25-Start Seasons to Begin a Career
Posted by Raphy on July 19, 2010
Javier Vazquez has played for a lot of teams in his 13 season career. Yet, despite the frequent changes, he has taken the ball with remarkable regularity. In fact, Vazquez is one of only 3 pitchers since WWI to start at least 25 games in each of his first 12 seasons. Here are the all the players since 1871 to accomplish this feat.
| Rk | Yrs | From | To | Age | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Javier Vazquez | 12 | 1998 | 2009 | 22-33 | |
| 2 | Tom Seaver | 12 | 1967 | 1978 | 22-33 | |
| 3 | Don Sutton | 12 | 1966 | 1977 | 21-32 | |
| 4 | Eddie Plank | 12 | 1901 | 1912 | 25-36 | |
| 5 | Vic Willis | 12 | 1898 | 1909 | 22-33 | |
| 6 | Jack Powell | 12 | 1897 | 1908 | 22-33 | |
| 7 | Kid Nichols | 12 | 1890 | 1901 | 20-31 |
Should Vazquez make another 9 starts this season, he will become one of 6 players to start with 13 consecutive seasons (Willis drops out).
The record belongs to Sutton who started at least 25 games in each of his first 15 seasons. In fact, if you ignore the shortened '81 season (in which he made 23 starts), Sutton started at least 25 games in each of his first 21 big league seasons.
July 19th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
I would imagine that there were a few guys that had streaks ended due to the 81' strike. But even if you excluded 1981 altogether, I am sure there are not many others that would have 21 seasons in a row.
July 19th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Actually,other than Sutton, there weren't really any significant streaks effected by the strike. Blyleven had an 11 year strike stopped in '81, but he didn't continue it in '82. The same is true for Seaver and his 14 year streak.
July 19th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Guys like Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine would have streaks of over 20 years (think 20 flat for Glavine) if they hadn't come up for a cup of coffee their rookie years.
July 19th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
Oh, I forgot the list only included "from start of career" - I was thinking of guys like Carlton or Ryan, but their streaks were not from their first seasons.
July 19th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
I am sort of slly Cy Youngurprised that none of the old-timers made the list -- especially Cy Young and arney Johnson.