A Voice of Reason in the 300 Win Discussion

This post, which you’ve no doubt read dozens of times by now, was basically about Mark Kriedlers’ insane assertion that we would see less players achieving 3,000 hits in the future because they were getting too rich or something. Numbers, logic, and history make that assessment sound sort of unrealstic. If anything, we seem to be trending towards more 3,000 hit club members. But the other point that Mark Kriedler was making was that there would be less 300 game winners. That’s a reasonable assumption, although it’s worth noting we have two active 300 game winners (way over 300) and two pitchers who are very close to 300. But 3 of those pitchers are on the short list of the best pitchers of the last 50 years, and the other is a first ballot hall of famer.

The 300 game winner thinking was explored more on ESPN.com this past week, first in this chat, with Buster Olney.

Jonathan (Tampa, FL): Will there ever be another 300 game winner after Glavine and possibly Randy Johnson?

Buster Olney: Jonathan: C.C. Sabathia might give himself a chance -- he'll get to 100 later this summer, after he turns 27. But beyond that... I doubt it, with the way pitchers are protected at an early age and with the way teams will quickly place high-priced guys on the DL for even a minor injury.

So Buster seems to be saying that C.C. Sabathia may be the last guy with a chance to get to 300 wins. That’s pretty bold. C.C. Sabathia is a fine pitcher, but to insinuate that we’ve seen the last of the Sabathia’s of the world is nonsense. It’s not like Sabathia came up at 16 years old, or has done anything that dozens of other pitchers won’t do in the near future.

Jason (Brooklyn): Buster, I completely disagree with you that there will probably not be a 300 game winner beyond C.C. Just because the game is currently trending in a particular direction (protecting pitchers) doesn't mean that it will continue to do so in the future. Also, it always seems that every generation of baseball players have a few all time greats that are able to buck the trend. Who will it be? who knows, but someone probably will. I'll bet you any amount of money some guy you've probably never heard of will break 300 wins within the next 30-50 years.

Buster Olney: Jason: OK... disagree, but see your point.

Jason’s overall point is a decent one, but I disagree with his thoughts that “protecting pitchers” may go out of vogue. Not when good ones are more than $10 million a year and they are so scarce. If we had 50 Johan Santana type quality pitchers, then yes they would be pampered less, because the supply is greater. But I doubt that the quantity of great pitchers will ever become so skewed that pitcher protection becomes less important.

Let’s summarize Buster’s points:
1. Pitchers are protected at an early age
2. Teams quickly place high priced guys on the DL to avoid injury

Isn’t this likely to lead to more pitchers being healthy for longer and pitching into their 40’s? There’s always going to be injury prone pitchers, but there’s also always going to be those pitchers that escape injury and pitch long enough, under the right circumstances, to win 300 games. Tommy John won 288 games and had a certain well known arm ailment that required a surgery. With modern medical advances he was just able to pitch a very long time and was “pretty good”. He’s not in the Hall of Fame.

As usual, Rob Neyer came along as the voice of reason, with this blog post (on 7/3):

Somebody will win 300 again

(parts deleted)

In other news, Roger Clemens pitched well, which I find inherently more interesting than his reaching a round number. Nevertheless, the question does come to mind: Who among our current young moundsmen might even approach the lofty marks set by Mr. Rocket?

I've got a Baseball Digest article, somewhere in the pile of materials on my desk, that laments the imminent demise of the 200-game winner. This was published in the 1950s, and you probably know that a great number of pitchers have won 200 games since then. So yes, it's difficult to imagine any currently active young pitcher winning 300 games. My prediction, though: Somebody will do it. I don't want to run through a big list, but just looking at this page, I see a few intriguing combinations of youth, health, and success: Roy Oswalt, C.C. Sabathia, Johan Santana.

Will one of them win 300? Probably not. But somebody.

So what about 350? Clemens is there, and a year from now Greg Maddux probably will have joined him. But if it's hard to imagine any young pitcher someday winning 300, it's almost impossible to imagine one of them winning 350.

Is it really, though? Do we really have any idea what doctors and druggists will be doing for pitchers in 20 years, when Yovani Gallardo and Felix Hernandez are "only" 41? If I'm lucky here and there, I've got another 50-some years of being a baseball fan. And I believe someday I'll see a pitcher win more games than Roger Clemens won.

I took a rudimentary look at a handful of active pitchers focusing on their career wins and their ages. I then did a rather simple calculation. I calculated the years they had until turning 40 (using baseballreference’s age), and then plugged in an average win total of 15 per year, and lastly I added in their current win total. Full of flaws I know, but I wanted to just gauge where this situation was. I'm sure that people smarter than me have these things down to specific probabilities.

