300 or 500?
B.P.
Bits & Pieces
300 or 500?
By Kim J. Harmon
Which is harder in major league baseball â winning 300 games or hitting 500 home runs?
The question was posed by Eric Casilias on The Mike & Mike Show on ESPN 1050 last week, but I wasnât able to hear the discussion. So I figured I would discuss it here with any baseball fans who might be reading.
300 wins or 500 home runs?
The easy answer, of course, is 300 wins. But most people donât realize how much more difficult it is and will become.
Right now there are 23 players who have hit 500 home runs or more in their career (now that Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees has done it) and 23 players who have won 300 games or more in their career (now that Tom Glavine of the New York Mets has done it).
But there are three active players who are close to their 500th home runs and more than likely to reach that plateau â Jim Thome (489), Manny Ramirez (488) and Gary Sheffield (478). Carlos Delgado of the New York Mets (424) and Mike Piazza of the Oakland Athletics (422) will, in all likelihood, come up short.
On the horizon is 30-year-old Andruw Jones of the Atlanta Braves (363), 31-year-old Vladimir Guerrero of the Los Angeles Angels (354), 27-year-old Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals (274) and 30-year-old Troy Glaus of the Toronto Blue Jays (272) and barring injuries, probably all four will get there.
And, still, you have to keep an eye on 33-year-old Todd Helton of the Colorado Rockies (295), 32-year-old Richie Sexson of the Seattle Mariners (290), 31-year-old Paul Konerko of the Chicago White Sox (268), 31-year-old David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox (249), 31-year-old Miguel Tejada of the Baltimore Orioles (248), 31-year-old Lance Berkman of the Houston Astros (244), 31-year-old Carlos Lee of the Houston Astros (243), 29-year-old Eric Chavez of the Oakland Athletics (227), 31-year-old Derrek Lee of the Chicago Cubs (227) and 27-year-old Adam Dunn of the Cincinnati Reds (226).
Donât be surprised if a couple of those guys make a run at 500.
As for 300 wins, 43-year-old Randy Johnson of the Arizona Diamondbacks â suffering with severe back problems â is the closest with 284 and it is highly unlikely he will win another game, let alone 16 more.
The next active player who even mathematically has a shot at 300 is 31-year-old Tim Hudson of the Atlanta Braves, but he would have to average 17 wins over the next 10 years to do it. Then there is 29-year-old Barry Zito of the San Francisco Giants, who would have to average 19 wins over the next 10 seasons to get to 300 ⦠and the way he is pitching under that new contract, that does not seem likely at all.
Can 29-year-old Roy Oswalt of the Houston Astros (108 wins) get there. No. Can 28-year-old Mark Buehrle of the Chicago White Sox (105 wins) get there? Very unlikely. Can 29-year-old Mark Mulder of the St. Louis Cardinals (103 wins) get there ⦠at almost 20 wins a season for 10 years? Yeah, right.
The only pitchers who have a shot at getting to 300 wins â and probably the last two who will ever get a shot at it â are 26-year-old C.C. Sabathia of the Cleveland Indians, currently with 94 wins, and 28-year-old Johan Santana of the Minnesota Twins, currently with 89 wins.
Santana, as great as he is, is a long shot. He would have to average 17 wins a season until the age of 41.
Sabathia, though, would only have to average around 14 or 15 wins until the age of 40 to get there. But considering he carries 250 pounds on that frame of his, I would guess injuries would derail him along the way.
We will see someone else hit 500 home runs. Maybe several. After Tom Glavine wins his 300th, we may never see another pitcher even come close.
Why? The game has changed dramatically, especially in the way pitchers are used.
The record for innings pitched in a single season is an incredible 680 by Will White of the 1879 Cincinnati Reds (he was 43-31 and started 75 of the 81 games the team played that year). In fact, the next 99 slots in the top 100 single-season innings pitched are all by 19th century players and none fewer than 469 innings (73 players in the history of the major leagues pitched 500 innings or more in a single season).
Granted, pitching was different in that era. With White, pitchers threw sidearmed or underhanded and the object wasnât so much the strikeout, but putting the ball in play. It wasnât until the 1880s that overhanded pitching was allowed and some years later that the strikeout was a prized commodity.
Still, throwing all those innings was pure insanity. But even as late as the 1960s and 1970s, pitchers were tossing better than 300 innings a season. Phil Neikro led the National League in 1979 with 342 innings pitched. In 1985, Bert Blyleven threw 293 innings while splitting time with Cleveland and Minnesota.
No one has gotten close to 300 innings since then and thatâs because no team is using a four-man rotation anymore. Fewer starts means fewer chances to win. And with more and more managers relying on their bullpens, starters that leave in the sixth or seventh innings with a one- or two-run lead are seeing a lot of those leads dissipate and more chances for wins going down the drain.
Remember when 20 wins in a single season wasnât that big a deal? Last year, Santana and Chien-Ming Wang of the New York Yankees led the American League with 19 wins. Six different players â including the best pitcher in his league, Carlos Zambrano of the Chicago Cubs, who would get a $200 million contract if he went out on the open market â were tied for the most wins in the National League with 16.
If there are more than a couple 20-win pitchers in a year from now on, it will be a special year.
So, donât get too excited over Rodriguezâs 500th home run. He certainly wonât be finished smacking âem and others are coming along right behind him.
But be sure to take a moment to appreciate Glavine and his 300th win, because it will likely be the last time we ever see it happen.