300 Wins? Maybe, Maybe Not

Indians Ace Is On Pace For A Run At 300 Wins….Or Is He?

The magical 300 Win plateau has long been the gold standard by which truly great pitchers have been judged. Only 23 men have reached this level in their career.

In recent years, a lot has been made of the question as to whether or not Tom Glavine would be the last pitcher to ever reach this level. In fact, the only active pitcher within breathing distance of this level is Randy Johnson, who, at age 43, has 284 career wins. Some people think guys like Mike Mussina or Jamie Moyer will have a shot at it, which I think is highly unlikely. Others think Pedro Martinez has a shot, but it’s hard to fathom with his recent injuries that his arm can hang on for that long. Still others look to a pair of younger pitchers as the best hope for hitting this level again: Johan Santana and CC Sabathia.

Joe Posnaski would inherently agree that Sabathia stands an excellent chance at making a run at it. Or so he thought, until he looked closer at the history of pitchers to reach 100 wins by their 27th birthday. He writes,

“You may know that Cleveland’s C.C. Sabathia won his 100th game in 2007, and as such became the first pitcher in 16 seasons (and only the third born in the last 50 years) to win 100 major league games before turning 27. It should be mentioned right up front that this is not technically accurate — Sabathia actually won his 100th game a couple of months after he turned 27 (on July 21st).

But baseball stats judge you by how old you are on June 30th — it’s sort of like like how they judge thoroughbred racehorses. Everybody has one birthday. So, Sabathia was 26 on June 30th, according to the numbers he’s considered to be 26 all season.*

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Anyway, we’re getting away from the point, which is still that Sabathia has won a lot of games at a very young age and, as such, it would seem he has a very real shot to win 300 games, maybe even more. That’s certainly what I would have thought. And then I just caught a quick passing mention in Baseball’s Gold Mine that showed, in fact, that brilliant young pitchers are, in fact, VERY UNLIKELY to win 300 games in the big leagues. Maybe it’s a coincidence. But take a look at the last 10 pitchers to have won 100 games by their 26th year.”

He then goes on to list the last 10 pitchers to do this, along with their career totals, and sure enough….not a single one got to 300 wins. In fact, only 5 of them (Frank Tanana, Bert Blyleven, Vida Blue, Catfish Hunter, and Jim Palmer) even got to the 200 win mark. This is an astounding fact. Posnaski goes on in that piece to list all of the pitchers born in the 20th century who have hit 100 wins before age 27 and not a single one has made it to 300. He makes the point that you have to go all the way back to Washington Senators legend Walter Johnson to find a pitcher who was able to sustain to the 300 win mark.

I’d love to know more about the reasons for this phenomenon. The obvious guess is that throwing the amount of innings in your youth required to reach 100 wins so young wears down your arm and doesn’t allow you to have career longevity. But I haven’t really looked into that to verify. That’s simply a guess.

One thing that’s certain, though, and I hate to mention it…..but this has to be another factor for the Indians to consider when trying to negotiate Sabathia’s new deal. It’s hard to fathom the big fella breaking down and not making it to at least 200 wins, especially when you consider just how durable he has been so far in his career, along with the fact that his mechanics are pretty straight forward and he doesn’t put a whole lot of strain on his elbow or shoulder compared to some other pitchers. But lets be honest, history is not on his side. In fact, you could say his odds truly are 50/50 of getting to 200 wins (5 of the last 10 have done it). Is this a gamble the Indians should make? My gut still tells me yes, but what does yours tell you?