Someone needs to tell this joker that no one will ever win 300 games again.

My enthusiasm for Hallday is in a bitter conflict with my hatred for the Phillies. The Mets sucking badly makes it easier for me to cheer for Halladay every few starts though, and I hope he gets to 300, even though it seems really, really unlikely.

Halladay’s 188 wins through his age-34 season would rank him ninth among the 13 at that age.

This information is useless, without the appropriate context. In the liveball-era 41 players had 188+ wins through their age 34 season. Of those, I think only Halladay is active. So basically, 8 out of 40 made it to 300, and all of them were starting from a position of at least Halladay's equal, many of them significantly better.

You can't just look at the guys who made it. You have to look at the failures too.

This information is useless, without the appropriate context.

I think you're missing the point. He's not saying that Halladay will make it, so much as that ironclad predictions that he won't are foolish. In which case, that piece of information is perfectly useful, and in fact somewhat telling.

I'd be pretty surprised if Halladay makes it to 300. He'd had to win 19 a year and play until he's 40 to do so. That's not impossible obviously, but it doesn't leave much room for even minor injuries or bad luck, let alone any significant missed time.

Why do people make 40 years old the deadline when extrapolating for 300 wins? Since 1925 only two pitchers reached 300 wins before their 40th birthdays: Steve Carlton and Greg Maddux. It is difficult to maintain an 18 wins/year pace for six years in your late 30s, but I can see Halladay pitching well into his 40s. I can see him getting 14 wins a year for the next 8 years and getting to 300 by 42. Of course, I agree that if he misses significant time like in 2004 or 2005 his likelihood of getting to 300 will fall dramatically.

Of course, we all know the next 300 game winner will be the 53 year old Jamie Moyer in 2016.

I'd be pretty surprised if Halladay makes it to 300. He'd had to win 19 a year and play until he's 40 to do so. That's not impossible obviously, but it doesn't leave much room for even minor injuries or bad luck, let alone any significant missed time.

He's got no wiggle room to take an 8 win season resulting from a non-pitching injury, or a pair of 13 win seasons due to an offense collapsing around him. But if he stays mostly healthy and effective, he can get to 300 by pitching a few years past 40.

The most recent 300 game winners all did so.

Johnson 45
Glavine 42
Clemens 44
Maddux 42
Carlton 43
Ryan 46
Sutton 43
Niekro 48
Perry 44
Seaver 41

Only Carlton and Maddux reached 300 before their age 40 seasons.

edit: coke to #6.

I think you're missing the point. He's not saying that Halladay will make it, so much as that ironclad predictions that he won't are foolish.

Aaaaand the statistic he cited is perfectly incapable of showing you that. There are a handful of players who made it to 300 from a worse starting position than Halladay. So what? That doesn't tell you anything. Is the chance of him making it 30%? 10%? 0.1%? You can't tell that without looking at the failure rate. And without knowing it, you can't call any prediction foolish*.

*Unless Ray is the one who makes it

Why do people make 40 years old the deadline when extrapolating for 300 wins? Since 1925 only two pitchers reached 300 wins before their 40th birthdays: Steve Carlton and Greg Maddux...I can see him getting 14 wins a year for the next 8 years and getting to 300 by 42

Not a deadline, just a convenient place to stop (and since 1925, only 10 or so pitchers reached 300 wins after their 40th birthday, it's a small number of people we're talking about). Obviously, you can divide 112 wins by as many seasons as you want. But speaking of Maddux, he won 115 games between his age 35 season and retiring after his 42 season, while making at least 33 starts evey year. That would get Halladay to 303. He really doesn't have any room to spare.

But if he stays mostly healthy and effective, he can get to 300 by pitching a few years past 40.
The most recent 300 game winners all did so.

