There was a time when a pitcher won 300 games for his Major League Baseball career that it was the pinnacle of the position and it also guaranteed access into Cooperstown for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Throughout the long storied history of MLB there have been 24 pitchers that have reached the 300-win plateau. On June 4, 2009 Randy Johnson became the last pitcher to reach the 300-win mark and he could very well be the last Major League Baseball pitcher to ever achieve the mark.
Last year there were 123 complete games thrown in MLB. For his soon to be Baseball Hall of Fame career, starting pitcher Greg Maddux threw 109 complete games. With 207 career victories New York Yankees starting pitcher CC Sabathia and San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Tim Hudson are the closest active pitchers to the 300-win mark. But at 33-years of age Sabathia is beginning to slow down and his chances of winning 300 games are fading. Sabathia’s last 20-win season came in 2010 and he only won 14 games last season. Hudson is 38-years and the majority of his victories are in the rear-view mirror.
The 300-game winner is also a lost art in baseball due to the fact that pitchers are now being babied. Between Tommy John surgeries, pitch counts, and the monitoring of innings pitched, it has become extremely difficult for pitchers to develop the durability necessary to go out and pitch effectively on a consistent basis. Most 300-game winners had a few 20-win seasons during their careers, but they also had numerous seasons in which they won at least 15 games.
Once upon a time pitchers started a baseball game and they actually finished it. When former MLB pitcher Orlando Hernandez made his debut with the Yankees in 1998, he was shocked when Yankees manager Joe Torre came out to the mound to take him out of the game. Hernandez had previously played baseball in Cuba where there was no such thing as a bullpen. If you started the game you simply finished it. For his 24-year Major League Baseball career, Hall of Fame pitcher Steve Carlton was a four-time National League Cy Young Award winner. During his career, Carlton had six 20-win seasons which was highlighted by him winning 27 games with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1972. Carlton also had 12 seasons in which he won at least 15 games.
Managers and pitching coaches alike have fallen in love with taking starting pitchers out of the baseball game when they are ready to reach the 100-pitch mark. In today’s modern Major League ballparks, the scoreboards will tell you exactly how many pitches a hurler has thrown and when pitchers see that they are near the 100-pitch mark they will begin to look over their shoulder to see who is warming up in the bullpen.
There was a time in baseball when managers used their instincts more than charts, guts instead of watching videos, but those days are gone. During this past Monday night’s victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers, Phillies starting pitcher Cliff Lee was taken out after eight shutout innings where he also struck out 10 batters while only scattering four hits. Lee had thrown 113 pitches and he was rolling, but like many other MLB managers of this current era, Phillies manager Ryne Sandberg is married to the dreaded pitch count. After eight innings Lee was still unhittable and he should have been allowed to finish the game.
During last Wednesday’s 5-2 victory by the New York Mets over the Arizona Diamondbacks, Mets manager Terry Collins pulled starting pitcher Dillon Gee after seven shutout innings. In those seven innings of work Gee had thrown only 72 pitches as the Diamondbacks were unable to figure him out. Instead of Collins relying on his instincts as a manager and allowing Gee to continue pitching, he pulled Gee who was in line to go the distance.
Even when pitchers reach the 200-inning mark for the season, their respective organizations are inclined to worry about monitoring their innings and ultimately shutting them down the remainder of the season. Major League Baseball teams are worried about pitchers developing arm and elbow problems from too many innings pitched, but Baseball Hall of Fame starting pitchers such as Tom Seaver never had serious arm problems because they always threw a ton of innings each season. For his 20-year MLB career, Seaver threw at least 200 innings in a season 16 times and his 4,783 career innings pitched are 19th all-time in Major League Baseball history. Like Seaver, Carlton was a workhorse. For his career, Carlton had two seasons in which he threw more than 300 innings. Carlton’s 5,217.2 innings pitched for his career are good enough for 9th place on MLB’s all-time list for innings pitched.
As far baseball goes we are living in an era where mediocrity is king. Of the current 30 MLB teams, 10 of them qualify for the postseason each season. Like the game as a whole, pitchers are now conditioned that they do not have to throw complete a game and we are also witnessing an era of baseball in which we rarely see a 20-game winner during a single season when once upon a time it was a common thing. Last season Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Max Scherzer was the only pitcher in Major League Baseball to reach the 20-win plateau. Before you know it if a pitcher is able to throw just five innings he will be looked as a Cy Young Award candidate which would be a sad day for baseball.
Source: Baseball-reference.com
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