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Randy Johnson will be the final 300 game winner
craig44
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in Sports Talk
With Verlander announcing that he will be retiring at the end of the year, I just cannot see a path forward for another pitcher to attain that win total again. the game will have to change significantly before it is even a thought
even Verlander will finish around 30 shy of 300
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
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Thats most likely true. So many of the guys that could have had a shot get hurt, spend to long on a crappy team or both. The crappy teams are probably killing it more than anything. How do you go 10-10 with an ERA under 2 like what happened to Skenes last year
Fire AJ Preller
it's a bit contrived to use one pitcher's unlucky year to explain a league-wide occurrance that is 2 decades old. the win curve (or collapse) is a smooth, one-directional slope and that speaks directly to usage... not team quality... or luck as you would have people believe.
utilization speaks:
6.3 innings per start in 1980 has reduced to 5.1 through 2025.
18 complete games per team in the 80s and 90s is now 1 per team in 2020s.
20 win seasons? these were the path to the 300 win career... most years now have zero, compared with ~10 per year 30 years ago.
pitch limits, 5-6 man rotations, openers, the flip to bullpen and velocity maxing. bad luck and lack of run support are both factors, but they're not moving the needle like utilization does.
In the era of Free Agency, revenue sharing and mega-contracts with no effective cap enforcement, players tend to gravitate to a handful of teams. With those things in place it leaves little encouragement for those select few teams to engage in serious player development via their "farm" systems. In the 1988-1993 time period the Cleveland Indians totally revamped their minor league teams and subsequently built teams that could challenge anyone. A few other teams have followed suit, but it's still easier to buy a team than to build a team.
What did Cleveland do?? First, they built a new Park, Jacobs Field. It had world class amenities for the players. The next thing was the Minor League restructuring. They moved all three teams, A/AA/AAA, near the facility. "A" is in Eastlake which is about 15 minutes away, "AA" is in Akron which is about 45 minutes away and "AAA" is in Columbus which is less than 3 hours away. It allows any player in the system access to the home team facilities and a short drive for a call-up. Add in the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospital systems and health-care/rehab is state of the art.
Compare all that to teams which previously were in Buffalo, South Carolina and Colorado. The biggest problem Cleveland has isn't in developing talent, they do that as well as anyone in MLB, the problem is keeping players past 4-5 years. The general rule is to extend them out after 2 years.
To the OP's point, I think there will still be pitchers that challenge the 300 win mark but it certainly isn't as easy as it used to be. Most things favor the batter and what a pitcher has to do to "win" that battle puts a lot of stress on his arm/shoulder. The strike-zone is so small right now that pinpoint accuracy is required.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety," --- Benjamin Franklin
Unless they change the rule to determine a pitcher 'win'.
The idea that teams dont have an incentive to develop players is insane. Teams call up younger players more than ever and the majority of owners care more about profit.
No team has ever put together a championship through free agency. Not to mention the better the prospect the easier it is to trade for someone. They all have several players that came from this farm system
Fire AJ Preller
I think the fact that would give players an edge in arbitration will keep that from happening
Fire AJ Preller
I accept your bowdown regarding your misinformation.
It would give them all the same bump benefitting from the same rule. The rule would most likely be changed to appease fan perception and add another element back into what was once something that people looked at..
Talk of changing the 'win' criteria isn't anything new. I always thought it was idiotic to give a win to a reliever who blew a lead only for his team to come back and win. Same if a starting pitcher goes four innings, leaves with a lead, and then the next reliever goes one inning and he somehow gets credited the win when the lead is never relinquished.
Were on the same page. I hate the rule and always have. Pitcher can go 4 and 2/3rds even get 2 strikes on the third batter and the reliever throws one pitch and not only does he get the K but the win as well is just stupid.
The reason why I dont think it will change is that the rule changes we have seen are to increase scoring. The owners and league figured the increased revenue from more scoring would off set arbitration cases or surpass the cost. With wins though they have no incentive to change that. I guess you could say more pitchers to promote but they do a bad job promoting them anyways and so many get hurt. All they would really be doing is shooting themselves in the foot for arbitration where they do still take wins into account
Fire AJ Preller
I think the idea that arbitration valutations is using outdated metrics is a poor assumption. I think it's unlikely that there will be a win-rule change as well, but mostly because of inertia and the absence of something that replaces it which isn't just as flawed. I doubt it has much impact on arbitration economics... if any... anymore and if it does, it seems like everyone just knows it doesn't mean much and why are we looking at it if it doesn't mean much.
I bet an official scorer would get it right much more often than they would get it wrong... but it would get gamed on the edges where it might matter for a record or a threshold. Or there would simply be the assumption it was gamed on the edges so it wouldn't matter.