Johnson 45
Glavine 42
Clemens 44
Maddux 42
Carlton 43
Ryan 46
Sutton 43
Niekro 48
Perry 44
Seaver 41

And maybe he retires at 39 while somewhat short 300 wins but still generally healthy and reasonably effective, like Mike Mussina. Maybe his old shoulder injury starts bothering him again and he's done at age 37. Who knows. Getting to 300 wins is hard. It requires great ability, durability, injury luck, bullpen luck, run suppot, etc. It's hard enough to win 300 that Roy Halladay, a very good pitcher, would have to have excellent seasons every year from now until an age when many baseball players retire to do it. Because of this, I think it's very unlikely that Halladay gets to 300. Do you disagree?

Naturally it is unlikely for any individual pitcher to get to 300 until they are getting really close (ie: 275+ so they are within 2 seasons).

Halladay has the raw talent, fitness, determination and low pitch count talent that could keep him around a long time. If he wants to I could see him being one of the few to make it to age 45 which would put him up to the mid-300 range. However, like many have said one injury screws up any projection. A year ago many felt Ichiro was a lock for 3000 hits and we were dreaming 'what if' with him vs Rose (OK, not many were but it was a fun fantasy). Now he might not make 2700 if he has another year as bad or worse than last year as who wants a corner OF who has an OPS+ in the low 80's?

Mussina was the exception - it is very, very rare for a player to quit after a good season. Most try to be like Rickey Henderson or Steve Carlton, playing until they force him off the field and even then trying to get back on. Is Halladay that type? Impossible to know until the day comes.

A pro-Mussina HoF comment: I think Moose will be helped by his decision to walk away at 270 wins while still (arguably) an ace.

It will give him a "hook" or story that others won't have with the old-timey writers of the world.

It will give him a "hook" or story that others won't have with the old-timey writers of the world.

I bet other old-timey writers never thought of him as an ace and that he hung on too long just to get his first 20-win season.

Chance for 300 wins from the Bill James Handbook 2012

.49 Halladay
.48 Sabathia
.31 Verlander
.24 Lee C
.19 Haren
.11 Hernandez F
.07 Shields
.05 Hudson
.05 Weaver
.04 Vazquez
.04 Carpenter
.03 Santana E
.03 Buehrle
.02 Burnett

and 12 others with a slight established chance.

Someone needs to tell this joker that no one will ever win 300 games again.

Exactly.

Yea, how dare he suggest that a guy that not sitting on 290 will win 300. Doesn't he know that if you are under 200 wins, you like have to win more than 100 games and 300 never comes?

Analysis of "can they win 300" should not aim for age 40; it might better ask "is he on pace to get to 260 by age 38", or some similar ##s.

I'd be pretty surprised if Halladay makes it to 300. He'd had to win 19 a year and play until he's 40 to do so. That's not impossible obviously, but it doesn't leave much room for even minor injuries or bad luck, let alone any significant missed time.

Everyone that won 300 did just that, won a bunch of games while aging, stayed mostly healthy and had luck.

If Halladay did this, then nobody would be surprised. In fact, he is exactly the kind of guy that wins 300.

Chance for 300 wins from the Bill James Handbook 2012

.49 Halladay
.48 Sabathia
.31 Verlander
.24 Lee C
.19 Haren
.11 Hernandez F
.07 Shields
.05 Hudson
.05 Weaver
.04 Vazquez
.04 Carpenter
.03 Santana E
.03 Buehrle
.02 Burnett

and 12 others with a slight established chance.

What are these numbers? Is CC 48% or .48 of 1%? Both seem unreasonable. For example, I'd bet on Buehrle at two, one-hundredths of one percent...if Vegas gave me those odds. I bet on all of them.

Everyone that won 300 did just that, won a bunch of games while aging, stayed mostly healthy and had luck. If Halladay did this, then nobody would be surprised. In fact, he is exactly the kind of guy that wins 300.

Yes, and out of all the pitchers in history, only twenty-four guys managed to do that.

Of course, if Halladay does everything that makes someone win 300 games then he will win 300 games. But that's not very helpful. Since age 40 makes people go crazy, someone else calculated that Halladay has to win 14 games/year through his age 42 season. Do you really think it's obvious that Halladay will do that? If so, what is so different between him and, say, Mussina, or Schilling, or Kevin Brown, or even Andy Pettitte (who had 186 wins through his age 34 season and retired at 38 while still generally effective).