If the following pitchers can average 15 wins a year until they are 40, this will be their approximate win total at that time (this is really skewed because we are in the middle of a season, as well):

Sabathia – 303
Jeremy Bonderman – 294
Dontrelle Willis – 290
Carlos Zambrano – 284
Jon Garland – 283
Mark Buehrle – 282
Jake Peavy – 276
Barry Zito - 273
Roy Oswalt – 270
Johan Santana – 267
Josh Beckett – 263
Roy Halladay - 254
John Lackey/Ben Sheets – 251

Now, many of those guys won’t even win 200, so I’m not at all saying that they will win that many games. There’s a chance that none will. But if Johan Santana can stay healthy, I’d put some money on him getting to 250. Believe me, I get the flaws in this calculation, but I did it for a sanity check. I'm also not considering mechanics and current volume of innings.

I also get that hardly any of those guys projected to win 300 games. However running the same calculation on a 27 year old Clemens, Maddux, Glavine and Johnson would have projected them at 311, 310, 290 and 239, respectively. More than one of those guys above will likely pitch past 40 as well. Who knows, one or two could pitch to 44 or 45. If they are good enough to be in a major league rotation at that point, there's a decent chance they're winning 300.

Stating the obvious, to win 300, any player will need to play on good offensive teams for a while, be healthy, and a good bullpen will definitely help. A lot of things out of their control, which is why I don’t give a crap if a guy makes it to 300 wins anyway. You want to make a bet that as long as Santana is healthy he’s averaging at least 15 wins? I would take that bet. He’ll have a few years around 18-20 to help the cause too. Plus there’s guys like Verlander and Hamels, who are off to a great start to make a run at 300. The point is, one of those guys could hit their stride, stay healthy, and pitch into their 40's to get to 300. If they all fail, there will be the future generations.

So many variables are involved that’s its crazy to try to get too scientific. But please, tell me why we won’t see another Tom Glavine? That makes no sense.

So once again, Rob Neyer brings some reason to a discussion. Well, him and Jason from Brooklyn.

3,000 Hits an Endangered Species?

Mark Kreidler has written a piece that pontificates if writers should measure impact, not numbers in determining hall of fame voting. Now, he doesn’t define impact, at all, so I can’t tell what the hell he’s talking about, but he does talk quite a bit about numbers. I had some thoughts on some of his comments about numbers, namely the implication that the 3,000 hit and 300 win clubs are a dying breed and that it makes it harder to decide who is hall worthy. I've deleted portions for brevity.

Impact, not numbers, should define a player's HOF status

And I'd add that there are important numbers -- wins, hits -- that seem to be sliding the other way, gradually farther from the view of today's player. Biggio's achievement, that is, may well stand taller as the years go by. Three thousand hits and 300 victories aren't merely difficult to attain; they're becoming endangered species as statistics.

27 hitters have amassed 3,000 hits in major league baseball history. Barry Bonds, at 2,898 is next up to take a run at 3,000, but he clearly has to play next year. Of active players, I’d say the following hitters with at least 1,000 hits have what I would call a “decent” shot at 3,000 hits (name, hit total, age – as June 29):

Barry Bonds, 2,898, 42
Derek Jeter, 2,255, 33
Alex Rodriguez, 2,163, 31
Vladimir Guerrero, 1,878, 31
Edgar Renteria, 1,867, 31
Miguel Tejada, 1,671, 31
Andruw Jones, 1,613, 30
Ichiro Suzuki, 1,469, 33
Albert Pujols, 1,244, 27

With Ichiro, age is a concern, but given that he looks like he’ll get around 200 hits in his sleep a few more years, he’ll get there if he plays until 42 or so. He appears to be in good enough physical shape, although those infield hits will go down. But these guys aren’t locks, just guys who appear to be on a path to maybe do it.

Now I would put the over/under on active players (other than Biggio) who will total 3,000 hits or more at 4 or 5. A guess, obviously, but considering those 9 players above, and the young guys who could put together a run (Reyes, Utley, Miguel Cabrera, etc.), I think that's pretty reasonable. 27 players have 3,000 hits in baseball history. You see where I’m going. Having about 5 more active players in that 3,000 club basically would tell me that there is no slowdown in this category. Let’s look at how many hitters hit the 3,000 hit mark, by decade:

1 = Pre 1900
0 = 1900-1910
2 = 1911-1919
3 = 1920’s
0 = 1930’s
1 = 1940’s
1 = 1950’s
0 = 1970’s
1 = 1980’s
7 = 1990’s
4 = 2000’s

That’s 11 of the 27 people in history hitting the plateau since 1990, so what would lead anyone to suggest that the 3,000 hit will be reached less than it has been, historically? How can you say it's an "endangered species?" Unlike 300 wins, which will be less frequently attained due to the 5 man rotation.

