.

I knew a family named Smrz. People used to make fun of the kid and tell him to buy a damn vowel. Kids are mean.