In today’s MLB, is winning 200 games as good as what winning 300 used to be?
With Justin Verlander reaching the 200 win milestone on Sunday, is it time to consider that mark the same as 300 wins used to be?
Justin Verlander’s win over the Oakland Athletics on Sunday was important not only because it allowed the Houston Astros to retake the AL West lead. It marked a personal milestone for Verlander as well, his 200th career win.
The 200 win club is becoming just as rare as the 300 win milestone was in past generations. Verlander is just the third active pitcher to reach it, joining Bartolo Colon (247) and CC Sabathia (244). It is usually 300 wins that’s considered a benchmark for making the Hall of Fame. But with the way baseball is played in 2018, it begs the question of whether anyone will ever reach it again.
Colon is 45, Sabathia 38. Neither seems likely to win nearly 60 more games in their careers. The 35-year-old Verlander would need to average close to 20 wins a season into his 40s to reach 300. Randy Johnson is the last player to win 300, back in 2009. In the last 25 years only four pitchers have accomplished it: Johnson, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens. Each of them pitched well into their 40s.
In today’s game, with starters pitching fewer innings than ever and an increasingly reliance on bullpens, 200 wins is a milestone to be celebrated just like 300 used to. Even Verlander understands that the mark is more significant now.
“We don’t know the way the game’s changing where 200 wins historically stands anymore,” he said after Sunday’s win. “I think everybody understands it’s a little more special than it was 20, 30, 40 years ago, but still, it’s something I’ve taken a lot of pride in, which is just pitching, even through injuries, or whatever.”
Pitchers younger than Verlander face a long road even to reach 200. Just three active hurlers under the age of 30 have 100 wins: Rick Porcello, Madison Bumgarner and Chris Sale. Bumgarner was on a similar trajectory as the pitchers in the 300 club, having more wins by the age of 25 than any of them. Injuries, however, have held him to just eight wins the past two seasons combined.
The 32-year-old Felix Hernandez had more wins at the age of 30 than all but three members of the 300 club, but he has struggled the past two years and was recently demoted to the bullpen. Clayton Kershaw, 30, won his 150th on Sunday and may be the best candidate. If he can stay healthy, that is. Kershaw still needs to average 15 wins a year for the next 10 seasons, by which time he will be 40.
It’s time to recognize that the way teams use pitchers has changed so much that 300 wins is now simply out of reach. Thirty years ago, 24 teams averaged more than six innings a game from their starting pitcher; this year, that number is down to two. Complete games are a thing of the past. Verlander has just 24 in his career. Gaylord Perry, who won his 300th game in 1982, had five seasons with more complete games than Verlander has in his entire career.
With pitchers going shorter into games than they ever have, it’s now the job of bullpens to close out games. Teams have already used 753 different pitchers this season, just two off the record set last season. In 1988 no team had more than 343 relief appearances; so far this season, every team has more than 360. The analytics that every team now employs show pitchers fare worse the more times through the batting order they go, so this trend isn’t going to change any time soon.
The days of the 300 game winner are likely over. It is now 200 game winners like Verlander whose achievement deserves to be celebrated, just like 300 used to. That is all today’s generation of pitchers can hope for.