Increasingly, I think, that's going to be the rub. For lots of reasons, including their staggering salaries and the wealth of opportunity beyond baseball that is open to so many of the truly elite, you're going to see fewer Biggios, not more of them.

Honest question; are we really seeing players retire earlier because they’ve made more money? Or is this just guess-work? Wouldn’t the prospect of making another 10 million or so, for a great player, be motivation to hang around, regardless of how many hits or wins they have? Have we seen these guys on the march towards history hanging it up because they’ve made a lot of money? Guys like, say, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Craig Biggio, and Roger Clemens? My guess is that it has zero effect. These guys want the money, and they want to career numbers. That’s been made clear.

You're going to see fewer Greg Madduxes or Tom Glavines, players who just stay and stay and stay. With five-man rotations and a normal season's worth of work, even a great pitcher is going to average maybe 15, 16 wins a year. At that rate, you've got to stick in the bigs for two decades to get to 300. Maddux is in his 22nd year, Glavine his 21st. How many more such players figure to come down the pike?

The 5 man rotation is an obvious point, although it’s not like Maddux, Glavine and Clemens spent much, if any, of their careers in 4 man rotations. Why would the rate of pitchers pitching 2 decades go down? Shouldn’t that be more likely, with 5 man rotations and more teams (more starters being carried on rosters)? Why are we going to see less pitchers who are going to just stay and stay and stay? Are we seeing a lot of pitchers hang it up while they still have fuel in the tank? I'm not.

I wonder if, over time, 200 wins might become accepted as a career benchmark for pitchers -- the benchmark, maybe. You already see stories that celebrate a pitcher's 200th win, and rightfully so: every one of those victories was tough to get. Shoot, Mark Buehrle has 102 wins at age 28, and he's pretty good. Assuming 15 wins a year, he'll be about 35 by the time he gets to 200. Getting to 300 just looks out of the question.

Mark Buehrle is pretty good, but he’s not 300 win good, in any era. Does anyone think Mark Buehrle is a hall of fame pitcher? Maybe there are no pitchers currently in their 20’s that will win 300 games, but on the heels of Clemens and Maddux winning 300 (easily) and Glavine and Randy Johnson making runs at it, why do we think no one else will do it? Less frequent, yes, but it’ll be done again.

Also, 200 wins could be the benchmark for what exactly? The Hall of Fame? Are you ready to put David Wells, Jaime Moyer and Kenny Rogers in the hall? Did those guys pitch in a lot of 4 man rotations? Also, wins are a terrible measure of effectiveness.

If you care so much about win totals in determining Hall of Fame status, and you think 300 game winners will be reduced so much that it will become too tough a mark, why on Earth would you reduce your benchmark number by 100 wins? Why not, say, 275 wins? Or at least 250? Then what do you do with the pitchers from the past who cruised over those marks but are not in the hall? The whole idea and thought process is ridiculous.

And I think that's where the voters will have to go, too. Increasingly, we'll have to subtract some of our old notions from the Hall of Fame rubric. What if, over time, there just aren't any more 300-game winners? After Glavine (297) on the active list, there is Randy Johnson at 284. What if Johnson comes up, I don't know, seven shy? He was still, for years, the most feared and arguably most effective pitcher in baseball. That's worthy of a Hall conversation.

If you’re stupid enough to think that Randy Johnson isn’t hall worthy, right now, even if his arm falls off tomorrow, then you are retarded and shouldn’t have a vote. He’s on the short list of the greatest pitchers of all-time, or at least the last 50 years. That paragraph highlights the insane thinking that many writers use when deciding on their hall votes. “Well, he’s won 5 Cy Youngs, 4 ERA titles, he’s the all-time leader in K’s/inning, and he’s 3rd all time in strike-outs….but he did finish 7 wins short of 300….hmmmm.” Just insane. Wins. The most team dependant pitching stat. Depends on run support, defense, bullpen and luck in addition to pitcher performance.

For those who care: Curt Schilling, age 40, has 213 career victories. The bloody sock may spend more time in Cooperstown, unless voters begin to agree that numbers don't always tell the story.

Numbers DO tell most of the story, the problem is that the number that idiot voters focus on is “wins”. Whatever, yes, lets focus on “impact” because there will be less 300 game winners and (you think) 3,000 hit club members. What we need to focus on are the right numbers, not just blindly focus on career totals and hitting arbitrary milestones in categories like wins and hits.