Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom the Fish
For as long as I've followed MLB baseball, the roster size has been 25 players, with the roster being expanded to 40 players on September 1st. I can't imagine it has always been this way, especially back when less pitchers were needed. Were there roster size rules pre-1900s? If so, what were they? If there weren't rules, when were the introduced? Were they always 25 men? When were expanded rosters allowed? Was it always up to 40? When did the 40 man roster appear with the waiver rules?
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There's a web site by SABR member Cliff Blau which has answers to many of your questions, but unfortunately, it's not up at the moment.
However, I did archive earlier versions of the relevant pages from that site. These are contained in the zip file attached to this post.
Note that the pages not only describe the roster limits, but also other league operating rules such as options, trade deadlines, the disabled list, etc. It's a good primer for exploring just how these sort of rules have changed over the years in MLB.
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