A pro-Mussina HoF comment: I think Moose will be helped by his decision to walk away at 270 wins while still (arguably) an ace.

Really? You don't think playing another 2-3 years and getting 300 would have cemented his case in the eyes of the milestone-fetish voters?

Chance for 300 wins from the Bill James Handbook 2012

.49 Halladay
.48 Sabathia

For those that don't think 300 is ever going to happen again, I doubt you need to go any further down the list of active pitchers than this. I think it's at least even odds that one of these two will do it. They're both big power pitchers, and those are the kinds of guys that seem to have the best shot at lasting into their 40's (Ryan, Clemens, Johnson, etc). I was actually pleasantly surprised that Maddux and Glavine remained productive as long as they did without being hulking strikeout pitchers.

Aaaaand the statistic he cited is perfectly incapable of showing you that. There are a handful of players who made it to 300 from a worse starting position than Halladay. So what? That doesn't tell you anything. Is the chance of him making it 30%? 10%? 0.1%? You can't tell that without looking at the failure rate. And without knowing it, you can't call any prediction foolish*.

Still missing the point, but okay, whatever.

Do you really think it's obvious that Halladay will do that?

Nobody thinks it's obvious that Halladay will do that. They think it's possible that Halladay will do that.

I think it's very unlikely that Halladay gets to 300

That is the default position, and rightly so.

The best that can be said is that he is one of the few pitchers of whom it can be said that he has any sort of a shot at it.

If I am reading the leaderboard right:

Some 666 pitchers in the history of baseball have started 200 or more games.
Only 313 (including Halladay and Sabathia have started 300 or more.
Only 123 have started 400 or more.
Only 45 have 500 or more starts.

The air starts to get very thin, very fast.

There are only 24 300 game winners.

Halladay is a long shot. Everyone is a long shot. But Halladay at least is in the conversation as a possible.

That Halladay is even in the conversation pretty much tells you that it's still possible. He had only 49 starts through age 24. Then for ages 27-28, he had only 40 starts. With his potential career 1/3 over, he had only 159 starts -- only Lefty Grove has managed 300 wins in so few starts in the liveball era. A non-flaky, magically healthy Halladay would have over 60 more starts and probably at least 30 more wins.

So, yes, Halladay needs to be "lucky" over the next 8 years to make it but that's in part only because he's been "unlucky" to this point. Sabathia is the flipside of that in that the fewest starts he's made in a season is 28. Through age 30 he has nearly the same number of starts as Halladay through age 34. Sabathia doesn't need to be particularly lucky going forward -- another 25 starts per year through age 40 will put him at the near-magical number of 600 starts. If he's not to 300 wins by then, he would be close. Not that 250 starts over 10 years is particularly easy (see #22) but it's certainly doable.

Errr ... too late to edit ... I meant that if you tripled Halladays starts through age 28 he'd have about as many as Grove had. Grove was good but even he didn't win 300 in just 159 starts.

Another tidbit: Sabathia's 355 starts are the most for any pitcher through age 30 since (at least) 1975, 23 more than Greg Maddux (and Jon Garland in 3rd!!). In fact, unless I missed somebody, he hs more starts through age 30 than any 300-game winner of the liveball era (Sutton had 353).

Of course that kinda makes his win total less impressive but still it's hard to say he has no shot at getting enough starts.

Note, the only guy ahead of him on the list that aged well was Blyleven. In fact of the guys between him and Maddux I think the only one who aged well was Sutton.

Now back to Garland. Same number of starts through age 30 as Palmer (who debuted at 19 compared to Garland's 20). More than Kaat, Seaver, Gooden, Clemens, John, etc. Not the Cubs best trade really. :-)

Some 666 pitchers in the history of baseball have started 200 or more games.

Starting with Rick Hell-ing, Lew "Cifer" Burdette, and Jeff Damn-ico.

