Someone please explain this to me b/c I can't figure it out: How come, in days past, teams were using four-man rotations and had several "horse" pitchers who started over 30 games a year and made it through well over 200 innings? Why is this such a rare commodity over the last 15 years or so? How come our strong, young pitchers seem incapable of maintaining such a pace without significant injury (excepting Z, of course)? Take Rick Reuschel, for example: Reuschel's career stats Not an HOFer, but a guy pitching in the 70's and 80's who started well over 30 games per season and went over 200 innings well into his early forties. By contrast, it would seem that Wood and Prior are at least as talented as Reuschel (at least), yet they cannot keep themseleves together. Pitchers seem to have greater advantages in several aspects as compared to their fellows who pitched in preceeding eras, including, but not limited to, technology associated with analyzing technique and stats, advanced medicine, better conditioning, etc. How do we explan this? I thought of a few more guys we can use as examples of the durable pitcher from bygone eras (I am purposefully excluding knuckleballers, BTW): Warren Spahn Bob Welch Don Sutton Burt Hooton (he's on the lower end of this scale, but had 10 straight years over 200 innings) EDIT: Actually, it was 9 of 10 years, I think.