Chance for 300 wins from the Bill James Handbook 2012

.49 Halladay
.48 Sabathia

James baffles me some times. For a guy as knowledgeable as he is his predictions regularly seem off. I remember rereading some of the Abstracts five to ten years after their publication and he often missed on who he thought was going to be good. His annual projections are the butt of jokes, and the idea that pitchers as far from 300 as those two are are 50-50 bets to make it is silly.

A pro-Mussina HoF comment: I think Moose will be helped by his decision to walk away at 270 wins while still (arguably) an ace.

It will give him a "hook" or story that others won't have with the old-timey writers of the world.

I agree, to an extent. He'll have a much better shot than if he petered out at 270, but Mussina still has an unobvious case for voters who aren't paying attention. If the comparison is against real Mussina, at 270 wins, and peters out Mussina, at 287, you're probably right.

It will give him a "hook" or story that others won't have with the old-timey writers of the world.

I bet other old-timey writers never thought of him as an ace and that he hung on too long just to get his first 20-win season.

I'm not seeing the "too long" aspect. Getting to 20 wins at the end makes him look stronger, not weaker.

I believe Mussina will make it into the Hall right around his 10th year on the ballot. He has an excellent case that's straightforward to make, albeit with slightly more advanced stats than voters are used to dealing with. Still,

270 winz, 33rd all time
Cy Young finishes: 2nd, 4th, 4th, 5th, 5th, 5th, 6th, 6th, 6th
.638 career winning percentage
74.8 pitching WAR, 24th all time
7 Gold Gloves
123 ERA+, good for T86th all time, and probably 70th or so among starters, perhaps 55-60 among starters in the modern era, which will be a useful point for his advocates to make
3526 IP, 66th all-time

That's actually a tougher case to make than I thought it would be since Mussina's the equivalent of a position player like Beltran who'd very good at everything but lacks a standout skill and doesn't have a milestone. Also, despite being good in the postseason, he actually has a losing record. Winnerz win, eh? His case will depend a lot on persuading initially skeptical voters that greatness can be born out of sustained very goodness. So to speak. I don't have the time to look at the moment, but it would help his case if he turned in the best season on his team a half-dozen or more times.

Okay--Mussina was the best starter on these teams:

1992, 1994, 1995, 1996 (not an impressive season), 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2006 (close, maybe 2nd to Wang), 2008.

That's 11 or 12 out of 18 seasons, including his rookie season. Not bad at all, and consistent with what you'd expect, I think, from a Hall of Famer. And Mussina pitched on some halfway decent rotations a couple of those years.

Mussina's career record is something like 120 games over 500. How many pitchers have records like that and are not in the HoF? I don't think many.

Mussina's career record is something like 120 games over 500. How many pitchers have records like that and are not in the HoF? I don't think many.

Among eligibles, I think just one. Parisian Bob Caruthers was 218-99. Musssina is at +117, that puts him in the top 20 alltime:

Player g>.500 W L
Cy Young 195 511 316
Al Spalding 187 252 65
C. Mathewson 185 373 188
Roger Clemens 170 354 184
Pete Alexander 165 373 208
Lefty Grove 159 300 141
Kid Nichols 153 361 208
John Clarkson 150 328 178
Walter Johnson 138 417 279
Randy Johnson 137 303 166
Eddie Plank 132 326 194
Whitey Ford 130 236 106
Greg Maddux 128 355 227
Pedro Martinez 119 219 100
Bob Caruthers 119 218 99
Warren Spahn 118 363 245
Mike Mussina 117 270 153
Tim Keefe 117 342 225
Jim Palmer 116 268 152
Hoss Radbourn 115 309 194

I remember comparing Mussina to Jim Palmer as early as the mid 90s. Funny how they finished with pretty much the same record.

Never Mind.

Analysis of "can they win 300" should not aim for age 40; it might better ask "is he on pace to get to 260 by age 38", or some similar ##s.

Wins from Age 39 and beyond, starting at least 75% of the games, integration era only.

                                                   
Rk               Player   W From   To   Age   G  GS
1           Phil Niekro 140 1978 1987 39-48 344 336
2           Jamie Moyer 116 2002 2010 39-47 281 275
3          Warren Spahn  96 1960 1965 39-44 219 189
4         Charlie Hough  85 1987 1994 39-46 249 247
5            Nolan Ryan  83 1986 1993 39-46 226 226
6         Randy Johnson  79 2003 2009 39-45 182 177
7         Roger Clemens  74 2002 2007 39-44 164 163
8           David Wells  73 2002 2007 39-44 165 164
9         Gaylord Perry  68 1978 1983 39-44 188 186
10           Tommy John  65 1982 1989 39-46 217 198
11         Kenny Rogers  61 2004 2008 39-43 140 139
12           Don Sutton  58 1984 1988 39-43 152 151
13        Tim Wakefield  56 2006 2011 39-44 170 147
14           Early Wynn  51 1959 1963 39-43 137 119
15          Greg Maddux  50 2005 2008 39-42 136 136
16           Joe Niekro  44 1984 1988 39-43 130 126
17          Tom Glavine  43 2005 2008 39-42 112 112
18        Rick Reuschel  39 1988 1991 39-42  87  82
19       Connie Marrero  39 1950 1954 39-43 118  94
20           Tom Seaver  38 1984 1986 39-41  97  94
21          John Smoltz  36 2006 2009 39-42  88  87
22    Orlando Hernandez  29 2005 2007 39-41  80  75
23        Steve Carlton  29 1984 1988 39-43 117 103
24         Danny Darwin  26 1995 1998 39-42 118  89
25       Orel Hershiser  25 1998 2000 39-41  76  72
Rk               Player   W From   To   Age   G  GS
26       Curt Schilling  24 2006 2007 39-40  55  55
27           Sal Maglie  24 1956 1958 39-41  72  59
28          Jerry Reuss  22 1988 1990 39-41  66  56
29         Mike Mussina  20 2008 2008 39-39  34  34
30       Woody Williams  20 2006 2007 39-40  58  55
31       Fergie Jenkins  20 1982 1983 39-40  67  63
32   Fritz Ostermueller  20 1947 1948 39-40  49  46
33        Bert Blyleven  16 1990 1992 39-41  48  47
34          Kevin Brown  14 2004 2005 39-40  35  35
35           Luis Tiant  12 1980 1982 39-41  40  39
36         Chuck Finley  11 2002 2002 39-39  32  32
37          Jack Morris  10 1994 1994 39-39  23  23
38        Spud Chandler   9 1947 1947 39-39  17  16
39            Al Leiter   7 2005 2005 39-39  33  26
40         Frank Tanana   7 1993 1993 39-39  32  32
41        Robin Roberts   5 1966 1966 39-39  24  21
42            Hal Brown   3 1964 1964 39-39  27  21
43          Red Ruffing   3 1947 1947 42-42   9   9
44           Geoff Zahn   2 1985 1985 39-39   7   7
45           David Cone   1 2003 2003 40-40   5   4
46           Jim Bouton   1 1978 1978 39-39   5   5
47      Scott Sanderson   0 1996 1996 39-39   5   4

James baffles me some times. For a guy as knowledgeable as he is his predictions regularly seem off.

Yeah, I've noticed that too. All of his career predictions seem to expect a productive, gradual decline. I remember the likes of Juan Gone, Bagwell, Canseco, Belle, Delgado, and McGriff were all given greater than 90% chances at one point or another in their careers to reach 500 homers. McGwire was given like a 99% chance at 600. But gradual declines don't always happen, obviously. I think the odds that a veteran player will get injured or just get old and fall off a cliff have always got to be greater than 10%.

http://everything2.com/title/Bill+James'+Favorite+Toy has a summary of what the 'favorite toy' said after the 2002 season.
Odds of breaking HR record (756)...
Bonds 48, Sosa 45, A-Rod 42, Griffey Jr 6, Vlad 6, Pujols 2
A very basic way (not the most accurate but reasonable) to see the odds of it happening is to add the figures together. That gives you 149% which suggests at least one would break it (Bonds did) and another might (A-Rod an Pujols both have shots).

300 wins...
Greg Maddux 97 (at 273 wins - 97 is the max although the author lists it at 100), Tom Glavine 42, Pedro Martinez 24, Barry Zito 15, Mark Mulder 11, Mike Mussina 6, Tim Hudson 3
Total is 198% which suggests 2 300 game winners would come out of that group and that is dead on.

I remember checking the Toy years ago against the Lahman database and, iirc, it was within eyeshot (if you do the adding) of calling how many would get to a certain goal. Not bad for a very simple tool.

[Mussina] 123 ERA+, good for T86th all time, and probably 70th or so among starters, perhaps 55-60 among starters in the modern era

Defining starters as starting in at least 50% of their games, then he is tied for 66th all time.

Not sure what you're defining as the "modern" era. If you mean since 1893, he is 61st. Since 1901, he is 57th. Since 1920, he is 45th. Since 1947, 30th.

(These are all with a minimum of 1000 IP.)

Of course, we all know the next 300 game winner will be the 53 year old Jamie Moyer in 2016.

Then we can finally get down to business and start taking bets on when he passes Cy Young.

I hope I live to see the award renamed the Jamie Moyer Award.

Since the start of the liveball era in 1920, 300th victories have been consistently spaced out, with clusters sometimes forming for each grouping

I'm sure someone's done this here before, but what the hey. 300-winners by birthdate. It's hard to say what factors are involved other than the sort of random grouping that TFA describes. Even WW2 isn't much of a factor, unless there were some great pitchers killed or wounded before ever getting a chance to pitch. Wynn and Spahn, both veterans, are the only 300ers born between Grove in 1900 and Perry in 1938. Bob Feller might have had a good chance at 300 if he hadn't been in the war. Bob Lemon, just maybe: but he was a third baseman when the war started, so baseball rather than war set him back. Others from that era, like Allie Reynolds and Hal Newhouser, played during the war and still didn't come very close.

But I don't know why there were no 300-winners born between 1947 and 1962. I wonder if anybody does. If Halladay does make it, the gap would be 11 years after Glavine and Maddux (Halladay was born in 1977). That would be no particular big deal at all.

Someone needs to tell this joker that no one will ever win 300 games again.

You don't know the half of it, bub. Soon no one will win 200 games ever again, then 100, then fifty...soon, no one will ever win a baseball game again!

You don't know the half of it, bub. Soon no one will win 200 games ever again, then 100, then fifty...soon, no one will ever win a baseball game again!

It'll be a league filled with nothing but Astros.

.soon, no one will ever win a baseball game again!

The optimist in me thinks that means that sometime in the future they will get rid of the silly win stat.

I'm sure someone's done this here before, but what the hey. 300-winners by birthdate.

Heck, even if you go backwards the 300 game winners were pretty evenly spaced.



And as for your musing on the lengthy gaps between birth years, here are the pitchers born between Grove and Perry that won between 200 and 299 games, ordered by career wins. (Year of birth is in parentheses)



The war appears to have played a role in keeping some pitchers from 300 (Feller, maybe Ruffing and Lyons), but many of those were unaffected. Many of them pitched during the offense-heavy 1930s and late 1950s/early 1960s, and my hypothesis is that pitching under those circumstances probably put too much strain or something on their arms, and many of them broke down as a result. Something like that.

Similarly, here are the pitching leaders for those born between Ryan and Clemens:



This gap is a bit more mystifying. Most of these pitchers got their start in the 1970s, and all but Vida Blue pitched into the 1990s. The 1970s weren't exactly the late 1960s, but I wouldn't consider them offense-heavy. Furthermore, nobody got even close. Only two pitchers got even 50 wins from 300: Bert and everybody's favorite Black Jack.